Karen Hodges Miller is CEO of Open Door Publications, an independent book publishing company founded in 2004. She comes to the book business with more than 25 years of experience as a writer, editor and publisher. She has worked in every area of the writing business from working as a beat reporter for a daily newspaper to owning her own monthly parenting magazine. In the 1990’s she turned her expertise to book editing and as she watched the changing face of the book publishing world, decided to found her own independent publishing company to assist entrepreneurial authors who want to realize their dream of publishing a book.
In the last ten years Open Door Publications has published over 30 books, mostly by first-time authors, on a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction topics. What’s the Deal With Self-Publishing is Karen’s fourth book written to help authors learn how to self-publish. In addition, she has written a three-book series for authors, Write Your Book!, Finish Your Book (with Lorette Pruden, PhD) and Sell Your Book!
Karen’s company also sponsors a yearly Winter Writers’ Weekend designed to let authors meet and learn from experts in the publishing world. The three-day event is held in Lambertville, NJ. Information on the weekend can be found at www.WinterWritersWeekend.com.
You can also find out more about Karen Hodges Miller at a number of sites online including www.OpenDoorPublications.com, on Twitter @Publisher_KHM, as well as on LinkedIn, Pinterest and www.facebook.com/OpenDoorPublications.
If this book has helped you to write your own book, I’d love to know about it. Please email me your story at KHM@OpenDoorPublications.com
What’s the Deal with Self-Publishing?
Copyright 2014 by Karen Hodges Miller
ISBN-13: 978-0-9912501-9-6
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of this information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of information contained herein. For information, contact us at People Tested Books, 123 Broemel Place #815, Pennington, NJ 08534.
The author and publisher specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.
This book makes no financial recommendations to the reader and should not be viewed as a substitute for the need to review this topic with a trusted advisor, resource or expert.
The rise of new technology and new methods of marketing and distributing books in the past decade have changed the publishing world, making it not only possible, but even profitable, for authors to bypass traditional publishing houses and publish their own books. Today more authors are publishing books themselves than are using traditional publishing houses.
But self-publishing is not new. In fact, it has a long and honored tradition. The list of authors who published their own works either consistently, or before being picked up by a traditional publishing house, is long. A few of the authors on this list include Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, William Blake, Jane Austen and Walt Whitman. Author Virginia Woolf founded Hogarth Press with her husband Leonard to publish not only her own works, but those of others authors, most notably works by T.S. Elliott, E. M. Forster and Robert Graves.
While many people point to these classic authors of previous centuries to show the potential for success in self-publishing, there is also a new and growing list of very successful authors who are bypassing traditional publishing models and publishing their own work. Fifty Shades of Grey is now a household name. The first of E.L. James’ three-book series was self-published in June, 2011. The books have now sold over 70 million copies. They have been picked up by a traditional publisher, Vintage, a British house, and are being made into a movie. And while some have criticized her literary style, no one is criticizing her marketing savvy. Her net worth is now estimated at $80 million.
Rachel van Dyken, Chelsea Fine and Alan Sepinwall are just three of a growing list of best-selling authors that you may already be reading without realizing that their books are self-published. Science fiction writer Hugh Howey sold 400,000 e-books before being picked up by Simon & Schuster, printed in paperback and hardback, and had his work optioned by Hollywood. The film rights for the post-apocalyptic thriller have been purchased by “Alien” producer Ridley Scott.
But what impresses the publishing world more is that Howey was able to craft a deal with Simon & Schuster that allowed the publishing company to acquire the print rights but gave Howey the digital, or e-book, rights. He reportedly turned down several seven-figure offers from publishers before reaching the mid-six-figure agreement with Simon & Schuster.
Many first-time authors seem to feel that there are only two possible outcomes in publishing: international bestseller status or failure, and that only a large, well-known publishing house can make the first a reality. The truth is that most books published today, whether by large, traditional publishing house, a small independent press or a self-publisher, won’t become international bestsellers. The average book that is published today sells somewhere between 300 and 500 copies. This list includes everyone from today’s most famous authors, such as J.K. Rowling, Stephen King or James Patterson, to the self-published author who just wants to put out a short treatise on the history of stamp collecting and everyone in between.
Other authors, however, choose to publish their own work without ever going in search of an agent or traditional publishing house. Two of the most common reasons cited for choosing to self-publish are:
There are good and bad points to both of these reasons. Yes, as the author you want to have the final say over the content of your book but also, as the author, you may not be able to look at your book objectively. Additional editing by an objective, professional editor can make to make your work the best it can be. And yes, you can get a book to market in a matter of a few months, rather than the years it often takes with a traditional publisher, but that may also mean that your book is published before you have a marketing campaign in place. I suggest a compromise: don’t rush your book to market as fast as you can, then develop the marketing plan. Take a few months longer to get your book out and have a plan to start marketing it as soon as it is published.
There was never a greater time to become an author. Technology such as print-on-demand, e-books and enhanced books that include video, audio and web links, are changing our concept of the book as well as the way in which we purchase them. Although many people have looked at the recent downsizing and closing of major bookstore chains as the death of reading in general and the bookstore in particularly, nothing could be farther from the truth. Books—both fiction and nonfiction—are a growing market, and book sales are one of the biggest bright spots in the last few years of an overall lackluster economy.
Until the past ten years or so a book was an easy thing to define: words printed on pieces of paper and sandwiched together between two covers of a more robust paper. The printing process was expensive and involved creating original templates that were costly to make and bulky to store. A print run of several thousand was necessary to bring per-book prices down to a reasonable rate so that an author could make a profit. Distribution was primarily through brick-and-mortar storefronts, making it necessary for individual authors to depend on large publishing houses to deliver their books to stores throughout the country.
All that began to change in 1995 with the opening of Amazon.com. Twenty years later this website is often called “the world’s largest online retailer” and has been at the forefront of changing the way the world buys, reads, prints and publishes books.
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