We’ve had questions from a few authors about just what is meant by “Self-Publishing”…it seems to be a term bandied about with little regard for what it really means. Many folks use it to refer to any process other than being picked up by one of the Big Five. Actually, there are many ways to be published without following the traditional route, but not all of them are “self-publishing”. One of the common methods that isn’t self-publishing is to go through a hybrid publisher, which amazingly enough can include Amazon!
By definition, if you are a self-published author, then you are the publisher of your work. That’s all that’s needed…but just what does that entail? Before we can understand what it truly means to be self-published, we need to see what the publisher does in the process, so we’ll go over some of the steps and find out.
Steps to be an Author
In our post about First Idea to Printed Book, we went over many of the steps required to get your story into ink on paper, so we’ll review them here:
- Write: Someone has to write the story, and it’s usually you, though you could hire it out to a ghostwriter if you feel you are a good storyteller…but not a good writer
- Edit: Even if you are an expert editor, you’ll really want to seek help elsewhere, finding someone not as close to the writing as you are. This includes all the different levels of editing
- Format: Making each page of a book look good is an involved task. Try it yourself only if you have plenty of experience formatting books
- Layout: Getting all the parts of your book in the right place requires that you know about all the various parts and where they go, building the Front Matter and Back Matter. Again, hire it out unless you really know what you’re doing.
- Cover: Beautiful covers aren’t easy to make, so unless you are a graphic artist with plenty of experience creating book covers, find someone else to do it for you. (Ask us for recommendations.)
- Print and Bind: There are videos online showing how to use your home printer and a few craft tools to assemble your own book, but I’d really recommend that you let a professional printer and binder do it.
Beyond the Basics
Going on past the First Idea to Printed Book chart, there are more steps to be considered if you really want to call yourself an author.
- Marketing: As a writer, you probably have neither the time nor resources to tell the whole world about your book. Remember, no one can buy it if they don’t know about it, so find someone who has the expertise.
- Selling: Authors who sell books out of the trunk of their car are serious do-it-yourselfers. Letting retailers do their job will let you reach folks who feel uncomfortable having a clandestine meeting in a car park.
- Shipping: I’ve heard authors complain about having to stand in line at the Post Office to ship their books. Wouldn’t it be a better use of your time letting a warehousing company do the shipping, after all, they’ve been doing it for years.
So who is the Publisher?
But wait. Where is the publisher in all this? We never even mentioned the publisher in the steps to becoming an author, so where does he fit in? The Big Five publishers have employees to do the Editing, Formatting, Layout, Cover, Printing, Binding, Marketing, Selling, and Shipping. Many other publishers don’t have full-time employees, but to do all those same tasks they hire them out. Well then, what exactly does the publisher do, besides put his name on your book?
Maybe that’s it…just a name on a book. But that name carries plenty of clout. And why does it carry clout? Because the publisher has contacts that can get your book in front of buyers…not the folks who will read your book, rather the ones that buy for stores, to get your book on the shelves that the end customer looks over when trying to find their next book to read. Without those buyers finding your book, it will languish in the slush pile along with all the other “self-published” but invisible books.
So if you’re the publisher, then what contacts do you have to make your book visible? It turns out that you have the same contacts as any of the other publishers, Big Five or not. You have the opportunity to get your book listed in Bowker’s Books In Print, right alongside all those other publishers. All you have to do is register your ISBN.
That means if you want to be really self-published, all you need to do is own the ISBN. That’s it. Everything else can be subbed out to folks with the appropriate expertise.
What’s an ISBN?
We talked about putting the hyphens in the right place in the ISBNs a while back, but we never mentioned why you should have an ISBN. Exposure is why. Associating your book information (title, size, binding, etc.) with an ISBN is known as ‘registering’ it. That ties all the relevant info to a unique number that belongs to only you and that one version of the book. You’ll use a different ISBN for each version: paperback, audio, Kindle, large print, or spiral bound. Although each ‘book’ contains the same information, the way that information is relayed to the end reader is different. If I buy your book for my Nook, I don’t want to get an audio CD.
So, the publisher’s job is to own and register each ISBN for each version of your book. That’s it. Simple enough, right? Apparently not. I’ve heard from some small publishers that the process of registering the ISBNs is so complicated that they are just about pulling out of the publishing market entirely. We’ll go into the whole process in a future posting, so keep your eyes open. We’ll do what we can to make it clear.