The Home Stretch - Part 1

This is a multi-part series on the steps involved during the final stretch of publishing a book.

In this case, the novel was completed quite a while ago and I've been in the middle of revising and improving it. In recent months, it is coming together nicely and so I have had to consider exactly how I am going to publish it. With the state the publishing industry is in and the fact that publishers don't do much to market or sell a book for a first-time novelist, I decided to self-publish.

My first (non-fiction) book was published through Lulu.com. That worked well because I did not expect to sell a ton of books and I wanted to learn the industry, so it was acceptable to do it all myself. For this book, I want it done professionally, so I purchased The Fine Print of Self-Publishing by Mark Levine and researched more "robust" self-publishers. I narrowed it down to two (Aventine Press and Wasteland Press). Then I did a comparison of the features and what it would really cost me. Since Wasteland provides 500 copies with their Ultimate package (and 25 review copies), I made the assumption with all three that I would need that many to sell directly.

The table below shows the results. What is fascinating about this is that Wasteland looks the worst to start with because of the high initial costs, but because they include 500 copies, that cost is easily (well, relatively easily) recovered.

Assuming I need the list of deliverables (in purple below), the total cost with Wasteland is half what it is with Lulu and below Aventine as well. This is because I would have to buy the 500 books from the other two at the "author" price.

Assuming I can sell the 500 books directly, the choice is pretty clear (though Aventine is a close second). The only downside I see is that the author price is a little high with them. So, if I ended up selling many more than 500 directly, it may end up better (financially) to be with Aventine.

Feature	Aventine	Wasteland Ult	Lulu Free
Initial Cost	$(399)	$(3,400)	$-
Direct Royalty	~$15	~$14	~$11
Indirect Royalty ($22/book)	2.40	2.97	2.50
Hardcover	$(295)	$(250)	$-
Cover Design	$(295)	incl	$(500)
Interior Design	Template	Template	Template
Copy Editing	$(1,000)	$(1,000)	$(1,000)
Indexing	25 words	?	?
Initial Paperback Copies	2	500	0
Initial Hardcover Copies	0	0	0
Review Copies	0	25	0
Retail Price	$22	range, assume 22	22.24
Author Price (paperback)	$6.35	$7.50	$11
Marketing	n/a	Press Release	n/a
Cost given deliverables of:	$(5,324)	$(4,650)	$(7,275)
initial fee
hardcover
cover design
professional copy editing
500 paperbacks
0 hardbound
25 review copies

Lulu and self-publishing

After completing my first draft of the non-fiction book now titled Humanism for Parents and releasing it for review, I started looking around at how to publish it. Since the intent was to learn about the publishing industry and I didn't want the hassle, or filters, of an agent, editor, and traditional publisher, I decided to self publish.

Self publishers had been around for a while at that point and were just starting to mature. There are different business models and some of them seemed more like a scam than anything realistic. Generally if they wanted me to pay a lot up-front, I avoided them. There are some very respectable services that do require some amount up-front, but then there is a corresponding gain in the lower print rates (so you make more on each book, but have to pay something up-front to even get started). Some of those that charge up-front also include services (e.g. editing, cover design, etc.) that account for that cost.

However, I really wanted to do it myself and I didn't want to pay much, if anything, up-front. So, I selected Lulu.com. They charge nothing up-front and you are allowed to edit the book and make changes as much as you want (up to actually releasing it for the public). They also offered a number of services that I didn't use and some I did. For example, I really liked their publishing packages that include an ISBN number and releasing the book to the major distribution channels like Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Google Books, and others. They also have international distribution options.

All-in-all, it worked out quite well. The one downside of this route is that the book cost is kind of high and there aren't a lot of options for discounts. The Humanism for Parents book ended up just under a hundred pages and cost about $12. I was able to buy books for my own distribution at a significant discount - in bulk it was down at the $4 range.

So, I ended up publishing this one to the public and it continues to sell some each month. I also published a genealogy book and a book of letters to my kids, both of which were private publications. I highly recommend this type of publishing in certain circumstances.