Self-publishing Primer

Self-publishing is where you perform the whole process yourself: from creating the original text and drawings, through layout, printing and binding, to distribution and sales. Or hire help only at the stages needed. If you are prepared to settle for producing paperback books in small numbers, it can also be inexpensive. This fact sheet details the whole process but does not include the alternatives of e-books or print on demand.

It is not vanity publishing. A vanity publisher will typically produce a few dozen hardback copies of your book, ship them to you in a box and present you with a fat invoice. It is your responsibility to sell the books. As you have no contacts or credibility in the book trade, the best you will be able to do is give a few copies away.

If you are going to make all the effort to market and sell your own books, you may as well produce them for as little money as possible by self-publishing and avoid the high costs for low performance that most vanity publishers offer.

1. Define your readership and your market.

What is it you want to say, and who are you saying it to? What is the best way to present your ideas and work to them? Be honest, and estimate how many copies you are likely to need. Aim low, as it is much easier to reprint to meet demand than it is to fill the loft or garage with crates of books. Answer these questions and keep them in mind as you write.

2. Write your book.

This is the easy part.

3. Edit and rewrite your book.

Repeat until you are happy with it. What you have at this point is a word-count. Estimate 250 words per page and you will have an approximate number of pages.

4. Plan your book.

What is it going to be? A5-sized perfect-bound paperback? A3 hardback? Get together a rough idea of what the book will look like and the number of pages. Unless you know a bookbinder, you will probably not be planning a hardback volume. Paperbacks are of two main types, perfect-bound and chapbooks. Perfect-binding is what you see in 'commercial' books: the spine is flat and carries the title and author's name. This is the ideal, as it makes the book visible on shelves. The alternative for small booklets is to fold the pages and staple through the crease. This works well up to around 50 pages, and is usually called a chapbook. What you have at this point is a rough idea of the finished form of the book, plus the page count from (3).

5. Find a printer.

What you are looking for is a small print shop who are used to producing finished work to the standard you need, in small quantities. If you live near a University, then the firms that do theses are often capable. As them about small runs. Can they take camera-ready artwork? Can they produce the finished article, or will you also have to find a binder?

There has been a quiet revolution in the printing business.

The best books used to be produced by printing your text pages onto huge sheets of paper by offset litho, then folding and cutting. It was a black art. The pages of the finished book had to be arranged in the right order and orientation on the large sheets. The big sheets were folded and trimmed, arranged and bound, and it all came together. This is the reason that books always used to have a multiple of eight or sixteen pages (or however many book pages could fit onto one large sheet of printing paper). Then someone crossed a printing machine with a photocopier. The new small-run printing machines can take a computer diskette at one end and produce finished paperbacks at the other. Because the set-up costs are so low (compared with the traditional plate-making and lay-up), you can also have extra copies run-off as needed.

Talk to your printer: describe what you are trying to achieve and ask for their suggestions. You will be supplying camera-ready artwork (a good printed copy of the text) and you will be wanting something like an A5 card-covered perfect-bound paperback of 200 pages (or whatever).

You will get the best results by sticking to standard sizes and materials.

A shiny coloured cover will cost a lot of money, but it adds enormously to the professional image of your book. You can often save money by specifying cheaper paper inside the book. Take a look at a standard thriller - it will have an expensive full-colour shiny cover, and be printed on newsprint.

The standard way of quoting for a print run is to give a price for the number of copies produced, and a price for run-on. These are extra copies, after they have set-up to do the first batch. This is the price you will pay if the book is a runaway success and you come back to them for more. If you are using a 'traditional' printer, ask about 'overs' as well. It is often difficult to print the exact number of copies required, so a printer will often make a few more to be safe. Find out if you can have them, and if you will be charged for them.

6. Layout your book.

This is the big money-saver, because it consumes the most time and effort (after the actual writing). You need to convert your polished text into polished pages for the printer. You don't need Desk Top Publishing or anything fancy - careful typing with a fresh ribbon will do the job, and any word-processor is more than capable. What you are doing is setting-up margins and page breaks, numbering pages and generally making the raw text look like a book.

One good tip is to work on the next largest size of paper to your finished book. If you are planning an A5 paperback, prepare the layout on A4 paper (check first that your printer can reduce your originals). The act of reducing the size sharpens-up the printed letters and minimises any marks on the paper. Play with a photocopier that reduces, to find what size of text you need to arrive at the right size in the final book.

What does a book layout look like?

Look at some examples of the genre you are writing in, and copy what looks good. There is a 'standard', but in practice everyone is different!

The main jargon is Recto and Verso. Recto's are right hand pages and are odd numbered. Verso's are the left-hand pages and are even numbered. The book always starts on a recto, and chapters always begin on a recto. (As with all things, break any of these rules if you have good reason).

You will need to create your own artwork and illustrations. Use clip-art, drawing programs, friends and whatever comes to hand. Avoid colour, as it is very expensive. Be careful of copyright, as well, particularly photography.

7. Refine your layout.

Get an estimate from your printer, and fettle the layout, font size, margins, etc. until you get it right. 'Right' means a book that looks as though it was commercially-produced, is easy to read, and not too expensive to make.

While all this was going on, and around the time when you have a good idea of what your book will cost and what it will look like, you will also be turning yourself into a publishing company.

8. Become a Publishing House.

This is the legal niceties bit. You will need a name and identity for your enterprise. The fact that the publishing empire is just you and your cat does not mean that you can't present a professional front to the world. Businesses in the UK can be of several types, and all the transactions and rules are governed by laws. For a (very) small turnover operation you will be working as a Sole Trader. This means you basically adopt a business name (omitting Ltd or Partners), and do business. The profits are declared on your personal tax return, and you may offset some operating expenses against tax. If you intend to be successful, then you will want to form a Limited Company. Buy a name and company off the shelf, and find a good accountant.

For the Sole Trader, you can just pick a trading name, but do make it unique. You can check the business directories at your library to make sure that the name is not in use. For an address use your own or a PO Box number. The latter is useful if you are likely to move house, as you can pay to have the mail forwarded from it. A PO Box number also looks more professional than an obviously private address. You are now a Small Press.

9. Register your publication.

Each book you produce will need:

ISBN - the International Standard Book Number. This is unnecessary if you are just making a few copies of your book for friends, but essential if you want to sell it or look professional. The ISBN allows bookshops and libraries to catalogue and order your book.

Single ISBNs are free, but you have to pay for blocks of 100 or 1000. In the UK apply to: J.Whitaker and Sons Ltd, 12 Dyott Street, London WC1A 1DF.

They will send you the form to request a number. At the same time, ask them for ...
CIP data - Cataloguing in Publication data - gets your title listed in the British Library bibliographic service. This is needed three months before you publish, so apply early.

Once you have completed the CIP form, you put the magic words on the inside front cover of your book:
"British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A cataloguing record for this book is available from the British Library".

Barcode - once you have the ISBN you will need a barcode to match. On the back of every paperback you will find a barcode. This is a machine-readable version of the ISBN. It makes the book look "real", and also allows bookshops to handle and sell it.

Once you have your assigned ISBN, you buy a Bromide barcode to glue onto your camera-ready back cover. This is easier than it sounds: you send money (around 15) to a Company, telling them your ISBN. They send back a thin slip of white paper with the barcode on. You keep this safe, and then paste it to the back cover just before you send the manuscript off to the printer.

10. Price your book.

You now have a complete laid-up manuscript. You know how much the printing will cost, and you have an idea of how many you will (try to) sell.

How much does a book cost? A book is traditionally priced at five times its production cost. Small Presses usually have to settle for three times, as their costs are proportionally higher. If you choose to sell through bookshops, they will demand at least a third of the cover price (Smiths will want 45%). They usually get this in the form of a discount. If you are paying royalties to an author, they usually get a tenth (after any advance has been earned-out). The publisher keeps the difference and has to pay all of the costs.

So, do some sums and calculate a price that will avoid you becoming bankrupt, and that your readers will pay.

11. Print your book.

Send the manuscript off to your printer, with written instructions restating the agreed requirements. In a very short time some heavy boxes will be delivered to you. Check the books immediately to make sure they are as specified.

Some time after you have published, you will get a letter from AT Smail in London, asking for your legal deposit. By law you must send five copies, one to each of the legal deposit libraries. This usually happens one month after publication, and it's OK to wait for them to contact you. AT Smail, 100 Euston Road, London NW1 2HQ, (020 7 388 5061) The good side of this is that your book is now preserved for posterity!

12. Sell your book.

This is when you find out why the big publishers only bet on certainties. You will have to use every marketing trick you can dream up to get your title noticed. Bookshop managers are used to dealing with reps from the big publishers who have advertising money to burn, so they will not be impressed by someone with a couple of paperbacks in a briefcase. Mail order is good. The customer sends cash with their order, you bank the cheque before mailing the book.

As a result of obtaining your ISBN, your book will be recorded in the Books In Print database. This may generate some sales, as bookshops search the subject index for their customers. Single orders from a bookshop are usually invoiced at the cover price (and you pay the postage). Multiple orders from a bookshop, or a bookshop that agrees to stock the book, are a different game! Negotiate hard over the discount they want. Remember that they will take a minimum of three months to pay-up after each sale. They also have the right to tell you to collect any unsold books from their stock at any time.

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