The International Writers Magazine: Publishing: Taking Control

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Going With a Small Publisher • Antonio Graceffo You worked months or years to write your book, and it became a huge extension of who you are. If you lock it up in the bottom drawer of your desk, satisfied at having finally completed your opus, no one will ever read it. And you will never achieve the dream of being a successful author. So, you go out looking for a publisher. The big publishing houses are your first bet, because you heard that they pay a large advance, plus a percentage of the cover price. The other major advantages with a major house are that they have the marketing budget, experience, know-how, and contacts necessary to sell the book.

But you soon find out that big publishing houses are very selective. Some are even unapproachable. Eventually, you grow weary of spending $25 per query, submitting sample chapters and return postage to big publishers and you review your options.

The fastest, and easiest, way to get published is to go with a self-publishing company. Most will accept any author, who is willing to pay their fee. And fees have dropped dramatically, in recent years, due to advances in technology. Some self-publishers offer complete packages as cheaply as $700. In the past self publishers, formerly referred to as vanity presses, were regarded as the last desperate act of a narcissist, who saw himself as a misunderstood genius. At that time, you paid big money. When the book was ready, 1,000 copies were delivered to your door. You gave some away as presents. Maybe you negotiated with a few local book stores to carry a copy or two. And the rest, 953 copies, took up space your garage. Today, many self-publishers offer services, such as print on demand, which reduces the number of copies that you must agree to print. They also offer standard marketing packages, through websites. Some will collect orders, process payments, and ship books to customers. If you are willing to do some hustle on your own, and if you have $1,000, self publishing may be the way to go. One of the biggest advantages of self-publishing is that you get to keep the entire sale price of the book.

For a book, which retails $14, you may clear as much as $7 after expenses. This is a far site better than the $1.40 that you would receive as a royalty from a traditional publisher.

For my first book, The Monk from Brooklyn, (available at barnesandnoble.com), about my experiences as a foreigner, studying at the Shaolin Temple in China, I chose a third option. I went with a small publisher, who had both a self publishing and a traditional publishing option available to authors who were accepted. I chose the traditional option, whereby all of the expenses were picked up by the publisher. Although going with a small publisher often means no advance, it also means no out of pocket expense. The royalties that I was offered were fairly standard, 10% on the first thousand copies, 12% on the next thousand, and 15% for life.

I didn’t take a financial risk, as with self-publishing. And, my book was guaranteed to be published. So, I didn’t have to wait through years of submissions and rejections to the major publishing houses. By the time a writer finishes his book, especially if it is his first book, it has become so much a part of himself that he feels he wouldn’t let it go for all the tea in China. Unfortunately, publishers don’t normally offer all the tea in China. So a lot of first time authors pass up their first big break, holding out for more of an advance or for a bigger publisher. We all know someone who believes that he or she has written the next great American novel, but hasn’t managed to place it anywhere but the back of the bedroom closet. Even if this is the greatest book in the world, it won’t generate an income sitting under your unused Seven Minute abs video tape. The first rule of publishing a book is: PUBLISH THE BOOK! Get it out there, or you can’t make a dime.

Signing a contract, even with a small publisher opened so many doors for me. When editors heard about my book deal, it suddenly became easier to sell my magazine articles. This increased my income, and increased my publishing opportunities. Additionally, having a deal for this one book, moved that book, from the To Do box in my mind, the Works Completed box. No longer being bogged down with the first book, meant that I was mentally free to start working on my next book. It also gave me a publishing credit, which I used to sell my second book. No matter who you go with, a big publisher, a small publisher, or a self-publisher, you have to be part of the sales process. At the end of the day, it is your book, and you are the only who cares if it sells or not.
Yes, the publisher will make more if you sell more copies. But most publishers are only looking for a certain percentage-point return on the money they have invested in you. With a small publisher, if the investment is as small as $1,000, the publisher’s break-even point may be at 100 books.

He knows that by putting the book on every website and electronic book store, and by contacting your family and friends, pretty much any book, no matter how bad, will sell 100 copies. Everything beyond 100 copies is profit for the publisher. For the author, 100 copies sold may only mean $160 in royalties. It will certainly mean that the author will remain in obscurity. So, it is definitely the writer, not the publisher whose life depends on heavy sales of a given book. Remember too, you have only one book to sell. Your publisher has many. What he can’t make on one book, he can make on the next. Or, he can make it up in volume.

You can expect a publisher to help you, but only so far. That means you have to do the rest yourself. So, the question comes, “How do I sell copies of my book?” First off, every author should constantly be adding people to his email distribution list. You should send out a monthly newsletter or some other type of mailer, which is interesting and informative, and which people will enjoy getting. For me, I am an adventure travel writer. So, I maintain an email distribution list, where I send copies of my articles or copies of my diaries on a monthly basis. People enjoy reading about remote regions of South East Asia, where I live most of my adventures. They forward the emails to friends, and often ask me to ad people to the list. By the time my book was published, my list of personal contacts was in the hundreds. I sent announcements to each of these people, suggesting that they buy my book. And most of them did, because they were excited to see the words in print, which they had been reading on the internet.

People like to own a writer. The average person is very excited, when recommending a book to a friend. “I know the author. I have been on his email list for two years.” Just as reading biographies of famous authors helps you to appreciate their writing. Publishing your diaries gives readers an insight into your character, and this increases their enjoyment of the book, as well as the likelihood that they would buy it, and recommend it to friends.
Another way to increase your book sales is by writing for as many publications as possible. This includes websites, magazines, news papers, and newsletters. Again, some writers turn down magazines who want to publish their work for free or for a token fee of say $25. This is a mistake. Your articles may be great. But if no one ever reads them, they are useless. So, let them go. Let them go. Let the go! Even if it I for free. Just publish as much as you can. If you enter my name, Antonio Graceffo, in any search engine (yahoo, google, MSN, dogpile) you will find at last five pages of my stories, which have been published in various media around the globe. This all adds to book sales.

The more places you publish the longer your resume, the more impressive you are, the more you will be able to publish. Every website and every media has some core of loyal readers, however small, and these are people you wouldn’t have been able to reach, without publishing in that particular media. Don’t look at it as giving an article away for free. Look at it as trading an article for free publicity. Try writing to websites and magazines, even non-paying ones, and asking them if you could have a free one page ad, to sell your book. They will probably decline. But if you send them an article for free, they will run it. And now they have good content. And you got a free one page ad. Everyone wins.

One way I have found to increase the number of places where I publish is that I find clubs and associations who have interests similar to mine. Right now I am in Cambodia, writing about Khmer culture. So, I went on line, and found all of the Khmer associations, clubs, and news letters in USA and Australia. Every month I give them one of my articles for free. And every month they reprint my article. I just increased my potential market by more than half a million people. When your book is released, you contact every publication you have ever written for and ask them to carry an ad for free. Many of them will. If you aren’t that bold, or if they decline, then you could ask them to carry a review, do a review, or carry an excerpt of the book. Now you are giving them good value, good content, and you are getting free publicity.

Another technique is to make lists of genre you feel you could write about, even if it is outside of your normal writing scope. My normal scope is adventure travel. But obviously I could also write for media dealing with any country I have worked in, or dealing with foreign culture in general. I also feel I have something to offer to writing magazines, because I am a professional writer. I could stretch my scope and include exercise magazines, self improvement, motivation, linguistics…Once you have created a list of these genre, then locate all of the coinciding media, and write them a good quality article. In that article you should also mention your book.
If people like the article they will buy your book. And you just increased your sales. Here is an example of shameless self-promotion. My book, The Monk from Brooklyn, is a humorous and entertaining story about my experiences, as a Chinese-Speaking Italian American from Brooklyn, who has chosen to study kung fu in one of the almost and holiest Buddhist temples in the world. The book is available at barnesandnoble.com
So get out there, give your writing away, and sell some books!

*Antonio's travel writing was featured in an anthology, published in the UK, entitled "Travellers Tales from Heaven and Hell Part Two." Antonio's book about his studies at the Shaolin Temple, "The Monk From Brooklyn," has been published by GOM Publishing, and is available at barnesandnoble.com and gompublishing.com. His book about his adventures in the Taklamakan Desert, "The Desert of Death on Three Wheels" is currently under review for publication, in 2004.
Film Credits Antonio co-stared in the Khmer Kung Fu film "Krabei Liak Goan," (Buffalo Protecting Child)
He is a regular contributor to Hackwriters.com

Hackwriters recommends only two self-publishing companies at this time - both these organisations do not take money up front and will not rip you off and will provide quality books from one to thousands. Yes we use Lulu.com ourselves

www.lulu.com
www.pabd.com

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