Self-publishing

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Self-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of publishing and has seen an increase in activity with the advancement of publishing technology, including xerography, desktop publishing systems, print on demand, and the World Wide Web. Cultural phenomena such as the punk/DIY movement, the proliferation of media channels, and blogging have contributed to the advancement of self-publishing.

1 Business aspects
2 Printing and production quality
3 Motives for self-publishing
4 Vanity publishing
5 Self-published best-sellers
6 External links

[edit] Business aspects

The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead the creator or creators fulfill this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers. Less often, the author prints the material, usually using a xerographic process or a computer printer. In some cases, books are printed on demand with no inventory kept. This places the bulk of the financial risk for the venture on the creators, with many self-publishers ultimately subsidizing it rather than making money from it.

[edit] Printing and production quality

Many self-published books utilize printing and binding techniques which are chosen for their suitability for short press runs. They may be printed with a xerographic process rather than offset printing. In many cases, the covers are designed by amateurs, or a standardized template is used, rather than a higher-quality professional cover designer. Recently, the majority of the self- and subsidy-published books have been perfect bound, although some are hardbound, and some are still saddle-stitched (large metal staples in the fold), comb or coil bound. Technology has enabled high-quality short-run print jobs to be less expensive, although they are still more expensive per copy than longer, off-set printings.

Because professional-quality typesetting suites, such as LaTeX, are available as free software, the typesetting of a self-published book may be as good as a traditionally published work. However, these tools require some technical skill, and many self-published works are formatted using a word processor, which can give less appealing results by comparison. The development of relatively low-cost desktop publishing software has put more powerful tools in the hands of self-publishers, but without any guarantee that they will be used to professional standards.

Authors using lower-cost, short-run techniques are often focused on content rather than appearance. They may wish to avoid a polished appearance for reasons that have little to do with cost, such as maintaining an anti-establishment aesthetic.

Recently the very short run, usually xerographic, printing techniques are approaching off-set quality for black and white, non-halftone jobs. There are still visible differences for more complicated work. Very short run printing is also called POD or PQN printing. This is not the same as POD publishing. Any author or publisher can use POD printing, without the need to go through a POD publisher (also known as a subsidy publisher, or even more confusingly, as a "self-publishing company")if they have the skills to do the work of setting up the book for print themselves.

Because bookstores believe that cover appearance and content are important for successful sales, self-publishing authors that plan to distribute their books through mainstream distributors and bookstores often strive to achieve an overall appearance similar to that of the major publishing houses. This in turn mandates a larger initial press run, usually offset, if the endeavor is to be profitable, because of the expense involved in getting professional level design and editorial work. On the other hand, many successful self-publishers avoid traditional retail outlets altogether, and market directly to their target audience.

Promotion and marketing of self-published books is critical. Authors must undertake book publicity which means developing lists of editors and book reviewers within various media, as well as looking for ways to get coverage "off the book page."

There are several other difficulties faced by self- and small-publishers. Bookstores cannot afford to deal with the tens of thousands of small publishing companies. They tend to buy from the larger publishers, distributors, and wholesalers. But even these aggregators cannot deal with the recent flood of new publishers. The competition to get into bookstores is extreme, and the terms of trade (discounts and return privileges especially) can be financially onerous.

Self-published books do not necessarily reveal their origin. Subsidy press books do, via the ISBN records or the imprint. Therefore, subsidy published books may face additional obstacles on the way to the bookstore shelf, beyond those discussed above.

[edit] Motives for self-publishing

There are a number of reasons that writers choose to self-publish, although one of the most common is that their work is not of interest to a commercial publisher. Publishers must be confident of sales of several thousand copies to take on a book. An otherwise worthy book may not have this potential for any number of reasons:

author wishes to retain complete editorial control over content (see below)
author is unknown and does not have substantial resume
popular topic but of interest only in a small geographic area
addresses an obscure topic in which few people are interested
content is controversial enough that publishers do not wish to be associated with it
author wishes to obtain a larger percentage return from retail sales

Occasionally an author may choose to self-publish for reasons of control, because they want access to their customer list, or because they love the business of publishing. When working with a publisher, an author gives up a degree of editorial control, and sometimes has little input into the design of the book, its distribution, and its marketing. This has been a substantial motivator in the rise of comic book self-publishing. In the late 1970s, creators such as Dave Sim and Wendy and Richard Pini chose -- in spite of offers from publishers -- to publish their work themselves because they wanted to retain full ownership and control over it, and they believed they could do the job of publishing more effectively than a publisher that did not have an ownership stake in the material. This was facilitated by the development of comic book specialty shops, and the distribution network that serves them, which is more open to small- and self-publisher material than traditional bookstores have been. Numerous cartoonists have followed their example since then, and by the late 1990s, the majority of comics (in terms of titles) were self-published. They remain a small percentage of overall sales, however, with sales of a given book often falling short of 1000 copies. A similar movement took place in the music industry during the same period, coming largely out of the punk rock phenomenon, as some musicians eschewed deals with record labels and published their own recordings.

In addition to the issue of control some authors with limited markets may also self-publish in order to obtain a better financial return. An author in a specialist area may be confident of a certain number of sales but also realise that the maximum number of sales is limited, and wish to maximise their earnings. In this situation the author may risk a significant amount of their own capital to self-publish their own work. This avoids a publisher taking a significant cut of the proceeds and if also self-distributed avoids distribution fees as well. The payoff is a much larger percentage of the sale price being returned as profit. For instance in a limited market such as Australia an author who is confident of sales can gain a better financial return by self-publishing their work, such as was done with Complete School.

Authors who are considering self-publishing in order to claim more of the financial reward, however, would be well-advised to investigate the industry thoroughly before launching. Producing and marketing a book may be well within their grasp, but many of the back-office functions may require unforeseen investments of time and/or money. In addition, industry-standard terms of trade will eat into their margins to an often unexpected extent.

Authors whose books are related to their other ventures may do rather well as self-publishers. This is because their books can be used to feed customers into their other work. The synergies can benefit both the market for the books and for their other endeavors.

[edit] Vanity publishing

Main article: Vanity press

Self-publishing is sometimes difficult to differentiate from "vanity publishing." The latter term is a pejorative one, usually referring to situations in which a publisher contracts with authors regardless of the quality and marketability of their work. They appeal to the creators' vanity and desire to become a "published author," and make the majority of their money from fees charged to the creators for publishing services, rather than from sales of the published material to retailers or consumers. Vanity presses often try to disguise themselves, calling themselves "joint venture" or "subsidy" presses (neither term is accurate; in a vanity press arrangement, the author undertakes all of the risk (unlike a joint venture), and pays 100% of the cost of publication (unlike in a true subsidy arrangement)). Sectors of the self-publishing movement are aware of the pitfalls of working with "vanity presses." For example, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website maintains one of the most comprehensive scam-alert sections in the publishing industry, and works hard to keep writers and potential writers aware of the risk of being scammed by duplicitous vanity presses. In his guide for would-be self-publishers, How to Publish Yourself, author Peter Finch unequivocally states that such presses are "To be avoided at all costs."

So-called vanity presses may not necessarily engage in deception or fraud, however, and some creators knowingly and willingly enter into such deals, placing more importance on getting their work published than from profiting from it. Because there is no independent entity making a judgment about their quality, and because many of them are published at a loss, self-published works are often perceived as equivalent to vanity-press works, or equally deserving of skepticism from distributors, retailers, or readers.

[edit] Self-published best-sellers

Self-published works that find large audiences tend to be rare exceptions, and are usually the result of self-promotion.

However, many works now considered classic were originally self-published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.