With the arrival of the Internet, the common man got the power to publish—anything—for free—for the first time in history. Then PDF brought replicas of printed documents to the screen with clarity, accuracy and security. Flash brought the power of animated vector graphics and a powerful programming tool to the web browser. Then the eBook brought reflowable, resizable text and inspired new reading devices—perfect for displaying long, paginated documents. But somewhere along the way, an important promise was broken. All of these technologies empowered the Internet’s unprecedented freedom to publish—except for the eBook.

Ebooks and the Promise of the Internet

EBooks violate the fundamental promise of the Internet. Anyone can publish a website. Anyone can offer content for free or sell whatever they want from a  website. Small commissions to payment processors and web hosting costs notwithstanding, the Internet empowers a seller to engage directly with a buyer. Ebooks break this promise; the writer should be able to engage directly with the reader. The writer should be able to sell directly to the reader. Imagine if you had to pay your web hosting company 30% of your gross every time you sold an item on your website—that’s exactly what eBookstores do. By separating the eBook from its proper home—the web browser—big media companies grow fat. This article explores the relationships between the web browser, PDF, Flash and eBooks—and how those relationships affect you.

A Book by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

The business premise of the eBook perpetuates the illusion that an eBook is a book—and not a piece of software. It may walk like a book and it may quack like a book, but it’s a digital file made from zeroes and ones; eBooks are software—software that can and should be sold or licensed like any other piece of software. The fact that paper books have traditionally been sold in bookstores does not mean that an “online bookstore” is the only legitimate place to sell eBooks. In fact, an online bookstore is no different than any other e-commerce company that displays and sells the products in its database. Downloading and installing book software should be no different than downloading and installing any other software. To be accurate, publishers can produce and distribute their own ePub eBook files but these still rely on dedicated eReader software or hardware. But you’re reading this article in a web browser. Why should reading a book require a special device, application, or intermediary service?

Ebooks and the Software Land Grab

Apple’s iPhone OS became hugely popular—popular enough to rock the web when Flash was officially excluded from that platform. Flash was important because it was the first technology to bring full software functionality to the web browser. Annoying animated banner ads only scratch the surface of what’s possible with Flash. Adobe’s technology allows developers to deliver any experience short of scratch-and-sniff directly to the web browser. Critics of the “no flash” policy claim that by blocking Flash, Apple ensures that “rich” web experiences and sophisticated functionality can only be acquired by purchasing them in a proprietary app store. They argue that Apple wants to prevent developers from creating an in-browser equivalent of their iTunes software—or an engaging web-based eReader that could be superior to their own iBooks application. Apps are powerful and alluring—but their glitter obscures the fact that their glow was once viewable on the free Internet via Flash.

So the web browser became a second-rate viewing platform. Rich media content became available only to those willing to buy proprietary hardware and shop in proprietary app stores.

As mobile computing exploded in popularity, the eBook industry developed its own eReader devices and (in the case of Amazon) eBook formats. With Flash out of the picture and the web browser not up to the task, the business opportunity was clear. The irony is that file formats like Amazon’s .mobi and KF8 formats, and the ePub eBook standard are simple wrappers for bundles of HTML files (the same files your browser reads to display web content) with a few additions to manage the table of contents and book metadata. EBooks are actually simplified websites—and an ePub file is a simple zip archive.

The Rise of Ebooks

EBooks had two requirements that neither PDF nor HTML could meet—reflowable, resizable text, and portability. PDF was perfect for fixed layouts (a capability which is ironically bragged about as one of the great new features of ePub3) but PDF does not support reflowable text. Nobody wants to read long, scrolling pages in the web browser, and though Flash has powerful text parsing and formatting capabilities that would have made it a great candidate for eReader development, it was knocked out of the running. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and other media companies naturally saw a window of opportunity to sell eBooks through proprietary bookstores—and readers lined up to buy their viewing devices. It’s true that eBooks can be viewed on desktop computers, but readers of eBooks also demand portability. This second requirement makes tablets, phones, and eReaders ideal platforms for consuming books—and this is precisely where the exclusion of Flash and the limitations of the web browser made eBooks a popular, separate medium.

The Web Browser Comes of Age

The alternative to Flash suggested by Apple for rich media web development is HTML5, a collection of developing standards that includes CSS3, jQuery, HTML, Javascript and other technologies. (If this is all technobabble to you, don’t worry; you can leave the coding to the web developers.) By setting the capabilities of the web browser back five years, Apple may have created a lucrative business opportunity—but in doing so, they catalyzed a huge effort on the part of Adobe and the Open Source development community to enhance web standards.

Though HTML5 still can’t do a tenth of what Flash can do, the humble web browser has made tremendous strides. Adobe introduced new tools that export rich media content to HTML5. Services like Google Swiffy convert Flash Files to HTML5. HTML5 will likely never be as fast as Flash (Flash files are precompiled into low-level code whereas the various high-level scripting and markup languages used in HTML5 must be downloaded and compiled by the web browser) but the capabilities of the web browser have grown by leaps and bounds. Animation, enhanced image rendering, SVG vector graphics and a host of other visual improvements complement new CSS3 text handling capabilities that include support for multiple columns and automatic hyphenation. Though HTML5 is not ready to replace Flash, it is ready to offer a better reading experience and to empower writers and publishers to produce and distribute their work without middlemen and without the limitations and inconsistencies of today’s ePub-based eBooks. The capability to render paginated, reflowable, resizable text in a desktop or mobile web browser is available today. HTML5 flipbook engines like Turn.js and browser-based eBook rendering platforms like Monocle and TreeSaver are only the beginning of the restoration of the promise of the Internet as it pertains to eBooks. It’s time for the eBook to return home.

A book by Booki.sh based on the Monocle.js eBook Framework

Traditional EBook Development has Stalled

Meanwhile, eReader devices have lagged behind. Traditional book typographers cringe when they see their work rendered on an eReader device; a book is so much more than a container for text data. For all the promises offered by the new ePub3 standard, the only one kept with any consistency is fixed layout—the cornerstone of the PDF format long before eBooks ever hit the scene. And this is not a fault of the ePub3 standard; the lag is caused by unwillingness or inability on the part of eReader manufacturers to support the standard. Some devices allow web fonts; others strip them out. None of them do anything sophisticated with typography; only Apple iBooks even approaches offering an aesthetically pleasing reading experience. Also missing or inconsistently supported are rich media additions like video, audio, photo galleries, embedded content (like Google maps), and interactive components (either Flash or HTML5). Of course, if you want “enhanced” iBooks, you can use Apple’s iBooks Author software to export to Apple’s proprietary iBooks format (so much for the insistence on standards-based technologies that Apple used to justify the exclusion of Flash).

The ePub3 format promises to deliver a “website in a book” experience, but booksellers and eReader device makers have stalled. With millions of eReaders sold, sellers may be hesitant to offer new products that make their old ones obsolete. Also, the publishing industry is hugely invested in converting millions of titles to ePub2. The creation of an aesthetically pleasing ePub3 eBook requires much more conscious design effort; the costs to convert a large publisher’s book catalog to ePub3 (or a pure web format) could be staggering—and the anticipated returns might not add up on a spreadsheet—especially while eBooks are selling in their current form.

EBooks: The “Book in a Website” Concept

Browser technology—including mobile browser technology—has advanced; it now makes more sense to reverse the “website in a book” philosophy of ePub3 to focus on making a “book in a website.” The original requirements of portability and reflowable text are no longer obstacles for browser-based content. Tablets and phones and even eReaders are equipped with web browsers and wireless Internet capability. And tablets have already overtaken dedicated eReaders as the most popular devices for reading books. Let the fun begin. A book made available as a website has numerous advantages over traditional eBooks:

• Aesthetics: web typography is unconstrained in comparison with eReader typography. Web fonts, hyphenation, properly executed drop-caps (rather than the automatically generated kind that sits in a rectangular box inserted into the text), fancy paragraph formatting, and other typographic features are only limited by what CSS and javascript can do. While big publishers are banking on their investment in ePub2’s limited display capabilities, your book can look much better.
• Searchabilty: a web book can expose every page in a book for indexing by search engines. That beats a bookstore title/author search by a light year.
• Rich Media: videos, photo galleries and other elements can be integrated directly into book pages or evoked by links in the text that reveal them on-demand without cluttering the reading experience. Though Flash content will not be viewable on Apple iOS devices, the publisher can choose any media formats that suit the viewing capabilities of their book’s audience. Aesthetic freedom and technological power translate into unbridled creativity for writers and publishers.
• Updatability: If you find an error in your book or wish to add a photograph, make your changes as you would on any other website. All your readers will be instantly updated. Also, as technology grows, you can enhance your book to leverage new capabilities.
• Offline Reading: A web book is a simple collection of HTML files. Offer a zipped archive for users to download and read locally. Web-based components (YouTube videos, for example) will not load when a user is offline, but the text and page formatting can be viewed and enjoyed regardless.
• Co-hosted Media: Traditional eBooks are closed packages that are (and should be) limited in size. By adding in media co-hosted on services like YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Google Maps, etc., an eBook can reference gigabytes of added content without bloating the book’s file size. (ePub3 does support web-based content but this capability is inconsistently supported by eReader devices).
• Integration into a traditional website: Once your book is online, why not add an “about the author” page, a blog, a discussion forum, a mailing list, or any other content that helps promote, explain, or build community around your work? A “book reviews” page seems like a natural choice. An eBook can be a site unto itself or a section of a larger presentation.
• Bookmarking: The web browser already has a wonderful bookmarking feature. Book chapters are web pages; bookmark as often as you wish.
• Commerce: Sell your work by offering file downloads, putting the book (or most of it) behind a pay wall, or by allowing readers to read freely and pay if they like it (as they would in a physical bookstore). Pay small commissions only to your payment processor and keep the rest as profit.

ePub3 eBooks are a fundamentally good idea as, in keeping with the premise of this article, they attempt to offer all the capabilities offered by the web browser, but the Promise of the Internet is not going to be restored by media conglomerates who have a vested interest in proprietary formats and viewing devices. EBooks and publishers will only benefit from using the free Internet as an alternative distribution channel. Small, quality-minded publishers will lead the charge by producing excellent eBooks that leverage all the remarkable features of the web. Your eBook can benefit from simple typographic enhancements that create a more comfortable reading experience, or perhaps it will expand the boundaries of what defines a book? Given the technological limitations of adapting a manuscript to traditional eBook formats, publishers who care about excellence and innovation will soon find only one viable delivery channel—the web.

Why Ebooks Belong in the Web Browser

Few subjects arouse more passion among writers and designers than the debate over how many spaces should follow a period. If you adhere to a style manual, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one that doesn’t specify a single-space. Chicago and MLA specify one—debate ended—but the popular arguments in support of the single-space after a period (arguments I must confess to having perpetuated in previous writings) turn out to be mostly apocryphal. The single-space after a period is a simple style evolution—and it’s a fairly recent one. This leaves traditionalist typesetters like myself in something of a quandary; staunch advocates for the single-space must question whether their “classic” design work is authentic.

This article surveys book typography from the 1700s to the present. The survey is small and the examples come from various publishers in different parts of the world, but the trends revealed are, at least, a catalyst for deeper exploration. As a “core sample,” the images suggest a certain path of typographical evolution.

One Space After a Period: The Mythology

The typewriter came of age during the late 19th century. The mechanism relied on gears that advanced the carriage a single gear tooth each time a key was pressed. This means that a letter i occupied as much paper as a letter w; non-proportional typefaces were developed to close gaps that would be more obvious if a traditional typeface was used. Still, there was no way to nest letters into one another.

Proponents of the single-space argue that digital typefaces have appropriate spacing already built into each letterform. Quality typefaces have extensive kerning tables that govern the default spacing between different combinations of glyphs (this is part of the “you get what you pay for” factor associated with font software; free fonts are usually either stolen or lack the exhaustive work needed to produce elegant kerning without extensive manual adjustment). Adding a double-space goes against the type designer’s intentions as spacing between a period and the following sentence has already been taken into consideration.

The argument for the single-space sounds compelling. The claimed transition from typewriter text to digital typography creates an “easy out” for those who were taught to double-space in the days before computers. But though the supposed history is logical, book designers and printers were using proportional typefaces and wide spaces long before the typewriter entered the scene.

Moreover, the choice of whether or not to use a double-space on a typewriter was always, itself, a matter of style and convention. A period typed on a typewriter will print on the left side of the space and leave plenty of room to the right before the next sentence begins. The non-proportional digital typeface argument is an interesting distraction that ultimately fails to either support or discourage use of the double-space. And the argument that digital typefaces have built-in spacing lends itself to the notion that writers shouldn’t have to type any spaces after a period. Clearly, that’s not the case.

Two Spaces After a Period: A Typographic Tradition

A brief note on terminology: the “double space” (no hyphen) requires two consecutive space characters to be struck on a keyboard. The “double-space” (with a hyphen), or “wide space”  is a single, wide character that’s more properly referred to as an “emspace” like its cousin, the emdash.

The following examples show that traditional typesetters (without typewriters) used the double-space—actually an emspace—as a convention early on. I’ve circled periods in red along with a few other typographical oddities in green. Apparently, a number of typographic elements have been subject to stylistic evolution over the centuries.

figure 1

In Figure 1 (1787), the emspaces are evident in red. Note also (in green) the spaces before the semicolons and the strange space–colon–emdash combination (green, upper right) that are no longer seen in today’s typography.

figure 2

Figure 2 (1840s) shows continued use of emspaces and continued use of the space (green) before the semicolon. (The subject matter is also of interest).

Figure 3

Figure 3 (1855) shows the styles to be unchanged.

Figure 4

Figure 4 (1876) offers no surprises. The wide spaces after periods continue. Clearly this style is no passing fad. When did things change?

Figure 5

Figure 5 (1892) shows the wide space after a period to be alive and well during the Victorian period. Notice the interesting hyphenation (green) of a word which is now compound. (I own a children’s book from 1909 that hyphenates “today” as “to-day.”) The figures reveal subtle style changes that define the correct usage and authentic appearance of their times.

Figure 6

Figure 6 jumps ahead to 1928. Same thing.

Figure 7

Figure 7, a Spanish book cover back from 1959 shows the wide space and an unusual comma after the emdash. As this is a relatively contemporary piece, I don’t know if this punctuation is a mistake, a style convention, or acceptable Spanish language typesetting. The space before the first emdash is also unusual.

Figure 8

Figure 8 (1960) is from a book by the poet, E.E. Cummings. Though the poet was known to take typographical liberties, this looks like straightforward use of the double-space.

Figure 9

And then, in 1961, things begin to change (figure 9). A wider survey will likely reveal the style change taking place over several years and at different times in different places, but I found no examples of single-spaces being used after periods prior to 1960.

Figure 10

Figures 10 and 11 (1963 and 1964 respectively) are notable because the type is featured on graphic design journals of that time, suggesting that the design community had accepted the single-space as a standard.

Could it be that the single-space was adopted by the book industry as a paper-saving measure? Though it existed as early as the mid-19th century, the paperback book turned literature into a mass-market commodity during the 1930s. Publishers developed huge distribution chains that required print runs of tens of thousands of books; type size shrank along with leading (line spacing) and page margins. Mass-deployment by the publishing industry would explain the rapid acceptance of a spacing design that ran contrary to centuries of tradition.

Single-space or double-space After a Period?

The style, since about 1960, has been to use a single-space after a period; it’s fair to say this is the working typographic standard. The adoption of that standard by major style manuals more or less codifies the single-space into law. And if you have any doubt, check your own bookshelf; you’ll be hard-pressed to find text with double-spaces after periods.

Contemporary typographers and readers are accustomed to tighter text. The period and the following capital are considered sufficient to alert the eye that a sentence has ended and a new one is about to begin. Designers tuned to the single-space standard see gaps in the text that disturb the visual flow.

But the double-space is a tradition that abruptly faded not so long ago—certainly within the lifetimes of many of today’s active writers. Though no longer in standard use, the emspace may be a simple sacrifice to industry. Given that context, along with the facts that typewriters and digital typography are largely irrelevant to the discussion, it becomes difficult to argue that the double-space is simply “wrong.” It’s not difficult to imagine that typographers and readers once looked upon those gaps as welcome sentence separators. Designers who wish to produce authentic historicist work should consider using the double-space after a period.

Your typesetter will remove double-spaces from your manuscript; that’s a simple fact. Though writers are encouraged to unlearn the double-space typing habit, they may be heartened to learn that intellectual arguments against the old style are mostly contrived. At worst, the wide space after a period is a victim of fashion.

Addendum

Several readers have suggested that my post-1961 examples are left-justified while all the preceding examples are full-justified—not a fair comparison.

In Figure 12 (1966) above, the space widths vary but they are consistent across each line (except for one emspace after a question mark). In the line marked with a red arrow, I inserted identical pairs of green lines into each space. The spaces, even after adjustment to accommodate full-justification, are clearly shown to be single spaces.

Likely, the “meteorite” that suddenly ended the long rule of the emspace “dinosaurs” was Phototypesetting, a technology that rapidly displaced hot metal type during the 1960s in much the same way that “desktop publishing” took over during the late 1980s. The emspace was not a victim of fashion or industry; technology was the catalyst for rapid change.

How Many Spaces After a Period? Ending the Debate

I recently responded to a question in a writers’ forum from an author who was in the process of designing a cover for her novel set in a swamp in New Orleans. “I chose a ‘swampy’ font that hangs down over the art to make it look like Spanish moss,” she said. For her previous Zombie fiction book, she chose a typeface appropriately named “bullet in the brain.” Though these might seem like obvious choices, their obviousness is precisely what makes them a liability. This article offers a few thoughts on book cover design for genre fiction.

Book Cover Typefaces: You Get What You Pay For

Excellent typefaces often cost hundreds of dollars. Fonts on free font sites are very often either ripped off and renamed or designed by amateurs. Rarely will someone take the time to design a serious typeface and give it away. FontSquirrel and a few others offer some quality typefaces but gimmicky fonts often lack a full set of characters. For example, they may offer only capital letters and might omit dollar signs and other useful glyphs. Like free clip-art that’s available to everybody, free fonts get downloaded and used over and over and over. Paying even a small price for a typeface ensures that 99% of amateurs won’t be using it.

Book Cover Typefaces: What’s in a Name?

Be careful not to be seduced by the name of the typeface. Plenty of “spooky” fonts on free font sites have creepy names but that doesn’t mean the typeface is well-designed or even appropriate. If the font is named “slasher,” how many Horror writers do you think will use it on their homemade covers? Call the same font “Drippy” and writers will ignore it in droves.

Book Cover Typefaces: Lost in Space

Many fonts on free sites have really poor kerning tables—the built-in logic that controls the letter spacing. You can get around this but you have to pay attention. I had an MFA student once who designed a poster about child soldiers. His caption was supposed to read “In war there are two types of casualties.” But because he didn’t pay attention to kerning, his caption read “in war there are two types of casual ties.” Kerning can be manipulated (and almost always should be) but most amateurs take the typeface at “face value.”

Book Cover Typefaces: Letters in Distress

One typographic trend relies on letterforms that come “pre-spattered” or “distressed.” An issue with distressed or “melty” fonts is that if you have two or more letters in the title that are the same—especially consecutive letters—the distress patterns match and the title loses its “organic” appearance.

The identical Ts, Ns, and Rs utterly ruin the effect of the textured type in the “bullet in the brain” example above. If you want spattered brains, get a straw and some India ink; make your own one-of-a-kind spattered letters and then scan them when they’re dry. Probably, the designer of your distressed typeface used a similar technique. How many hours did you work on your book? Why ruin it by taking typographic shortcuts?

Sometimes, it’s better to use a classic, readable typeface instead. With the correct tools, you can melt it or drop another image into it.

The above example was hastily made with Helvetica Neue, a picture of a steak and a Fireworks brush stroke. But though it’s readable and no two letters are identical, it places us squarely back in the realm of predictable solutions. “Frankenstein” fonts and gory textures are a predictable approach, and that’s precisely why an experienced designer will find a different way. If your book looks like the kid’s menu at the Haunted House Restaurant, it will not be noticed by serious readers of your genre.

Book Cover Typefaces: Design Under the Influence

If you absolutely must design your own cover, take some of the hundreds of dollars you’re (dangerously) saving and buy a book of Chip Kidd’s cover designs. Even the best designers work with great influences in front of them. One of my favorites is the cover he did for “Dry” by Augusten Burroughs.

Rest assured that Kidd’s design was not produced with a distressed typeface. The cover design is effective because it shows us a believable image. The cover has storytelling impact because the “wet” text is exactly opposite the “Dry” title. How many designers would have scattered sand on the page or used a photo of a desert or filled the letters with dry, cracked mud? These are precisely the obvious, predictable solutions that would have made the book cover boring.

For the cover of Currents, I placed type only on the spine. The absence of a title provokes people to pick up the book and look for one. Moreover, because this is a self-published book, the primary points of distribution are online bookstores where the title is prominently displayed at the top of the book’s product page. Risky? Maybe—but what will “safe” get you?

Book Cover Typefaces: Kids, Don’t Try this at Home

You might save money by designing your own cover but there’s much at stake. You can get your hands on Photoshop as easily as anyone but without a knowledge of typography and an awareness of trends and clichés, that savings comes at a price. Just as amateur poets often ruin their work by jumping on the obvious rhyme (heartache rhymes with heartbreak), amateur designers often choose easy, intuitive solutions that feel comfortable precisely because they’ve seen them so many times before.

You may be talented and design-aware—and there are plenty of so-called designers whose skills are merely technical, but a writer will rarely achieve professional standards in editing, typesetting, or cover design without professional input. At very least, if you’re committed to going the solo route, hire a designer to critique your work as an editor would critique your text. At best, your choices, taste and talent will be validated. At worst, you’ll learn something new and save yourself from yourself.

See Sewing Your Own Parachute – Advice About Book Covers and Evolution of a Book Cover to learn more about Book Cover Design

Book Cover Typefaces and Cover Design Horror Stories

I recently published a post about the difference between vanity publishing and true self-publishing. Fundamentally, the article defines a publisher as “someone who takes the risk on a book.” Vanity Presses represent themselves as publishers and accept royalties while the author assumes all the risk. True self-publishers pay the up-front costs for design, printing, distribution, etc. but after the sales commissions are paid, they don’t have to share their profits. But several readers wrote in to suggest I’d omitted a third approach—co-publishing. This article explains what co-publishing is and what it isn’t.

Co-Publishing — What it Is NOT

At first, I mistakenly assumed that co-publishing was an arrangement where the author published under the “self-publishing” wing of a major publisher. For example Penguin Books started a Book Country imprint which has been criticized as a vanity press that preys on authors who want to be “affiliated” with the publishing leviathan. But writers don’t have to work very hard to earn pseudo “Published by Penguin” status. Penguin’s parent company, Pearson, purchased Author Solutions which is the umbrella entity under which most of the major vanity presses operate. Penguin risks the dilution of their brand—their respected role as gatekeeper—by admitting anyone who wants to publish through the side door, and authors are unlikely to sell many books by playing the phony “published by Penguin” card, anyway. If Penguin thought your book was a potential blockbuster, they’d sign you directly and send you an advance. But though Penguin’s business tactics are newsworthy, pretending to ride the coattails of a major publisher by vanity publishing through one of their holdings is NOT co-publishing.

Co-Publishing — What it IS

Publishing on any level has risk associated with it; money is spent to bring a manuscript to market with the understanding that profits may not exceed expenditures. Traditional publishers assume all the risk; they pay the writer an advance against royalties and cover all the costs of marketing. Self-publishers cover their own costs. They assume all the risks and take home a much larger share of the profit (if there is any).

But what about a third arrangement where the author and publisher share the risks? For example, a small publisher may not be in a financial position to pay advances against royalties but it may be able to provide editing, design services, and publishing expertise—valuable contributions that writers often lack the skills and experience to handle on their own. Potentially, a co-publishing arrangement is worth a piece of the prospective future pie.

Co-Publishing — What to Look For and What to Run From

Co-publishers of all stripes are popping up everywhere as an alternative to self-publishing or traditional publishing; some are black and stinky with a white stripe down their backs and others are honest and potentially valuable publishing allies. Writers must learn to distinguish vanity presses in disguise from reputable operators. Here are a few things to look for:

Co-Publishing: How Open is the Door?

Traditional publishers use editors and agents as gatekeepers. Small publishers should be more accessible but they should not be ready to pounce on your manuscript without reading a synopsis and sample chapters. A legitimate co-publisher is an investor. Any investor who doesn’t take time to “squeeze the fruit” is either an amateur or a con. If the door is open to anyone who wants to publish, run. Real publishers will not commit to you the same day you contact them.

Co-Publishing: Transparency

Co-publishing is a new business model with many variables. Legitimate co-publishers are forthcoming about where they operate on the spectrum between self-publishing, vanity publishing, and traditional publishing. Because co-publishing is an arrangement of shared risk, the publishing partner should be able to clearly explain the balance between the author’s contribution and their own—and how this affects the royalty split.

Co-Publishing: the Publisher’s Offerings

Bringing a quality self-published book to market is not cheap but neither is it a huge investment. Writers hire designers, editors, and typesetters all the time. A publisher should offer more than a promise to turn your manuscript into a book. Traditional publishers offer brick-and-mortar bookstore distribution; beyond production services, what kind of enhanced marketing and distribution services will your co-publisher provide that you might not be able to access on your own?

If you lack knowledge and experience with publishing, the promise to edit, design, produce, and distribute is a legitimate and valuable offering, but it begs a question: if some expert is willing to invest in your book in exchange for a share of the profits, wouldn’t you you be smarter to invest in it yourself? The answer depends on how much farther the publishing partner can push your book than you can on your own. If the end of the line is online bookstore distribution, you might be better served to self-publish.

Co-Publishing: The Backlist

Traditional publishers rotate books into bookstores for ninety days and then, unless a book is a hit, they rotate in new offerings and drop the old ones into their backlist catalogs. Some authors complain that the marketing chores then fall on their shoulders while the publisher makes the larger share of royalties. Other writers share the publisher’s view that the book is a product that has run its course. Emboldened by whatever prestige their affiliation with a major publishing house my bring, they move on to writing the next book.

But what happens when your co-publisher—likely a smaller and lesser-known firm—decides to focus on newer books and writers? Your book may reach a point where it sells copies here and there on its own but is no longer worth the publisher’s efforts. Consider adding a time limit to your contract or a buy-out option that allows you to recover your rights after the publisher has abdicated active partnership. Obviously, if the publisher has made a substantive investment in your book, they’ll quite reasonably want to be guaranteed some minimum return, but if you want to start a speaking career or find a new market for the work, an escape clause might be what makes your new venture feasible.

Co-Publishing: Investing in Books?

As much as we love them, books are a tough retail product. A $15 POD-published book usually costs around $5 to print and ship. Bookstores usually take 50% of the cover price. That leaves about $2.50 per book to cover editing and design costs—and forget about being paid for all those hours you spent writing and researching. There are ways to reduce seller discounts and offset printing will reduce production costs; some designers and editors charge less than others; but each shortcut comes with a price. Even if you can push the profit to $5 per book, a royalty split will put you back where you started. Given the high costs, thin margins, and low sales expectations for book products, be skeptical of anyone who wants to “invest” in your book unless they have a proven track record. A shrewd publisher—even a small or independent one—may be able to help you tap markets that would otherwise be inaccessible, but reference checks and research are essential. Partners like that are hard to find.

Co-Publishing: What’s The Catch?

A co-publisher will ask you to pay something up-front. This is expected but the fees should not exceed the price of marked-up offshore production services. Also, be wary of co-publishers who ask you to commit to printing a “short run” of several thousand books unless you’re being guaranteed physical bookstore distribution. Knowing what it costs to edit and design a book and get it to market is the only accurate measuring stick against which you can evaluate a co-publisher’s contribution. Ideally, you’ll pay a discounted rate for quality production and benefit from the publisher’s knowledge of the publishing process.

Co-Publishing: Know What You Don’t Know

Self-publishing is not as easy as it’s often made out to be; editing, design, production, distribution, and marketing all require skills that diverge from most writers’ core competencies. Services that offer to “make all those problems go away” offer enticing bait for new writers, but new writers are targeted by charlatans precisely because their lack of experience makes them vulnerable. Before you sign a “publishing” contract with anyone, read up on how publishing works, ask questions in discussion forums, and check out what Predators and Editors has to say. Writing is an art but publishing is a business; learn the ropes or you’ll hang from them. Paying someone to manage the publishing pipeline for you may be a wise investment but only if you know what you’re getting, who you’re getting it from and what it’s worth. Learn the business or you’ll wind up investing in your own ignorance—a classic formula for failure.

Co-publishing—the notion that an author and a publisher can share both risk and return—is an intriguing concept and a potential blessing for writers who want to hand off marketing and distribution challenges to professionals who are better qualified than themselves. It takes years of insight to write a great book and only a moment of oversight to fumble one. The ideal path lies somewhere between “hire a professional if you want professional results” and “if you want a job done right, do it yourself.” Sound advice to writers remains the same: do your homework.

Co-Publishing — Alternative Path or Another Trap for Writers?

Writers and publishers generally talk about selling books, choosing a path for printing and distribution, the importance of professional editing and design, and technical matters pertaining to grammar and style. But what about the path one takes to become a writer? Certainly, we must all learn about semicolons and apostrophes, but that journey is often inspired by an earlier and more profound one. From whence comes the call to translate vivid life experiences and ideas—the sublime, the horrific, the transcendent, the transformational, the imagined—into a form that can be shared? What does it mean to live the writer’s life—as opposed to the publisher’s?

A friend recently suggested I take a look at KatieAndJessieOnABoat.com, a blog created by Katie Smith and Jessie Zevalkink—two young women making a long journey on a small boat. After turning a fixer-upper sailboat into a humble home, they made their way from the Great Lakes down the Mississippi and its tributaries to the Gulf of Mexico. Destination: across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Their site is a chronicle of their thoughts, adventures, friends and photographs gathered along the way.

Back in the 1980s and 90s, I took off in a small sailboat with an even smaller amount of money to go find my own stories. I had remarkable experiences cruising solo in the Bahamas and crossing the Atlantic to Gibraltar. I had some of the best and worst times of my life on those voyages and today, I look back on my past without an ounce of regret over things I “should have” done.

Those were days before GPS and the Internet, before digital cameras, before Facebook and Flickr. I took photos (remember 35mm film?) and even created my own tongue-in-cheek edition of “Captain Dave’s Nautical News,” but recording and sharing my adventures was much more difficult then than it is today. Nevertheless, I had some inkling, even as a young man, that I would one day wish to write about my journeys. With that in mind, I took a few more chances and explored a few more blind alleys. “What can I do today that will be worth writing about?”

Before those voyages, back in the late 70s, my high school friend Gene Flipse introduced me to boating and Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Today, Gene runs Conscious Breath Adventures—one-week excursions to the Dominican Republic’s Silver Bank to swim with migrating humpback whales. His weekly cruise reports offer astounding views and descriptions of whales in the wild.

Katie and Jessie and Gene offer an important reminder for those of us who spend countless hours marketing our prose. The writer’s life—or at least a critical part of it—is not about publishing. The writer’s life is about stepping off the sidewalk, paying attention to details, and placing a certain amount of faith in the premise that because you survived all the days preceding this one, you’ll likely survive whatever you encounter today. Why not go for it? The writer’s life is about living a life worth writing about—even if you never set pen to paper.

Two decades after my sailing voyages, I’m still tapping away at the keyboard polishing up my old stories. But a few months ago, I decided I’d been away from the water too long and I bought myself a fifteen-foot open sailboat. It feels good to be out there having aquatic adventures again—even if they don’t span months and thousands of miles.

Your adventures may be different—not smaller, but different: parenting, adopting a stray animal, losing your job, starting a career, getting lost in an unfamiliar town, having a vivid dream, getting married, getting divorced, going blind, inventing something important that nobody will pay attention to—but these experiences are the stuff from which great literature is made. Publishing is a great adventure in itself and a noble endeavor, but of all its dangers and pitfalls, perhaps the greatest is the possibility that the demands of turning our books into products might distract us from the far more important process of having experiences and turning them into stories.

As the old saying goes, “you’re either talking about it or you’re doing it.” As your story transitions from experience to manuscript to book, don’t forget to live the writer’s life. There is none better.

Are You Living the Writer’s Life?

I’ve learned a great deal, shared a lot of information, and met some some clever folks on LinkedIn writers’ forums, but no matter what topic is being discussed, some clown always posts a link to his latest book. Really? Are you kidding? Though I’ve written on this topic before, here are some thoughts on forum etiquette.

Forum Etiquette: Don’t Change the Subject

Changing the topic of a discussion to suit your own commercial agenda is spam—bad form. Topic changing is also called “hijacking” the discussion. Some group moderators will (quite rightly) ban you for it.

Forum Etiquette: Sell Books to Readers

Though you might feel like you’re among sympathetic colleagues, every single participant in writers’ forum discussions either has her own books to sell or is in the process of creating one. If everyone posted links to their books, any possibility for productive discussion would die altogether. Selling books in a writers’ group is like trying to sell boxed lunches at a chefs’ convention. Ask questions. Offer answers. Support or challenge the contributions of other participants, but don’t hawk your books in discussion forums—sell books to readers, not to writers!

Forum Etiquette: Respect the Topic Starter

The topic starter has taken time to formulate a question or may even have spent hours researching and writing an article to share. Posting a link to your book is a slap in her face and to all who participate in the conversation. Your book link says, “forget about the topic. Look at me.” This simple act of selfishness brands you immediately as an amateur.

Forum Etiquette: It’s Not About You

Marketing—including independent bookselling—is all about building relationships. If you wish to sell books, join discussion groups in places where your prospective readers hang out. Write articles, start your own discussion topics, invite others to participate, and then demonstrate your relationship-worthiness by unselfishly answering questions, offering advice, sharing information, and thanking people who respond. Group members will visit your profile page where it’s quite appropriate to include links to your books. If you wish to build relationships with anyone, listen and share, but don’t go on and on about yourself; the first date will be the last.

Forum Etiquette: “The Heavies” are Watching

Writing and publishing forums are unique in that most everyone in them has accomplished the extraordinary feat of writing and publishing at least one book. Though your colleagues may let you slide without commenting, consider whether you want to publicly steal the spotlight in front of a group of capable, literate, and informed intellectuals and artists—most of whom have resisted the urge to self-promote in deference to commonsense principles of forum etiquette.

Forum Etiquette: Use Private Messaging

In general, discussion forums are no place to sell your wares or services. Though LinkedIn is ideal for business networking, focus on making connections, not sales. If you feel a particular group member may benefit from what you have to offer, send a short private message inviting him to contact you if he thinks you can be of service. Private messaging also provides an excellent vehicle for one-on-one conversations inspired by the original topic thread.

The majority of people who post book links aren’t consciously spamming or trying to offend anyone. Informing the world about your new book is the most natural thing in the world to do. Who wouldn’t want to share such an accomplishment? But self-publishers are better-served to use writers’ forums to make contacts and gather information. Share what you know and learn what you can in discussions with fellow writers; then take that information to where your readers are. The conversation—and your book sales—will be better for it.

Selling Your Book in Discussion Forums? Don’t!

I just read a great article by editor David Kudler on Joel Friedlander’s (excellent) self-publishing blog, The Book Designer. If you’ve hesitated to send your book to an editor, get over it. Editors are essential to producing great books. You need one.

Read David’s article here.

Myths and Truths About Book Editing

I was struck by an article on PublishingPerspectives.com that described a new movie, The Great Book Robbery by Amsterdam-based Israeli director, Benny Brunner.

According to the film’s website:

70,000 Palestinian books were systematically “collected” by the newly born state of Israel during the 1948 war. The story of the “collected” books is at the heart of our film.

The drive to “collect” the books came from the management and librarians of Israel’s National Library – a leading cultural institution of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel – where all the valuable books ended up. Another forty thousand (40,000) Palestinian books were “collected” in Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and other places.

What if the political winds blew away the books in your private library? What roles do books, poets, and intellectuals play in political conflict? Of what use are warehoused books to either side? Is it of real strategic value to control the cultural archives of an occupied people? At what point should these books be made accessible to Palestinian libraries—or returned to the families of their owners? Certainly, the film alludes to just how powerful a book can be.

The complete film (with commentary from a political organization) can be viewed online:

P.S. I will not be hosting debate here about Middle East politics. Those with political, rather than book-centric perspectives are encouraged to watch the film and then share their opinions on the numerous forums that exist for that purpose.

The Great Book Robbery: the Fate of Palestine’s Private Libraries

What is true self-publishing? What is the difference between self-publishing and “vanity publishing” or “subsidy publishing?” How do these differ from “traditional publishing?” Don’t publish until you understand these terms; that knowledge can make or break your book. Learn about publishing paths and pitfalls before stacking the odds and balance sheets against yourself.

Traditional publishers—the folks who invented the publishing game—are book investors; they purchase manuscripts and rights, pay advances and royalties, and assume risk in exchange for hoped-for profits. Their model provides a good working definition; a “publisher” is a person who takes a risk on a book.

Who’s taking the risk? Who pockets the profits? Who owns the ISBN (International Standard Book Number)? These questions shed light on potentially expensive differences between publishing strategies.

Subsidy Publishing

Also called “vanity presses,” subsidy publishers offer production services like editing and cover design that make them attractive to writers who want “one-stop shopping.” For a fee, you can have your rough manuscript turned into a book and made available through major book distribution channels. Basically, you pay someone to be your publisher (hence the term “subsidy publishing”). The bait and switch happens when your book becomes part of the “publisher’s” catalog. Subsidy publishers assign your book an ISBN number that belongs to them; they become the publisher of record which entitles them to receive an additional royalty whenever a book sells. Charging for editing, design, and production services is perfectly acceptable, but charging an additional publisher’s royalty is unethical unless they’ve taken some risk. Also, the publisher sets the book’s retail price so don’t be surprised if your book is priced higher than you’d like it to be.

Read the small print. Authors are often reassured by language in subsidy publishers’ paperwork that allows them to cancel their contracts at any time, but in most cases, the cover design, typesetting, and ISBN number remain the property of the “publisher.” Even though these assets were paid for by the author, the digital files needed to reproduce the cover and bookblock are not made available. In other words, changing horses means you get to start over from scratch with a word processor file.

If you’re a grandmother who wants to distribute twelve copies of your memoir to family members, subsidy publishing may be a great way to get a finished, “pretty good” book without having to learn about publishing or marketing. If you want to publish, distribute, and offer books for sale, paying someone to be your publisher is like paying someone to take a vacation for you so you can get more work done.

Risk/Profit/ISBN: With subsidy publishing, the author takes the risk and then pays the publisher! This is the exact opposite of how the publishing ecosystem is supposed to work. Vanity presses are the #1 trap for new authors. The only claim they have to being your publisher is based on ownership of the ISBN they slipped into your “publishing” package to “make things easier.”

Traditional Publishing

Traditional publishers are shrewd risk-takers. They buy and sell intellectual property the way market traders buy and sell stocks. Though many of their books flop, they count on longstanding favorites, already-popular authors, celebrity titles, licensing deals with Hollywood and occasional blockbuster hits to offset their losses. As investors, their size empowers them to leverage one of the oldest and most fundamental of business principles—diversify your holdings. A serious publisher pays writers an up-front advance against royalties and then gambles they’ll sell enough copies of a book to make a profit. Consider the costs of maintaining a full-time staff of quality editing, design, typesetting and printing resources. It’s no wonder traditional publishers are extremely picky about which books they’ll take on. It’s only fair that trade publishers take a majority share of the profit when a book sells.

Risk/Profit/ISBN: This is the model for how publishing should work. The publisher takes the risk. The publisher pays the author. The publisher owns the ISBN because they paid for the rights to publish your book.

POD Publishing

Though you’ll often hear the term “POD publishing,” there’s no such thing. POD stands for “Print On Demand,” not “Publish on Demand.” Don’t allow well-meaning advisers to steer you clear of the very miracle that has empowered the self-publishing revolution. POD is simply a printing technology; instead of having to manufacture hundreds or thousands of books at a time, POD allows you to affordably produce single books to order. Without POD, your garage would be filled to the rafters with boxed copies of your book; those days are over. Many vanity presses do rely on POD printers for production, but don’t let this bias you against the technology.

True Self-Publishing

True self-publishers own all their rights and receive 100% of the profit. They own their own ISBN numbers and have access to all the digital files associated with the production of their work. Their imprints are displayed on their books’ spines and title pages.

Self-publishing is difficult. The writer is tasked with finding qualified editing and design resources, handling administrative chores like ISBN and copyright registration, managing the production of the book, choosing print and distribution partners, and marketing the finished product. However, this path offers control over both creative aspects of the work and business strategy. Authors who wish to produce literary art that’s unfettered by the demands of popular genres, and authors who have ready access to niche audiences may find opportunities in smaller-scale publishing that large publishers won’t. Selling a few thousand books represents a disaster to a big publisher while that’s usually enough volume for a small publisher to realize a profit—both from book sales and from speaking and consulting opportunities that come from having “written the book on the subject.”

Risk/Return/ISBN: The conceptual lines blur when the author also happens to be the publisher, but think of the writer as an individual and think of the publisher as a corporation that individual happens to own stock in. Though self-publishers are unlikely to pay themselves an advance, the publisher “accepts the manuscript,”  produces it, markets it, and deducts expenses (printing, shipping, seller commissions, etc.)—just like the big players do. The publisher assumes a higher risk by banking on a catalog that may only contain a single book, but the profits—actually a greater percentage of profits than with traditional publishing—ultimately go to the writer. In true self-publishing, the ISBN number may belong to the author or to the author’s imprint; it certainly does not belong to a third party.

Conclusion

If you want to sell books, don’t sabotage your pricing and profits by using a vanity press. If you don’t want to get involved with production, marketing, distribution, and other aspects of bookselling, shop your book to agents, hire a reputable production service or hire a book coach to guide you through the process. Above all, do everything you can to ensure your book is excellent from cover to cover. When it comes to editing, cover design and typesetting, take the “self” out of self-publishing and work with the best resources you can afford. If you do self-publish, buy your own ISBN numbers and keep track of the digital assets used to produce your books.

There’s no one “right way” to publish. Do your homework before releasing your book. Understand the benefits and liabilities of each approach. When the time comes to evaluate business relationships, ask who’s taking the risk and who’s making the money?

Self-Publishing & Vanity Publishing: Confuse Them and Pay the Price

One question that loops endlessly on writers’ forums is “How can I sell more books?” The question is a natural one, but for many self-publishers, it betrays a certain lack of awareness about the publishing business. Lest I sound holier than thou, let me clarify that my own book sales stats are probably no better than yours. I write, I publish, I make my books available, and I hang on to my day job. This article isn’t about magic marketing techniques or search engine secrets; it’s about making a realistic assessment of your potential to make money as an indie publisher.

Self-Publishing: Business Basics

Smart product developers—and books are products—start by identifying the needs of a customer group. They develop products specifically to meed those needs and they mitigate risk by using surveys and focus groups to estimate how many people will buy their product at what price. How many kayakers will buy a lightweight folding paddle at $500? How many will buy it at $100. What is the cost to manufacture the item in quantity? Can you sell direct or will you have to sell wholesale to a distributor who will double the price and then pass the item to a retailer who will double it again? What will it cost to advertise? Clearly, the product developer needs more than a great product. Market research and business strategy are key elements of success.

Compare this to the business plan of the average indie novelist: “I just finished a new book. How can I get readers to buy it?”

Self-Publishing: Costs

Consider the expenses involved with creating a novel. For the sake of discussion, I’ll make my estimates on the low side. Assuming your computer and word processor and your desk and writing space are paid for by outside interests, how many hours does it take to write and polish a manuscript? Writing time will vary greatly from writer to writer and book to book, but let’s assume it takes 500 hours to produce a finished manuscript. At $10/hour (which is an insult but you can adjust the figure to suit your own calculations), that represents a $5000 investment. Let’s assume $1000 for editing and proofreading and another $1000 for design and typesetting (also low estimates). For Copyright, ISBN numbers, printer setup and proof fees, let’s add in another $300. Toss in $200 for eBook production. On the low end, it costs $7500 to produce a quality book.

It’s no wonder self-publishers often write off the value of their own time and bypass the important contributions of editors and book designers, but that’s not a realistic approach to any business. If you want to “get your book out,” you’re an artist; practical considerations are irrelevant, but if you want to make money in publishing, make a business plan like you would for any other retail product. Calculate how much you’ll need to invest and how much you’ll need to recover to break even.

Self-Publishing: Assessing the Break-Even Point

Your customer will likely purchase your product from a retailer who keeps 50% of the list price as a commission. Let’s assume your book retails for $20. The remaining ten dollars goes to your POD printer/distributor who deducts manufacturing and shipping costs. Assuming you didn’t get scammed by a vanity press that deducts an additional “publisher’s” royalty, you probably make about $5 on each book. In other words, you need to sell 1500 books to break even. EBooks will change the equation somewhat. Assuming your eBook is priced at $3.00 and retailers take 30%, your profit will be roughly $2.00 per book (less your costs). If you offer eBooks only, you have to sell over 3500 copies to break even. Whatever the ratio of eBook sales to paper book sales works out to be, you have to sell a lot of books before you’ll see black ink on your spreadsheet.

Self-Publishing: Pricing

Apple changed the music retailing game forever when it established that a “tune”—whether it’s two minutes of talentless screeching or a virtuosic orchestral performance is a one-dollar commodity. The book business is not quite so price-fixed, but traditional price ceilings govern the market. Unless you’re offering a “coffee table” art book, charge anything over $20 and sales prospects diminish rapidly. Debate over what the “correct” price should be for eBooks is ongoing. Unless you have an established reader base, anything over $5 will stall eBook sales. Some argue that $3 is top tier for indie publishers.

With most retail products, developers consider the cost of bringing a product from concept to the retailer’s shelf, and then set their price to make a profit. In publishing, the retail price is largely predetermined. Opportunities are squeezed between the market price and the costs of development and distribution. Publishers do sell books in sufficient quantities to make their businesses viable, but if you want to get into retail, you’ll find thousands of products that come with less competition and fewer price constraints. Books? Unless you have a solid plan, selling yachts, real estate and luxury cars will bring better returns.

Self-Publishing: Choosing a Target Market

Smart product developers don’t launch a product hoping someone will buy it, and neither do smart publishers. Customers buy products because those products serve a need; publishers work hard to identify and fulfill those needs.

Nonfiction publishers are the most pragmatic. Books about the latest version of Photoshop or how to service your own bicycle provide practical value to clearly identified groups of readers. Need to learn PHP or how to replace your Toyota’s headlight bulb? The practical benefits of a useful book far exceed its purchase price.

Fiction is a far less practical product (though no less valuable). Smart publishers capitalize on popular markets. Books with crime, mystery, vampire, romance, science fiction, old west and other themes appeal to dedicated reader communities. Genre fiction writers study what’s popular and successful with their target audiences. They develop characters and stories that resonate with readers and (hopefully) sell.

Art is essential and potentially worth money, but unless it’s specifically commissioned by a client, it’s rarely developed as a commodity. Artists paint, sculpt and write fiction in garages, basements and home offices all over the world. Some of these people are brilliant at what they do—and many of them dream of selling their work—but they create primarily because they’re artists; they’ll paint, sculpt or write whether they get to share their work or not. If having your book referred to as a “product” smells slightly offensive, you’re probably an artist.

Understanding where you lie on the spectrum between artist and entrepreneur is critical to publishing success. Success for the business investor is measured on a balance sheet. Success for the artist corresponds to personal satisfaction with the finished product. By all means, publish your work and offer it for sale. You can even fantasize about being one of those lucky indie writers who gets “discovered” and has their work go viral—it does happen. But before you go into the publishing business, be realistic about your odds of profitably selling a cheap retail product to an unidentified or general audience without the endorsement of a major publishing house or a celebrity. Publishing art is a noble and important endeavor, but it’s usually a ridiculous business proposition.

Self-Publishing: Distribution Channels

Physical bookstores are facing challenges these days, but they’re generally off-limits to indie publishers anyway. (Bookstores have plenty of good books to choose from without having to sort the shinola out of the enormous pile of self-published offerings). Indie publishers take advantage of easy access to major online bookstores, but these are “passive” channels. “Passive” distribution places your product where it can be found by people searching for it. “Active” distribution places you and your work directly in front of prospective readers.

Do you have a consulting, speaking or contracting business? If so, a book may bring you added credibility that pays off—even if you lose money on your books. Do you have ready access to a community of cyclists, canoeists, javascript programmers or flamenco enthusiasts with whom you can build relationships and promote your books? These active channels are much more accessible to self-publishers who know where their readers gather on the web, but be realistic—you won’t easily sell 1500 books on acoustic guitar forums. If you’ve written a book about sailing, yacht clubs may be happy to have you as a guest speaker but consider whether selling a dozen books at a presentation will make a dent in your original investment—or is even worth your time.

I have one client who travels the world as an inspirational speaker. He has spoken to groups as large as 20,000 people and sold as many as 1000 books at a single keynote address—that’s $20,000 in gross sales at one event. Conversely, his Amazon sales amount to about a dozen books each year. This writer is the perfect candidate for self-publishing; a publishing house would bring him no closer to his audience and would only cost him money. Just as important, he’s not primarily in the bookselling business; his book and video products are ancillary to his primary speaking business. This writer is well-positioned to profit from direct sales, but his circumstances are hardly the norm.

What is your business—really? Are you selling book products or are you selling services? Cutting out bookstores and their 20–55% sales commissions can reduce the number of book sales required to break even by half, but even then, will you be able to move 750 books without investing a huge amount of additional time?

How Trade Publishers Succeed

Trade publishers leverage a network of bookstores and review sources they’ve built up over decades. They operate at a huge scale where they print and warehouse tens of thousands of books at a time at costs per unit that are well below what the average POD publisher pays. As volume shippers, they get huge discounts on moving boxcar loads of product.

A publisher’s catalog can be thought of as a sort of “mutual fund” of books. Perennial, seasonal, and cult favorites deliver a certain level of base profit; the Harry Potter books, The Wizard of Oz, a selection of reissued classics by Dickens and Melville, Dr. Seuss, Disney Princesses, novels by King and Kingsolver, books tied to hit movies—bookstores can be counted on to keep all these in stock. Each may trickle out of stores, but together, they represent a river of books that sell. New authors are cherry-picked from thousands of offerings, hyped and rotated into stores for a 90-day spin. Most end up backlisted—they cost publishers more in returns than they make in earnings—but one blockbuster can turn into Fifty Shades of Profit.

Publish with Realistic Expectations

Publishing a book? Here’s a short list of items to add to your reality checklist:

Define Success. If you’re an artist and you want to share your work, spend what it takes to get your manuscript professionally edited, typeset and cover-designed (there’s nothing more tragic than shoddy art). Release your book into the wild and then go write another. Don’t transform yourself from a first-rate artists into a third-rate marketer. If you want to succeed as a bookseller, develop a business plan before you write your book.

Calculate Your Costs. Professionals know that time is money. Writing and research time are investments as much as editors, designers and printers. Publishers who write off their time but claim success after selling a few hundred books are worshiping false profits.

Know What You’re Selling. Low book revenues may not matter if your book gives you the credibility to sell other more profitable services. If you’re a motivational speaker, a consultant, or a book designer, a few new contracts may more than offset your original book investment.

Know Your Audience. As an artist, you may wish to simply write a book that satisfies you. As a publisher, consider whether your readers like genre fiction, want new technical skills, need to lose weight, or want to appraise their watch collections. Write a book that addresses a need that’s either unmet or that you think should be approached in a new way.

Consider Distribution Channels. With physical bookstores off the table, figure out who your target readers are and make a plan to put your book in front of them. Usually, this outreach requires a combination of Internet forum participation, personal appearances, advertising, blogging, and use of any number of other channels. When direct sales aren’t possible, know who will be selling your book and what size slice of your pie they’ll be taking in return.

Diversify Your Holdings. Trade publishers understand that even excellent books often don’t make it—for any number of reasons. They offer dozens of new books every quarter based on tried-and-true success formulas along with a few by risky new authors. Though it’s difficult for self-publishers to operate on anything approaching that scale, consider writing a few nonfiction books to help offset probable losses from low sales of your novels. You can be both artist and entrepreneur if your business plan adjusts its expectations across a range of offerings. Also, more books means more opportunities to establish a foothold with a reader community. If any one of your books becomes popular, it will catalyze sales of the others.

Plan Your Route. Whether you self-publish or try to get picked up by a major publisher, understand that each route has advantages and liabilities. Trade publishers generally issue polished products through a network of reputable booksellers. They pay advances and if your book succeeds, it can succeed wildly. On the other hand, trade publishers assume a degree of creative control that some creative writers don’t want to give up. If your book doesn’t move, it can disappear forever into the black hole of the publisher’s backlist catalog. Self-publishers retain all their rights and full creative control, but the up-front investment and all ongoing expenses are entirely theirs. Self-publishers do best when they have ready access to a willing audience that a generalist publisher wouldn’t be qualified to communicate with.

Don’t Stop Dreaming. In spite of all the practical advice offered here, the eddies and currents of the literary business world sometimes carry a small book into big waters. Though the odds are slim, indie books occasionally become enormous viral successes. It may be worth it to buy a lottery ticket or two; just don’t spend your grocery money on a longshot.

Whatever You Do, Do it Well. Whether your book is a heartfelt personal memoir or a soulless commercial product, don’t skimp on quality—your book has your name on it forever. Writers who bypass editors, typesetters, and designers only reinforce the stigma that all self-published books are crap. Mediocre writing and design will increase neither your professional credibility nor your chances of success. Trade publishers print books in huge quantities; they save money by using smaller type, tighter leading (line spacing), and narrower margins. Self-publishers can exceed industry design standards for pennies per book, but few do. Whatever happens to your book in the world of commerce, set yourself up to take some small satisfaction in knowing you gave it your best.

Plan your publishing journey with care. Go forward with an understanding of the challenges you’ll face. Publishing is a tough business but it’s a great one for those who don’t run aground on the rocks of unrealistic expectations or get lost in the fog of nebulous business plans. And take heart—it’s better to have published and lost than never to have published at all.

Reality Checklist for Self-Publishers