Tag Archives: self publishing

Self pub & BLADE SONG

  By Shiloh Walker | 4 September, 2012 - 8:00 am |
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I’ve had a lot of people asking me things about what/how/why I did things with Blade Song (focusing on the ebook…technically, the print version that’s coming won’t be self published)

So I’m going to just do a quick run down of the basic process I used.

Naturally, the first thing I did was write the book.  Then I had a beta reader read it and see if it sucked it or not and I tried to sell it in traditional markets but nobody was biting.

Sooooo…since I had it and I wanted to get it out there, I decided to self publish it.

This isn’t my first self-published book, not by a long-shot, but it is the first full-length book, it’s the first urban fantasy book I’ve done and it’s really the biggest project I’ve ever taken on.

Edits

The primary editor I worked with is Sara Reinke, although she only takes on projects occasionally.  Sara is an author, but also has editing experience from Samhain.  When I talked to her about this project, I asked her if she’d help me…well, I begged.  She did this out of the kindness of her heart and because I threw myself at her feet over P.F. Changs one day.  If you want to inquire about her rates, you need to contact her.  She doesn’t do these often, but she does occasionally take on projects.  You can reach her via her website. http://sarareinkeauthor.blogspot.com/

I also had a secondary line editor, Lorena Streeter.

The rates she quoted:

Services and rates effective 7/1/12

A basic editorial read, checking for timeline, continuity, consistency, and glaring errors is 75 cents a page.

Simple edit: spelling, punctuation, grammar including sentence structure: $1.75 a page.

Comprehensive edit includes the above, but also includes suggestions for story structure, characterization, plot questions, as well as suggestions for any paragraphs that should be restructured, deleted, moved, and so forth. $2.75 a page.

Word-use read (spelling errors not caught by spellcheck programs, homonym confusion, word usage errors): 50 cents a page.

Contact @ lorenas@cfl.rr.com

I’ll probably have a third for future books.  NY pubbed books usually have numerous editors going over them and I still found things I’d missed even after numerous passes by all of us, so maybe a third line editor will help.

Formatting

Now it’s possible to format on your own.  Nadia Lee has a fantastic book on it.  I used that for several of my books, including the first few Hunters I reissued.  But, it gives me a massive headache and after a while, my eyes start to cross and my deadlines are getting murderous.

I asked Jax Cassidy from Romance Divas for some names on edits and formatting and she passed on several names, including LK Campbell. LK has since saved my life, for very little compensation.

From her site, formatting a book runs roughly:

Normal fees for basic formatting (based on word count) are as follows:
Short Stories Under 10K – $10.00;
Short Stories 10K-20K $15.00
Novella 20K-45K – $20.00
Novel-length 45K-80K $25.00
Novel-length 80K-100K – $30.00
Novel-length 100K-125K – $35.00
For very long novels $35.00 + $5.00 for each 10K over 125K

And she can do it in Kindle, Nook & Smashwords formats.

Covers

There’s very little question of who I have do my covers.  It’s Angela Waters Art.  She’s my go-to person.

Distribution

One question I was asked a lot was how did I get the book up for pre-order.  You can sort of thank Sylvia Day for that.  I’d asked her how she had BARED TO YOU up on Net Galley and she mentioned she’d used INscribe.  I wanted BLADE SONG up on Net Galley.  So I checked on INscribe and I’ll be honest, at first I was leery.  It handles distribution for you and there’s some upfront fees, yes.  Some of the forms made my head spin.  (I don’t do well with forms.)  But it had two undeniable benefits…getting that book on Net Galley for a fraction of what it would cost me to do it on my own.  And making the book available for pre-orders.  They can also get the book available for some of the special deals with Amazon and BN, like the Daily Deals, etc.

And… they can distribute your ebook to libraries.  One of their partners is Overdrive.  They have world wide distribution so your book isn’t just made available to Amazon, BN, etc.  Ebook partners in countries across the globe will be able to order the book, if you choose.

A quick run-down from my contact at INscribe:

INscribe Digital helps…distribute and market effectively. They distribute content to all the biggest retailers, and work with the online merchants to drive sales and suggest promotions.

Promo

Finally, all those years of sending dead roses to bloggers paid off… *Just kidding*

The first thing I did was set up a huge giveaway.  I did a rafflecopter giveaway of 50 PDFs back in June, well before the book was due out.  This suggestion came from Ilona Andrews…I was talking to her back in the spring and she suggested a big giveaway.

I contacted Patricia Briggs–I already knew Patty enjoyed my work, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask to for a cover quote.  She was happy to read it over and so I sent her a copy and hoped for the best.  Carolyn Crane was happy to read it as well and… yay!  Both of them liked the book.

I posted a call on my blog to see if anybody might be interested in hosting me for a blog tour.  Some very awesome people responded, included my die-hard favorite author, Lynn Viehl. I had print galleys printed up on LuLu (I hadn’t yet worked out the print deal for the book) and did giveaways on Goodreads.  Having the book on Net Galley helped a lot.

Several bloggers read it in advance and were talking it up and no, I didn’t bribe or send them roses.  Word of mouth is one of the biggest things you can get for a book, but there’s no magical guarantee any book will get that.  I managed to get a little bit of buzz going on this one, but there’s no rhyme or reason to what works and what doesn’t.

So…the first full-length self pub project doesn’t look to be a total flop.  Yes, I’m going ahead with book 2.  Sara has Night Blade and I’ll have it back in a couple of weeks.

The things that I think helped the most…

it’s the things that help with my traditionally published stuff.

  • Getting it edited.
  • Having it formatted.
  • Having a cool cover.
  • Having promo-the hard part is, I don’t have any of that behind the scenes promo that’s going on…well, behind the scenes, so I was handling it all on my own.
  • Distribution

I out-sourced as much of this as I could this time around.  I already have a great cover lady and having somebody else handle the formatting, the distribution made things go smoother.

Promoting the self-published works is still one giant pain in the tail.

But I loathe and abhor promo anyway.

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More on the Hunters series….

  By Shiloh Walker | 16 April, 2012 - 11:10 am | , ,
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First… pardon the website insanity.  I’m fiddling.

Okay…more on the Hunter books.

 

Again, Hunter’s Rise is the last one.

I had several people ask me if there wasn’t any other way to keep it going.  And more than a few…ah, outright tell me that I just had to do more.

So…here’s the deal.

The sales are dropping.  That’s why the publisher ended it.  I’m going to go ahead and address the questions I’ve been asked on twitter, in email, and several times at RT.

Could I self publish it?

In theory… yes.  But people need to understand that writing is my job.

It’s my paying job… it’s how my bills are paid.  It’s how we buy food.  How I pay for medical bills. How we pay the utilities, etc.  In short…it’s my job… I quit my nursing job to write and if money isn’t coming in steadily from writing, I go back to nursing.

It’s how I provide for my kids.  Generally, my longer length books go to New York and they pay me an advance.  That advance is money that covers bills, food, etc while I’m writing a book.  If I self-publish…that money isn’t there.

Self-publishing the right way is expensive and don’t let anybody tell you different.  I’ve spent hundreds of dollars getting just one story edited.  That’s just one phase of editing.  Books go through several phases.  That was also a shorter story.  Longer stories will cost more and I will never ever publish a book without getting it edited.

Costs included would be:

  • editing for the plot/content, etc
  • copyedting for typos/misspellings/consistency
  • cover art
  • formatting (I’m done doing it myself.  It’s too much)
  • all promo…usually the publisher does some to get in front of the eyes of booksellers and that doesn’t happen with self publishing.  It’s all me.

This can add up to hundreds of dollars and if you want to do it well?  It’s probably going to be a lot more, into the thousands.  If I’m serious about selfpublishing, I had to do it the right way.

All of this with no promise of a return.  One of my selfpublished (and I’m not talking a backlist book or a short story…I’m talking an original book) earned under $500 in one year.

I can’t make that kind of gamble.

All of this expense must be paid before the writer will ever see a red cent. And…all of this is done when I should be working on the stories that I can sell, guaranteed to publishers who have proven to me that they will help me bring in the money that I need to meet my responsibilities.

I’m not trying to sound mercenary.  But just like you, I’m a person…I’m a mom, I’m a wife.  My husband and I each carry out fair share in this house and it’s too big a gamble to take months of time on several books that haven’t been selling all that well anyway.

Writing is a craft and it’s an art…but it’s also a business.

 

Could I take it back to my epubs?

Again, in theory… yes.  But I’m already writing a series for them that’s fairly profitable.  I can only logically work in so much.  I’m thinking about a light RS series that would be novella length with them.  I can’t do three different series for them.  It’s too much.

I also have issues with the fact these are longer books.  I can’t 4 months out of my writing schedule to spend writing on books that just aren’t doing well.

People often think that writing is all about the book, all about the art of creating a story.  That is very much a part of it.

But we also have to look at the business aspect.  The writer who doesn’t do that is often the writer who doesn’t keep writing.  I don’t plan on being on those writers.

All series have to end at some point.  Hunter’s Rise was probably one of the best Hunter books I’ve written in a while, if not the best one.  It had two unique characters.

I also had two stories I really wanted to tell… Nessa’s, and Toronto’s.  If it had to end, maybe this was a good time to let it end.

I wish it didn’t have to come to this point, but with sales slumping off, people and business have to make hard decisions.  The publisher had to make theirs… I’m making mine.

I hope you understand.

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A need to protect? Not so much.

  By shilohwalker | 27 January, 2010 - 12:00 am |
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It’s more a need to educate.

Apparently some people confuse a desire to ‘discuss’ things or a desire for more ‘education’ with a desire to ‘coddle’.  FYI, really, I’m not a coddler.  Ask my kids, and if I’d coddle anybody?  It would be them-love them more than anybody and anything, and I do my best to protect and care for them.  But I know they are sometimes going to trip, they’ll fall, and when I see it happening, I don’t immediately leap to kiss their every bruise.  If they get up on their own, they are fine.  Falling is how people learn.

But another way people learn?

Education.

And if people don’t openly discuss what they know and what they’ve learned?  Harder for those who haven’t had the experiences to get educated.

Before I quit working full time to write, I was a nurse.  One thing nurses are all about is education.  We’re all about education, we’re all about advocacy, and it’s kind of hard for anybody to make educated choices if the info they need to make those educated choices isn’t always easy to find.

Anybody who has ever done a search on “How many books can the self-published author expect to sell?” is going to realize pretty damn quick that info isn’t all that easy to find.

Zoe Winters posted that:

hehe Shiloh! I think one of the big problems is that there doesn’t seem to be a “lot” of really reliable places self-pubbing authors (or those who are thinking about that) can go for information, that’s legit.

And I can’t say she’s wrong.

So I like to offer my opinions, my viewpoints, and some info I dig up on the web… and I’m to be fussed at for ‘protecting’ people?

I’m curious.  When was it a bad thing for people to educate themselves?

It’s not.  It’s never a bad idea for people to see mutltiple sides of ANY scenario. Now if somebody researches AuthorSolutions/Dellarte/AuthorHouse, if they get their facts, get their info, make an informed decison and they still decide that AuthorSolutions/Dellarte/AuthorHouse is the best choice for them?  Hey.  Go for it.

There are other options.  I would think a wise writer would want to research, to know all their options.

And I want to make note… again… I’ve got no problems with self publishing-the kind where the writer might very well front all the money, and all the risks, but also keeps all the profits.  It can be a dicey, risky road and it can be a costly one, deciding on the route, but if a writer wants to it?  That’s their call.  But if they are going to front the money and the risk, then I really think they should keep the profits, too.  That’s kind of the basis behind ‘self publishing.’

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Pay thousands…sell 150 books.

  By shilohwalker | 15 December, 2009 - 12:00 am |
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So while I was link gathering for Sunday’s post on Get the word out, I found this post at Juno Books.

The really good part was this:

If nothing else, self-publishing is a choice a writer needs to make only after seriously considering it and only if they understand the amount of money they commit may never be recovered. Read the SFWA’s Writer Beware article on he subject for a good idea of what should be considered. The truth is that most self-published books sell very few copies. (Author Solutions’ CEO Kevin Weiss stated in a 2009 New York Times articlethe average sales of titles from any of the company’s brands at around 150. One assumes this includes books sold directly to authors. According to a 2004 NYTimes article, 40% of iUniverse’s books are sold directly to authors.)

Wow.

Talk about a DEAL.

It boils down to:

  • Go through the trouble of writing a book.
  • Pay the set up fees for the vanity press or the self publishing press.  (ranging from $99 and up… Dellarte’s basic package starts @ $599)-this is set up only, includes nothing for editing.
  • Pay more $$ to get it edited. (please, please never publish a book without some sort of editorial input-authors in general make lousy editors-at least as far as our own stuff goes)
  • After you do that?  You can hope to sell about 150 books.  It says so, right in the New York Times, from Mr. Kevin Weiss himself, CEO of Author Solutions.

Author Solutions… that is who Harlequin teamed up with for their venture into ‘assisted self publishing’.  Previously named Harlequin Horizons, now named DellArte Press.  So, going by what Mr. Weiss said to the New York Times, writers who go into business with AS/Dellarte, you can expect to pay a lot of money (and with them, you will be pay more-nearly double in some instances, or worse… five times more in other instances, like the $200 for copyright registration-you can do it yourself for $35. It’s a form.  It’s easy.  So why the 5x markup?)

After you pay all that money, Mr. Weiss reports that lovely 150 number.

It’s on the second page of the article, but the whole thing is choice reading.  Make sure you do read it through, because the first page offers some numbers that might sound appealing, but the real meat of the post comes from statements made in reference to who buys the books released by self pubs/vanity pubs.  Most of them are bought by the author, per Eileen Gittens, CEO of BLURB (on the first page of the article).

Pay thousands.  Sell 150 copies.  Wow.  And those 150 copies?  If you went the vanity route or the ‘assisted self pub’ route, you don’t get the keep all the profits.  You split them.  With Author Solutions/Harqequin Horizons/DellArte Press.  Wow.  What a deal.

Now, even though I’ve said this before, I’m saying it again.  I have nothing against self publishers.  True self publishers.  You know, the ones where the writer fronts the money but keeps the profits.  Not a problem with them at all… I do think traditional publishing is more lucrative, but it may not be ideal for all.  Self publishing provides another option. Some self-published authors of non-fiction and niche books have sold very, very well.

I do have a problem with vanity presses though.  I have a problem with the ‘assisted self publishers’.  With them, a writer may very well find themselves paying double what they’d pay with a variety of self publishings.  See my post on self publishing versus ‘assisted self publishing‘. And even after they front all that money?  They split the profits.  Yep, I have a problem with that.

For those who think…well, if you have a problem with them, don’t go that route.  I’m not going to.  But that’s not enough, for me.  I also want to get the information out there for those who are researching the options in publishing-all venues.  Which is why I’m blogging about it.

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An experiment

  By shilohwalker | 12 December, 2009 - 12:00 am |
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So with all the hubbub about self publishing, assisted (cough, cough) self publishing and vanity publishing, I decided to do an experiment.  Granted, I kind of cheated.  This book had already been written and published in a print anthology, but it was with non-exclusive rights, which means if I decide to put it elsewhere, I can.

And so I did.  At smashwords.  here.

Hunter's Choice

Be warned… this is a SHORT story.  But it’s also a cheap price.

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Guest blogger…Jana Oliver on Self Publishing

  By shilohwalker | 11 December, 2009 - 12:00 am |
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Since the internets are still kinda buzzing about the ‘assisted self pub’ hoopla with Author Solutions/Harlequin Horizons/Dellarte Press, I wanted to discuss self publishing a bit more in depth…but being lazy, I didn’t want to do all the resarch myself, so I found a fellow RWA member who has some experience in self publishing.

________________________________________

Jana Oliver began her career by self-publishing her first three books. After two of those were finalists for national awards, she signed with Dragon Moon, a small Canadian press. Her Time Rovers Series went on to win twelve awards, including the Prism and the Daphne du Maurier. Jana is now writing a Y.A. Urban fantasy series for St. Martin’s Press. Her first book in the Demon Trappers Series will debut in Sept. 2010.

What is the difference between self-publishing and a vanity/subsidy press?

In its purest form, self-publishing is when an author forms a publishing company and handles all aspects of the book’s production. The author/publisher foots all the expenses, but receives 100% of the profits and retains all subsidiary rights.

In vanity/subsidy publishing (also referred to as joint or co-op publishing) the author pays a print service provider to produce the book. The book’s ISBN is registered to the press who produces it, which means the author is not the publisher. The press usually offers other services at additional cost, such as editing, distribution and marketing options. Depending on the contract the press may retain some or all of the rights for a set period of time. The author receives a “royalty” for each book sold. Often the press sets the sales price, which can be substantially higher than other books in the same genre.

They sound similar in many ways. The author still ends up paying to have the book produced.

They are similar, and there’s been further of blurring of the lines over the past few years. The primary difference is what portion of the profit the author receives and who retains the rights. Some subsidy publishers do not take the author’s rights, while others hold them as long as seven years. The other difference is the overall cost of production. In my experience it can be a little less expensive to go it on your own rather than working with a subsidy press as these presses do not make their money off the number of books sold, but rather from their overpriced services.

Can you give us an example?

Sure – iUniverse and AuthorHouse charge $170 for copyright registration. DellArte charges $204. You can register your copyright online for $35 at the U.S. Copyright Office. That’s a big markup for what is a very quick task. Bookstores are leery of POD (print-on-demand) books if they’re not returnable. Many refuse to stock them. To allow bookstore returns (which are pulped) subsidy publishers charge anywhere from $699 to $839 per year. So you lose not only those returned books, but are charged for the privilege of having them pulped.

So what are the benefits of self-publishing?

What most authors find appealing is the ability to control the quality of the final product and the speed at which the book will be in print as compared to “traditional” publishing. The author is free to present the story exactly as he or she envisions it, without editorial “interference”. Self-publishing, done correctly, can help an author build “platform”. And, as mentioned above, the author receives all the profits.
But there have to be some downsides…

Most definitely. Whether you self-pub or use a subsidy press, the author is footing the bill for every cost related to that book’s production which can easily run into thousands of dollars. When you self-pub, there is no one else to blame if the book is riddled with typos or the cover art is hideous. The freedom to tell the story in your own way can be a major negative. Every book needs help from a professional editor. To avoid that step since “no one knows my book like I do” means your work is probably not going to be that fabulous of a read. On the vanity/subsidy side, you can pay to have the book edited, but you are relying on the company’s word that their editorial staff is qualified to do a good job. If you contract the editing yourself, you can check references and choose the best editor for your project. It is extremely difficult to get your books into the chain stores. They only have so much square footage and they’re rather stock a John Grisham than Mr. or Ms. Unknown Author.

What about the stigma of being self-published? Does that work against you?

Big time. Though over the past few years New York editors have begun to pay attention to self-published works, lest there’s a sleeper hit amongst the dross, the general consensus is 99% of DIY is bad. Unedited, poorly written, barely readable. The remaining one percent are the hidden gems, but the bad stuff tars the good. It is assumed that an author self-pubs because they couldn’t sell their work to a “real” press. That’s not always the case, but DIY authors have a steeper hill to climb. Getting trade reviews is very difficult if the reviewer can tell you’ve been pubbed by a vanity/subsidy press (and believe me, they can tell). And to make it even more difficult, most of the professional writers’ organizations do not accept self-published books as qualifications for membership. Many contests are closed to self-pubbed authors, denying them the ability to receive needed recognition. When you sign with a traditional press, that stigma is gone, but if you go it alone that’s one heavy monkey on your back even if your book is the next Harry Potter.

So does it make sense to self-publish at all?

Yes and no. It makes sense if you are publishing non-fiction or niche books. It makes sense if you’re a published author whose backlist has gone out of print and you want to ensure those books are available to new readers. Self-publishing works if you want to produce short stories for the growing number of e-book readers, making a bit of cash and channeling new readers to your print books.

Self-publishing doesn’t make sense if you’ve just received another rejection and you’re sure NY has some secret agenda to keep you out. It’s not a good idea if you aren’t willing to shoulder all of the marketing and publicity responsibilities, aren’t able to haggle with distributors to ensure your books are available. It’s so not a good idea if you honestly believe you’re going to be an instant bestseller, because you’re not.

And to be clear — just because you or a subsidy press list your book in a thousand online bookstores does not mean you’ll sell a single copy. That’s just the brutal truth. There is too much competition for the readers’ dollar, especially right now. Some subsidy-published authors are sure their publishers are screwing them out of their royalties, because their books have to be selling, right? Wrong. Most DIY books sell only one hundred copies. I’ve heard that you’re considered a bestseller in the DIY world if you sell 500. Now that’s truly depressing.

What are your thoughts about the virtual explosion of DIY authors in the last couple of years?

There are some negatives to this trend. First of all, the majority of these authors will never recoup their investment, though each of these folks likes to believe they’ll be the exception. If they go the vanity/subsidy route and aren’t careful who they work with they can be scammed out of thousands of dollars and either receive substandard books or none at all.

The glut of new authors has created a different sort of issue for conventions. Back when I self-published (2001-02) there weren’t that many DIY authors doing the “con” circuit so I was able to participate in panel discussions and build my brand at science fiction/fantasy, mystery and romance conventions. Today, with so many new and unseasoned authors roaming around, some of which have no idea of convention protocol, con organizers have been barring the DIY folks from taking part in programming. This means that you might have the world’s greatest book and make an excellent panelist, but you’re not going to get to sit in the front of the room. Not being able to have potential readers hear you speak, get to know you, makes it unbelievably hard to build your career.

If you were starting your career today, would you self-publish?

Unless I was writing non-fiction, I’d not go self-pub in today’s publishing climate. With the changes in convention rules and the glut of self-pubbed titles floating around, it’s difficult to get any traction. If I was starting today I’d find myself a strong and dynamic small press, one with talented editors, and I’d hone my skills until I was ready to move onto NY. Whether I would receive an advance or not, I wouldn’t have to pay to produce a book that’s nearly impossible to sell.

So the bottom line is…

If you’re repeatedly being rejected by agents or editors, rethink your writing. Join a critique group and perfect your craft. Keep submitting and one day you might hit the jackpot and someone else will pay to produce your book. If you just have to see your book in print NOW, do your research. Determine the exact costs involved in either self-publishing or partnering with a vanity/subsidy press. Factor in the hidden expenses, like Amazon’s 55% cut for each book sold, and check any subsidy press’ credentials. Then step back and ask yourself if having that book in print is worth the cost both in terms of time and money. If so, proceed with extreme caution and create the best book you can possibly produce.

Any resources you can recommend for fledgling DIY authors?

Dan Poynter’s The Self-Publishing Manual is a great place to start. There are numerous websites that deal with all aspects of self-publishing, both good and bad. Check out SPAN (Small Publishers Association of North America – www.spannet.org). SPAN has a wealth of information to share and you can interact with folks who’ve built successful self-publishing careers. Keep an eye on Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors’ listings for current scams. They abound. The trick is to make sure you don’t become a victim.

Any last thoughts?

The majority of author success stories have one thing in common – persistence. It is the rare author who becomes a bestseller overnight. The key is to go at this writing business in a slow and steady way, making course corrections as needed. Go luck and stay safe out there.

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Self-publishing vs. "Assisted" Self Publishing/Vanity Press

  By shilohwalker | 9 December, 2009 - 12:00 am |
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Everybody, please bear in mind, I’m no self-publishing expert.  I’m not too educated on it, and that’s fine with me because self publishing looks like a hell of a lot of work.

If you want to self publish, be prepared to do that hell of a lot of work.

Or, you can spent a lot more money for ‘assisted’ self publishing and have to split the profits.  Since you’re fronting a lot of money, and since the majority of ‘assisted’ self pubs/vanity press books don’t tend to sell a lot…well, I’m thinking you’ll be better off if you do the work yourself, if you’re determined to go the self-publishing route.

One thing that seems to be in agreement is that in TRUE self publishing, YOU, the author, owns the ISBN. I use ‘agreement’ lightly because vanity publishers will tell you differently, as will likely most ‘assisted’ self-publishers.  But poke around, check out sites like Writer Beware. Do not just go by what you’re told on whatever site you’re visiting.   The ISBN is that long number you see on the back of a paperback.

If you want to sell a book, you need an ISBN.  It’s what identifies your book, how booksellers order the book.  If YOU buy the ISBN, YOU own it.  If a vanity press or ‘assisted’ self publisher owns the ISBN?  You’re not self publishing.

One handy site I found while I was poking around the net is http://www.selfpublishing.com.

Now this is NOT an endorsement of their services.  At all. I’ve never used them, I’ve never talked to anybody who has used them.  But there’s some handy info on the site, including… an instant quote for their editorial services.  One thing that was really killing me over the DellArte Press/Harlequin Horizons site was the cost they wanted to charge for their editorial services.  People might not think that $0.035/word is a lot of money, but we’re talking a lot of words.  Category length books are around 55000.  Most mass markets are around 90000+.  So we’re not talking cents here.  We’re talking dollars.  A lot of them.  Into the thousands.

You cannot skip editorial services.  You need them.  You can always hire a freelance editor and that may well be cheaper, but don’t skip the step, not if you’re serious about putting out a successful book, and don’t think having a few friends read it over will suffice.  Unless of course your friends are professional editors…  ;o)

Anyway, here are some numbers.  For a ‘mechanical’ edit…basically looking for typos/wrong words ie:  die instead of did, mange instead of manage, etc, etc.

  • At Self Publishing, Inc… this will run you $0.014 per word.
  • At DellArte, it will run you more than double, at $0.035 per Word

So for a 90,000 (about standard length of the typical mass market-NOT series), you could either pay $1260.00 with Self Publishing, Inc… or you could pay an ‘assisted self publishing’ like DellArte $3150. Disclaimer, I’m not a math whiz. If the figures are wrong, I apologize. But I really do like the instant price quote feature that Self Publishing, Inc uses. Nice and transparent about the costs.

Now a line edit isn’t enough.  You really do need the content edited-is the story cohesive, is it consistent, is the story ‘organized’, etc.  You can get more comprehensive edits from both of the sites I’m looking at today.

  • At Self Publishing, Inc, a book of 90000 words can get the comprehensive edit, which includes the mechanical edit and the more involved edits, for $0.035 a word.  It will run you $3150.  (Oddly enough, that’s how much just a basic line edit will run from DelArte.)
  • At DellArte, that same service will cost you more than double, at $0.077 a word. Total cost? $6930.

So you can see that shopping around some could certainly save some cash.

Another thing that DellArte is pushing is their marketing services.  Websites.  Email campaigns.

A website is crucial.  They can set one up for you for $479.  (Hosting will run you $30 a month-check out godaddy… you can get the same for a fraction).

So $479 initial and $360 a year to maintain the site.

Here’s a better idea, in my opinion…you can come here to wordpress.com and get a blog.  You can set up ‘static’ pages, which won’t change like a typical blog does.  See the tabs at the top of my blog?  Static pages.  I believe you can even set up a static page to be the ‘entry’ page to your blog.  Cost?  Zero.  Zilch.  WordPress will track your visitors, where they came from, give you stats.  Definitely a better deal than the $479 + $360/yearly.

What about social media?

Dellarte offers a social media set up package.  It includes:

  • A wordpress blog.
  • A facebook profile
  • A facebook page for your book
  • A myspace page for your book
  • Adding flickr to your social network
  • A FeedBurner account to get your blog posts out across the net
  • Set you up on Shelfari, Goodreads, Librarything
  • Twitter

The cost?  $959.

Here’s the deal… wordpress, facebook, myspace, shelfari, goodreads, librarything and twitter are FREE.  I have them all…well, maybe not librarything, but other than that?  All.  Cost me nothing but time.  And even if you pay somebody to do the set up, you’ll still need to invest the time because these only benefit the people who are actually active on the various platforms.

Basically, this assisted self publishing thing looks to me like a way to get double the money for the same services offered by self publishing companies, prettied up with a lot of spin and flashy talk, with a little more polish added by offering ‘marketing’ services that you can get for free (like blogs) or a heck of a lot cheaper elsewhere.

If you really want to wade into the self publishing world, just do your homework.  Research. Call the companies and see what they have to tell you.

And speaking of calling the companies?  If they tell you such-and-such big name author got their start in self publishing?  That right there should be a warning.  The names commonly tossed out when people are talking self-publishing wonders?  Most of those big names didn’t start in self publishing.

Names like JK Rowling, John Grisham and Christopher Paolini…not self published.  Grisham’s book was picked up by a small traditional press that went out of business and he bought the remaindered quantities and handsold them.  But he didn’t self publish.  JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was published by Bloomsbury Children Books, and then by Scholastic here in the States.  Paolini’s book ERAGON was published by his parents, but they owned a commercial press.  You can argue that one either way.  But there is a far cry from Joe Somebody sending his book to a self publisher and a kid with parents who already in the publishing business, who already knew how it worked.  The above info about Grisham and Paolini was found at Jim C Hine’s blog.  The JK Rowling info came from her website.

So there’s my take on it.

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My response to Mr. Kevin Weiss of Author Solutions

  By shilohwalker | 7 December, 2009 - 10:53 pm |
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So Mr Weiss of Author Solutions (Author Solutions is in with the HQN/HHz/Dellarte Press mess) has a video response to the outcry coming from the writing community.

Here’s my response to his response.

Mr. Weiss, if Author Solutions truly represented SELF PUBLISHING, I’d have less of an issue.  Granted, the deal where they go after the writers who HQN rejects sucks and as long as that continues, it’s going to be a stain on HQN’s reputation in my eyes.  But AS and the deal with Dellarte Press doesn’t strike me as ‘self publishing.  They can call it ‘assisted self publishing’ all they want, but that’s just a pretty little shine.  What I see when I look at their site is a vanity press.  Plain and simple.  One where the writer fronts one huge, whopping chunk of money and even after fronting all that money, the writer still has to split the profits.  That’s not self publishing.

I don’t have a problem with self publishing.  If a writer wants that option, go for it.  Research and if you decide that’s the deal for you, give it a shot.

Just make sure you know your options.

Mr Weiss also seems interested in providing aspiring writers with ‘options’.  Granted, writers won’t find many hard facts when researching AS, so it’s hard to really understand all the options.  After all, when researching options, one does it to make an informed choice and informed choices are hard to make without knowing facts.

I’m not overly impressed with his video response.  Comes off to me as just spin.  Nothing else.  No substance.  I’m also curious about the comment moderation up at Youtube.  Will AS be letting all opinions be seen or just those that don’t disagree?

Writers, I will agree with one thing Mr. Weiss says.  He says research the market.

Yes.  By all means.  And if you’re really serious about self-publishing, make sure you research well.   In my opinion, there are much better, more affordable options out there.  One where you may have to front the money, but you also keep all the profits.   Options that don’t include charging nearly $1000 for a bunch of stuff you can set up for free, in under a couple of hours.  And no, I’m not joking…nearly $1000 to set up a writer on myspace, facebook, wordpress, goodreads, shelfari, etc.  Set up on those doesn’t cost a nickel.  Just some time.  And while I might considerable my time valuable, it sure as hell isn’t worth nearly $1000 for about 2 hours worth of work.  Or less…

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My take on self-pub/Harlequin Horizons/vanity presses, etc

  By shilohwalker | 21 November, 2009 - 12:00 am |
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UTA: As of 11/25 (From what I can tell) Harlequins Horizons is now called ‘DellArte Press’.

For my readers following the 30 Day contest, winners names will be posted in the next day or so.

Most romance writers have probably heard about the deal with Harlequin.  They’ve opened a self-publishing arm, called Harlequin Horizons. ‘DellArte Press’ (we’ll call it HHz here, because it’s easier.)

I don’t like it.

Here’s a few reasons why…

I’m not paying somebody to publish work that I spent weeks/months writing.

  • There is this big mistaken belief out there that only known writers get published.  Wrong. Most writers started out as unknowns.  The ones who aren’t unknown?  They are usually celebs writing bios, politicians writing bios, etc.
  • I did the self-pub thing once, before I started writing with Ellora’s Cave and I will tell you…that book?  Sold less than 100 copies.  It sold less than 30.  Could it have done better if I had marketed it?  Yes.  But if I had spent time marketing that one?  I wouldn’t have written the next one…HER BEST FRIEND’S LOVER ended up at EC and it sold more than 1500 copies the first month it was out.

The shiny exterior is just that…a shiny exterior.

  • The shiny, spiffy looking website does a lot to put stars in the eyes of a writer who might not have done his/her research, but all those stars and shininess doesn’t change the fact that most self-pubbed books don’t sell well.   The figure I heard?  Most sell under 100 copies.  Less than 100 copies.
  • Get past that shiny exterior and break things down… you pay a minimum of $599 just for the very basic set up.  That doesn’t include editing.
  • If you want to get editing…basic edit of the first chapter will run you about $300+.  FYI?  You need the book edited.  Want the whole book edited?  Runs $0.035 cents a word… A category length book is about 50000-60000. That’s several thousand…just to get it edited for grammar/spelling.  And if you’re writing a more traditional length book?  Those are about 90-100k.
  • Most books need more than just a basic grammar/spelling edit.  They need content edits.  If you want the better edit, instead of just the spell-check version?
    $0.042 per Word.

To those who aren’t sure how traditional publishing AND epublishing works?  I don’t pay a red cent to publish my books.  I pay for promo stuff, like websites, contests.  But editing?  I pay zero.  Set up fees?  Zero.     I get paid.  And I started out unknown.

The unpublished author often dreams of being a writer.  If you’re a romance reader and try to submit to HQN?  If you get rejected, after they reject your work, they refer you to HHz, where you can pay them to get a book out.  Instead of the other way around.

Another thing a lot of aspiring authors might not realize, most writers get a few rejections under their belt before they sell.  Selling the first book?  Doesn’t happen often.  Rejections are part of a writer’s life.  It’s also how we learn, grow, improve our craft.  So like we need edits…we also need to a few rejections, IMO.  It’s how we learn.  I had five rejections before I landed with EC.  I learned from each of those rejections.  If I had just kept focusing on the self pub thing, I wouldn’t have landed at EC.    I built a readership at EC that helped lead to contracts with Berkley and Ballantine.

  • Harlequin has openly stated that they will be including little notes in the books they reject, referring the writer to HHz
  • Should a writer decide to go the route of self-pub/vanity pub, if she wants to see a return on her money, she’s going to have to INVEST a lot…up front, with no guarantee of seeing profit.
  • Should the writer want to really see a return on the money, she’ll have to be her own publicist/marketing department/etc.  She’ll spend hours and hours and dollars and dollars and weeks and weeks promoting that one book…instead of writing another, one that may well even be better, one that may well sell to a traditional pub or an epub.

It will be almost impossible for a writer to make a profit there, because they take 50% of net.  What’s net?  Net is what is left AFTER cost.  From the questions answered over at the Dear Author blog…

Malle: The content is completely owned by the author. Royalties are 50% net from both eBooks and print.

Why does this suck?  I’m going to let Allison Brennan answer that, because she did so on her group blog and she did it far better than I could.

You have a trade book printed at $15 cover price. You think that $15 is yours?

Think again.

There is a cost to printing. Notice that Harlequin Horizons only pays you 50% of net proceeds. What is net? Hmm, don’t know. In traditional publishing, the retailers generally “pay” half the cover price. So a $15 book is $7.50 to the retailer and $7.50 to the publisher. Out of the $7.50 to the publisher, they pay for printing, overhead (editorial, cover design, marketing, shipping, etc) and $1.125 per book to the author at a 7.5% standard royalty rate for trade.

There is a cost to print the book POD (which is higher per book than a mass printed novel), e-tailers who sell (i.e. Amazon) take a portion, etc. But let’s be generous and say that the net proceeds are $10 on a $15 book. You, the author, get $5. Yeah! You’re already making nearly five times more money per book than the schmuck who goes the traditional publishing route.

Except, you need to sell 1,660 books to recoup your hard outlay to get that book in print. That doesn’t include your website, ads, etc where you need to try to SELL your book to the public because your book will not be distributed. How will people find your book on Amazon? You need to drive them there. How? LOTS of money, time and hard work.

I also seeing this as a way of capitalizing off Harlequin’s established name, but in a way that doesn’t benefit current HQN authors and won’t benefit future HHz authors.  More from Jane’s post at the Dear Author blog on this,

I emailed Malle Vallik to ask her three questions which pertained the biggest question I had about brand dilution:

  • Will the books be sold through the eharlequin store?
  • Will there be any HH branding on the book, either on the cover or in the copyright page?
  • Are you (Harlequin) concerned about brand dilution?

This is Ms. Vallik’s response. She said she would be around to answer a few questions.

1.       The books will not be branded Harlequin.

2.       The books will be branded HH (see nice logo on website) attached

3.       The copyright is not associated with Harlequin.

So the authors who opt to choose HHz?  Many of them will initially be directed to HHz  thru eHarlequin’s site… there are links to it all over their writing guidelines area.  Or they will get little referral notes in their rejected MS from HQN.  The HQN brand will catch their eyes. Yet we’re told they won’t be branded as HQN authors, and they won’t get their books listed on the HQN website.  So for the HHz authors?  That sucks.

For the traditional HQN author?  It sucks because they worked damn hard to become an HQN author… and now anybody can buy it.  Those who opt to go with HHz, they would be silly NOT to tag themselves as a ‘harlequin’ author.  They ARE a harlequin author…thru HQN’s self pub arm.  Instead of earning it, working hard, anybody can buy it.

More about those who opt to go with HHz…they’ll spend a lot of time and money trying to earn back what they invested in one book.  What if they’d spent that time writing another one instead?  Perfecting the craft instead of taking a short cut?

Is this is option that will work for some?  Sure.  If you really want to see a story of yours in print.  If that’s your dream and you just want to have a way to get the book to your friends and family.

If that is your goal, yes…it can work.

But if you’re writing a book and hoping to write for a living?  This isn’t the way to go, because the chances of making it happen this way?  IMO?  Slim to none

The info above, ie: the costs, editing fees, etc, came from HHz’s website or eHarlequin’s site.

Anything quoted was credit and linked.

This post is about my opinion and nobody has to share it.  If you think self pub can work for you…good luck and best wishes, sincerely and truly.  However, since I have been very vocal on twitter, facebook, other places discussing my thoughts, figured I might as well post them here as well.

ETA: I want to clarify that my issues are not with POD or self publishing.  I don’t have problems with true self-publishing.  True self publishing…where the author fronts the costs and the risks, but keeps all the profit.  Vanity pubs, though?  Well, that I have a problem with and if a writer invests the money in set-up, pays for distribution, etc…and then still has to share the profits?  (And it’s a pretty big chunk of the profits)  THAT, I have a problem with.

Another ETA: I wrote this post prior to the announcement that HQN would be changing the name of HHz.  The name is being changed.  Also the links redirecting writers from eHQN’s site to the HHz site have been removed.

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