Is Self-Publishing Right for You?

On a gray, blustery day in late February, I clicked the last period into the manuscript of my memoir, Boys on the Edge. All the writing, workshops, professional editing, critique groups, and beta readers concluded with that period. Thoughts of how I might celebrate quickly gave way to the question dogging me for months. How was I going to publish this book?

My seventy-first birthday was weeks away and I had promised the book to lots of family and friends over years. My mom, dad, and brother had passed away a year before I started writing it and I did not want another loved one to miss it. I felt a profound sense of urgency to get it published.

Going the way of traditional publishing, whether large, medium, or small was both time-consuming and uncertain. According to Fiction Writers’ Mentor, cited on aspiringauthor.com, only two in a hundred manuscripts are accepted by publishers. With an agent, the odds improve to 10% according to Jericho Writers. Agents send manuscripts to at least twelve publishers, improving the success of debut authors getting a book deal to more like 10%.

While I preferred traditional publishing for its prestige, it was also much easier than doing it myself, if I could land a publisher. The publisher pays for and takes care of editing, cover design, interior layout, ISBNs, copywriting, printing, distribution, and national marketing. Your book lands on hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bookstore shelves, book lists and reviews to give your work maximum exposure. That said, publishers still require their authors to participate in marketing through their personal social media and to make appearances for signings, talks, etc.

But after studying memoirs on various sites and bookstore shelves, I determined that my book wouldn’t generate much interest with agents or publishers. I felt it would have good local and perhaps, regional appeal, so I decided to publish it myself and began reviewing the options.

My starting bias was heavily weighted toward Amazon because of its reputation, size, and marketing prowess. To cover my bases, I took a quick look at Apple and Barnes & Noble and found them superior to Amazon in ease of use, but in the end, size and reach won out.

Once I was committed and started, I was quickly impressed by Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing site. It was helpful, intuitive, and efficient. After getting a good overview of the required stages of the process, I began the process.

My first step was to review the Reedsy.com marketplace for interior designers, typesetters, and exterior (cover) designers. There are others, but I soon found that Reedsy suited my needs for ease of use, access to high quality professionals (many working for top-selling authors), and affordability. Scrolling through their samples, I ultimately selected a copywriter and exterior designer that met the styles and characteristics I liked best. I would be working through Reedsy’s email system with a lady in Pittsburg and a young man in Slovenia.

After a couple of drafts and revisions from both, I found my patience strained significant time lags due to time zone differences, responses limited to my time on their schedule, and the inability to see changes real-time. The artwork proved especially challenging. I wound up hiring a local artist I could work in person with to get the design I had envisioned. My Slovenian cover designer was completely OK with the change and simply added the cover artwork to his file when it was ready.

If I self-publish again, I will likely use software, like Atticus or Vellum to write and typeset my book before uploading to Amazon. It makes facilitates real-time viewing of changes to fonts, sizes, kerning, margins, etc. The details matter, and I learned that I didn’t have the flexibility I needed to be sure I had what I wanted in copy. Every change in copy varies the page numbers, which impact the cover design.

While revisions were bouncing back and forth, I addressed the steps required to publish a book. Amazon, or any publisher, required a corporation, LLC, or sole proprietorship to make deposits into. I had a corporation I’d kept open after the sale of my business, so I went to the courthouse to add a DBA (doing business as) with the name of my publisher.

I got on the Bowker website to purchase ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers). There are cheaper options than Bowker, but the ISBN will be with your book forever and Bowker, as the global industry standard, is accepted by everyone. You can purchase ten ISBNs, five barcodes, and one QRPlus code for $395. One ISBN and one barcode costs $150. You will need an ISBN for each format you publish.

While there are services available, including Bowker for copywriting, I opted to go through the Library of Congress. It can be done online with relative ease, but getting your number will take several weeks, as it did in my case. I added the phrase “The Library of Congress Cataloging -in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.”

After two weeks of adventure, anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty, Boys on the Edge launched onto Amazon’s website in paperback, hardback and eBook. Sales began as soon as I informed my family and friends through email and social media. I quickly ordered author copies for local bookstores, giftshops, and museums. My paperback cost is $3.59 and hardback is $8.24. If you sell directly to the public, you will need to get a sales and use tax from NC and remit sales taxes quarterly.

Cost for professional editor, copy, and exterior designers came to roughly $2,000. My software costs, the bulk of which was devoted to two websites, came to $4,000. These costs could be reduced through DIY efforts, but money in my decision to publish Boys on the Edge was cheaper than time.

When you’ve got an important work you want in the hands of readers and don’t want the gatekeepers to delay it, you may find that self-publishing is for you. Please drop me a line through my website if you have questions that haven’t been answered here.