The sad news for the book publishing industry is that book store sales are down. One of the biggest book publishers have recently reported that their book store sales are down by a whopping 10%! This is all scary news for publishers and most of them have already started evasive action against this down turn in sales.
Some publishing companies have already gone out of business while others have started cutting back on the number of books they publish. And even others have stopped accepting new book manuscripts altogether.
But if you were considering self publishing your own book, don’t be disheartened because all this news of lower book sales is great news for the self published author, or anyone thinking about self publishing.
You see most self published authors never see their books available through book stores, unless customers order it. Some self published authors never expect to see their books sitting on book store shelves and have still become millionaire authors.
The trend in book sales now is that more and more people are buying their books online. Online book stores will happily list self published books on their web sites because they don’t need to stock them so if they don’t make a sale then nothing is lost.
You see most self published books are sold by POD (Print On Demand). This means that unless someone specifically orders a copy of your book - through a book store or an online store - your book isn’t printed.
So self publishing through POD means that you don’t have to keep a huge stock of you books and they can be sold all over the world automatically.
But how many book sales can you get using POD publishing?
Well, that obviously depends of the popularity of your book and how well it’s marketed.
And with all the big publishing companies struggling to make sales now, you may wonder what hope there is for the self published author. And there answer is that there is more hope than ever for the self published author to prosper.
You see the problem with the big publishing houses is that they have so many overheads (stock, premises, staff, transport, etc) that they need to make huge book sales to survive. So if they publish a book they need to feel reasonably confident that they will sell tens of thousands of copies.
Whereas the self published author will be happy with less sales.
If you want to look at it as dollars and cents consider this:
If you self published a book and sold it through online book stores, libraries, etc and you sold only 2,000 copies per year. To a publishing company that would be disastrous. But to the self published author who is earning around $10 or more per book , it is good news, even with so few sales.
And if you wrote several books and sold 2,000 copies or more of each book every year, you’d be earning in excess of $100,000 a year. And remember that selling 2,000 books a year is actually very low sales, and you could easily sell twice that many.
And the more books you write, the more book you can sell. We all have favourite authors and will usually buy all the books they write. So if you could write and publish several books and build up a loyal fan base, then the number of books you could sell is unlimited.
But don’t take my word for it. Self publishing a book costs very little and is easy to do. If you know the steps to publishing a book, know which companies you can use to help you and know how to market your book with minimal effort and outlay, then you could write book after book and feel safe in the knowledge that every one of them will be published.
So take advantage of the of the currently publishing climate and start publishing all your own books.
Can you imagine how great it would be to work at home as a self published author and wave goodbye to the 9-to-5 rat race forever?
Ruth Barringham
http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/there-has-never-been-a-better-time-to-self-publish-your-own-books-674315.html
dazi369 on February 17th, 2010 at 11:31 pm says:
Publishing children's books?
I have written several children’s books throughout the years. I never tried to publish them because of lack of self confidence. Well, I was laid off about three weeks ago and it seems like it’s now time to start. Plus, I have another dream I need to help fund. I have been up and down with the "Writers Market" and frankly it’s too much information. A complete concise book on all the steps would be great. From format, query letter, submission, to acceptance and contractual agreements. I am not interested in ebooks or self publishing ,as I can’t afford that. So what are my alternatives? Is there a publishing house that’s more likely to accept them or do you think selling them in magazines such as Highlights would be a good idea? I have a book called "Formatting your Manuscript" but it’s not very helpful for childrens writing. Thanks everyone.
Persiphone_Hellecat on February 18th, 2010 at 4:33 am says:
This is the most difficult area of publishing to break into. I just finished ghostwriting two children’s books for a very major publisher (one of the giants) and a celebrity who shall go unnamed.
This is how the children’s book market breaks down right now.
1) About 40% of the market is controlled by celebrities like Madonna, Jamie Lee Curtis etc. Celebrity kids books sell.
2) Another 40% is controlled by tried and true kids authors like Eric Carle etc. They sell too.
3) Another 15 - 20% is controlled by reprints of classic kids books like Curious George etc. They sell also.
That leaves at best 5% for new authors. And lately adult authors like Carl Hiaasen and one of those Higgins Clark women have entered the kids market - reducing your 5% and practically slamming the door on new authors.
In addition, major publishers like the one I write for have huge backlogs of books they have contracted with but haven’t gotten out yet. Kids books take a LONG time to come out.
Therefore, many major publishers including the one I write for have stopped even reading kids books. As a result, agents don’t want to read it either. Not if they can’t sell it.
Unless it is a very exceptional book, it doesn’t have much of a chance in the current market. Spend an hour in Barnes and Noble’s kids dept. and note what books are there. It will confirm this information. You will see almost exactly the breakdown I have described here. I got that info from an exec at the publisher I write for.
The best you can hope for is to go to the library and get a copy of LIterary Marketplace from the research section and start studying it. Search for smaller publishers who are still looking for kids books. Make notes - you cannot check the book out. Then go online and google the heck out of the names and make sure you don’t find any bad info about them. Visit Preditors and Editors and Absolute Write Water Cooler Bewares and Background Checks for info on the baddies out there. There are many.
Make sure you do not send any material to anybody until you are sure they are legit. Otherwise it is lost to you. Then follow submission guidelines and go for it. It is a terribly hard market to break into. A couple books with a small company may help open the doors a little bit for you later on.
Authors have to do research. You have to go to a bookstore and learn your market. Find out what sells and what doesn’t. One more hint … forget about holiday type books all together. They have too short a selling time and publishers are flooded with them. They get declined first.
Hope that helps. Even though it is not great news. Pax - C
References :
Author of 4 novels. Ghostwriter of two children’s books for a very major sports figure already sold to a major publisher (first due out in Spring). Teacher of CW from ages 6 - college and beyond.