If
you're looking to self-publish a book or start a small publishing company, I
highly recommend you buy a copy of Make Money Self-Publishing: Learn How
From Fourteen Successful Small Publishers by Suzanne P. Thomas.
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While many other self-publishing books will claim, "Write A Book And
Sell A Million Copies And Become Immediately Rich," Make Money
Self-Publishing takes a realistic look at self-publishing and provides
solid, yet inspirational, advice.
Profiles of Small Publishers
Thomas profiles fourteen, successful, small publishers in detail. Each
publisher generates incomes ranging from $20,000 to over $100,000 annually,
though many were completely new to publishing when they started. Reading
Make Money Self-Publishing will help you avoid their mistakes and learn from
their experience. Each publisher featured willingly shares his or her best
advice to new self-publishers.
Make Money Self-Publishing starts with a quick course in
"Self-Publishing 101." Thomas introduces us to the basic concepts
of the publishing business, such as the importance of cover design, the
costs of book distribution, issues of book storage and fulfillment, and
choosing the size of a press run.
The authors and self-publishers featured vary tremendously in genre from
mystery to cookbooks to gambling books to computer books to genres that defy
classification. The publishers featured also vary in motivation and personal
goals.
For example, Thomas tells us that Virginia and Robert Hoffman of the
Hoffman Press, one of the publishers featured, wanted a hobby during their
retirement years, so they decided to self-publish a book about cooking with
wine.
Thomas relates the Hoffman story: "They decided on an initial press
run of 5,000 because that gave them the best price break. 'One day a big
truck pulled up to our driveway and unloaded three large pallets of books.
"What have I done?" I thought as I looked at all of them.'"
Thomas continues: "Close to seventy years old at the time, Robert
personally carried all the books into the garage because the truck driver
couldn't help him. 'Three weeks later the books were sold and Virginia and I
were launched into publishing.'"
The Hoffman Press's success, Thomas explains, was partially due to the
Hoffman's intelligent partnering with wineries through which the Hoffmans
sold their book. The wineries mentioned in the book wanted copies to sell in
their gift shops.
In his interview with Thomas, Robert Hoffman goes on to emphasize the
importance of hiring help. And, today, The Hoffman Press uses an order
fulfillment company to pack and ship their books. That's probably a good
thing as they sell over 100,000 cookbooks a year.
On the other hand, Peter Kent of Top Floor Publishing, another publisher
featured in Make Money Self-Publishing, was a popular author of computer
books who was dissatisfied with the quality control in the editing of his
computer books by mainstream publishers.
Marketing Through the Internet
Thomas discusses Top Floor's creation of the popular "Poor
Richard's" brand of computer books, including, for example, Poor
Richard's Web Site. Not surprisingly, we learn that marketing through the
Internet has been of key importance to Top Floor.
When Top Floor branched out into publishing books by other authors,
Thomas tells us that Kent looked for authors who already had an online
following to speed the marketability of the books. I especially liked how
Make Money Self-Publishing interweaves excellent marketing advice throughout
each publisher's story.
While some self-publishers enjoy the business aspect of publishing, other
authors become self-publishers to enhance the salability of their titles to
larger publishers. Thomas features one initially self-published author who
sold his title to Doubleday for an advance of $250,000. In the process he
also secured a contract for his second book. This chapter is a great case
study in the power of bootstrap marketing. Thomas explains how the
self-publisher leveraged each media mention to generate more publicity in a
snowball fashion.
Make Money Self-Publishing is also filled with some amusing anecdotes
that anyone associated with publishing will enjoy.
For example, Thomas writes: "Cheri [Thurston of Cottonwood Press, a
featured publisher] accidentally stumbled upon a way to partially even out
her cash flow. 'I was talking with a friend and it came up that I play
accordion. She said she didn't know this about me, so I said I'd have to
come out of the closet. It stuck a chord and I came up with the idea of
forming an organization, Closet Accordion Players of America. I wrote a
funny press release and sent it out to 40-50 newspapers around the
country.'"
Thomas continues: "The media loved the idea. Cheri's organization
has been featured in almost every major newspaper in the country including
USA Today. 'It's gotten to the point that I don't even send out press
releases in June anymore, which is National Accordion Awareness Month,
because I'm so tired of doing the radio interviews. I can't keep up with
them. It's hysterical. Talk about free publicity, not for my company, but
for this $12.95 membership.'"
Today, many people, who don't want to risk several thousand dollars to
publish a book conventionally, are considering publishing an online e-Book.
Those individuals will find Thomas's feature of Angela Adair-Hoy of
Booklocker.com particularly valuable as it discusses e-Books in depth.
Make Money Self-Publishing concludes with a valuable Afterword where
Thomas summarizes "Ten Tips to Make Money Self Publishing"
distilled from the experience of the small publishers.
"Publish at Least 3 Titles"
Thomas's first tip is to "Publish at least three titles."
Thomas explains that multiple titles not only help amortize overhead costs,
but each title can serve as a marketing means for the other titles. Plus,
you never know which title will be your big hit or when sales of a
particular title will sag. Trying to make a living as a one-title
self-publisher is difficult.
Thomas's second tip is to "Develop a series or specialize in one
category of books." Thomas points out that related titles are easier to
market to the same audience, because related books can establish a
connection to your other titles.
New publishers will benefit by following Thomas's ten tips and the advice
and experience of the publishers featured.
Make Money Self-Publishing is also filled with resources (publisher and
writer's associations, web sites of interest, service providers and
companies of interest to publishers, recommended reading, etc.) to learn
more about self-publishing and to introduce you to the resources you need to
self-publish your book.
Incidentally, we should note that Suzanne Thomas, herself, is a
successful self-publisher and the author of the highly-regarded book, Rental
Houses for the Successful Small Investor, which is a top-selling book on
amazon.com.
If you are seriously considering risking your time and money to
self-publish a book, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of Make Money
Self-Publishing: Learn How from Fourteen Successful Small Publishers. If you
are involved with the small press industry or are a small publisher, you
will find Make Money Self-Publishing to be a great read.
