David Gaughran has another excellent blog post up, this time about publishing in general and something that most newbies don’t realize when they first start out. From his post:
I’m saying that when a newbie has been convinced that self-publishing is hard or expensive the chances of them falling into the clutches of a third-party which will result in a poor outcome increase exponentially. Because they’ll take any kind of deal, or sign up with any fly-by-night outfit, or engage one of the vanity presses masquerading as a self-publishing company.
So we need to get the message out. Yes, writing is hard, but these third parties will give you no help there. And yes, marketing can be tricky, but that’s probably going to fall on you no matter what path you choose.
Publishing, on the other hand, is easy.
I’ve found this to be exactly the case, and it’s one of the reasons why I’ve decided to stick with the indie publishing path.
Publishing is easy. Publishing is fun, in fact. There’s a lot of hair-pulling when you first start out, but once you get over the initial learning curve, it’s a blast. These people selling “self-publishing packages” are almost all scammers, especially if they’re charging more than $1,000.
Marketing is an aspect of this business that currently eludes me. Even so, I’m still doing all right. I’ve been making a profit since 2012, and I’m currently about halfway to making a full-time living at this. With the whims of the market, that could change at any moment, but there’s still a lot of room for things to go up so I’m not too worried.
As for writing, well, that’s probably always going to be hard. I tend to self-edit a lot as I write, so hopefully nanowrimo will help me out with that. Once you’ve found your voice and gotten the basics of your craft, you have to learn to let go and let the story happen, which is something I struggle with.
Right now, I’m having a hard time with putting out a consistent word count. That’s probably the hardest part of taking the indie path–keeping yourself from getting spread too thin. I’m trying to get print versions of the Star Wanderers novellas out on Amazon (Outworlder is already out! Get it here!), so that’s taking a fair amount of time and energy, even though I’m taking it slow. Really, though, I wonder how much of it is just fear or self-doubt or other writerly angst that pops up from time to time. It’s a constant struggle.
But publishing? Publishing is easy. Give me a manuscript, and I can turn it into a fully functional, well formatted ebook in less than an hour. For a print book, I can do the typesetting and cover design over a long weekend if I’ve got nothing else going on. Easily. And from there, it’s just a matter of uploading to Amazon / Smashwords / wherever, filling out the metadata fields, and clicking the button that says “publish.”
There is nothing about the technical aspects of publishing that a writer can’t learn how to do for himself. If you can publish a blog, you can publish an ebook. The only reason to pay someone to do it for you is if the opportunity cost of taking the time to learn is too high, which is only really the case if you’re a highly paid professional at something else and writing isn’t your main career. Even so, it’s not hard to find someone (like me!) who can do a good job for $50 or less.
It’s kind of like the Irish tinwhistle. Sure, you can pay through the nose for a limited edition collector’s piece (which probably has a very generic sound), but the best ones cost less than $20 and look like they’ve been used as a doorstop for a while. The quality of the sound does not correlate at all with the price–in fact, you’re more likely to get a better instrument if you don’t pay through the nose. You can even make your own!
In fact, there are a lot of similarities between self-publishing and playing the Irish tinwhistle. You can teach yourself how to do it, pick up tips and tricks by hanging out with other unwashed, self-taught musicians, learn all sorts of tunes or make up your own, and play it any way you like. You can play for pennies in the park, beers in a pub, or go for gold and hit the big time.
Dang–now I really want to get back into Irish music again! One dream at a time, Joe–one dream at a time.
But yeah, publishing is easy–not to mention, fun!
I have to disagree with your “$500 is too much” statement. It depends on what the package entails and who you’re getting it from. Honestly, paying substandard copyediting rates according to the Editorial Freelancers Association, $500 gets you a copyedit for about 200 ms pages. I’ve seen freelance editors who do it for cheaper, a lot cheaper, but if you know what a real edit takes and you do the math, they’re getting crap money (I’ve seen some who are apparently working for less than minimum wage … or they’re not reading carefully enough). That may work for some people, but if that person has a family to support, insurance to buy (which freelancers must do on their own), etc., etc., you really shouldn’t be working for less than minimum wage. For reals.
Also, if you’re getting full cover illustration and you’re paying professional rates, you should also expect numbers in that range or higher. Yeah, you can find people for less, but you’re often getting artists who aren’t making a living off their work yet. If you’re making a living off of it, you’re charging more than $50 bucks, and it’s paying for years of unpaid practice, not to mention inherent skill. If you expect to work with professionals, you should be willing to pay what professionals earn and need.
I’ll agree that for really simple formatting for print and ebook, it really shouldn’t cost too much, and you can indeed pick up the skills if you research and have the time to learn. (I will point out that you, Joe, already had HTML and CSS experience, so learning ebooks for you was easier than it would be for many others for whom these are foreign languages.) But again, it depends on your genre and the necessary or wanted styling, and for the level of design depth you want for your book. I know designers who will mock up 4-5 possible layouts, then ask for feedback from the author, then hone one and make it even more awesome. Most novels don’t need that, but some, especially experimental ones, could really use it.
I guess what I’m saying is that you should know what you’re paying for. If you pay a lot of money, be sure you’re getting quality. I’m not saying you should pay for hacks to do hack work. But quality can cost a lot of money. And a lot of the time it’s worth it. An illustrator friend I have does absolutely stunning work, and her process is such that you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a product you love. That is and should be worth more than $50.
There are some things its worth having professionals do. And if you want to earn a living off of what you love, you should be willing to pay people to make a living off doing what they love and off helping you do what you love. Fair’s fair.
All right, for longer novels, I’ll amend that cap to $1,000. But not all books are going to go that high–shorter stuff, like novellas and short novels, really shouldn’t go anywhere near that territory. As for the other stuff:
Cover art: Original art is going to cost some money, but there are plenty of good cover designers who offer their services for under $150. Also, graphic design is not that difficult to learn, and stock images are plentiful and cheap. If you want to go all out with photoshop and adobe illustrator, that’s going to cost some, but there are open source equivalents that are free and do just as well.
Formatting: HTML and CSS are not difficult to learn. You can do so for free at w3schools.com, and there are any number of open source HTML editors and other free options for software. It’s going to take time and may cause some frustration at first, but if you know how to use a computer or how to run a blog, you can do it. And even if you don’t want to, there’s no reason I can see to pay more than $100 for ebook formatting, even for a really fancy design with special fonts and interior images.
Editing: You’re definitely going to want at least one proofreader, and maybe a copy editor for a longer book (or a series). And you should definitely pay more than minimum wage for quality work, which is going to put you over $500 for a longer novel. But developmental edits … honestly, that’s what alpha readers are for. Perhaps some writers need them, but if you understand the basics of story structure and you have plenty of guinea pigs who will give you an honest reaction, that’s something you can figure out on your own. And even with proofreading, you can barter services with other writers in a pinch.
Also, there’s a big difference between seeking out freelancers for each individual stage of the production, and just handing over a bunch of money for a “package deal.” Most of those packages really are scams, going upwards of $5,000 to even $10,000. There’s absolutely no reason I can see for inserting a middleman between you and the people who do the work of producing your novel. It isn’t difficult to work with freelancers yourself, unless you have so much social anxiety that talking with a person over email is difficult for you. But if that’s the case, publishing a book is going to be the least of your problems.
For a novella or a short novel, I honestly don’t think it’s worth it to spend more than $500. For a long novel, you might go a bit higher, but if you’re smart about it I don’t see any reason to flirt with anything higher than $1,000. And if you want to take a pure DIY approach and barter services for the stuff like proofreading that requires a second pair of eyes, it’s a little more complicated but not overly difficult.
Regarding cover art: Yes, there are great artists who will do original illustration for $150. But it is not absurd or anomalous for them to charge more, especially if they have a process that involves sketches and revisions. Also, for your “graphic design is not that difficult to learn,” comment, I’ll grant that some basic design skills are not difficult to acquire, especially if you spend the time analyzing and assessing existing successful design. But a really good designer, who does many, many pre-design sketches to make sure they’re getting it JUST RIGHT, has probably had more than a crash course, and their work shows it. I have seen many, many self-published covers that I’m able to pick out based on their typography alone. Not because the typography was in-your-face terrible, but it wasn’t beautiful or eye-catching or elegant either. Getting the good stuff takes time and practice.
No, HTML and CSS are not particularly difficult to learn if you have a certain degree of comfort with technology. Not everyone has that, and even if you do, you may not have the time (or desire) to put in the effort to really understand the markup requirements, possibilities, and limitations. That’s why I think putting your stamp of publishing “should” only cost such-and-such is disingenuous. YOU have time and skills that make it possible to do a lot of this on your own. That doesn’t mean other people who don’t have the time or skills are overpaying or being stupid with their money if they pay more than the numbers you’ve put out. You said in your post that needing to pay for such things “only really the case if you’re a highly paid professional at something else and writing isn’t your main career,” but this discounts all sorts of other circumstances that might make it more worthwhile for someone to pay another individual to do this. Money is not the only measure of value, and some people value their time more than their money. That isn’t a terrible thing, and it isn’t something that is only based on being BOTH a high-paid professional AND an on-the-side writer. (Also, why this brushing off of on-the-side fiction writers? Fiction writers have, by and large, been an on-the-side sort of bunch for hundreds of years, and many like it that way.)
Bartering services is all fine and good, and using alpha readers is fine–I really don’t have a problem with this in principle. But I also know that even I–a professional freelance editor–often work differently when I’m doing something I see as a favor and something I see as a job. When I am working for a client, I approach the job differently than I do as a buddy. Sometimes the quality you’re getting from a service swap or writing group is good enough, but it’s not stupid or ridiculous to want a professional, hired-on party helping with your book.
I agree that there are a lot of package-deal scams out there that prey on misinformed writers. That is terrible. I think it’s great when people contact freelancers (or even companies) themselves and find people they really trust and really want to work with. But spreading more misinformation about how people are absurd if they’re spending more than $X for so many words is also less than awesome. It discounts craftsmanship, for one thing. It also discounts individual circumstances, desires, and capabilities. Isn’t that customizability one of the charms of self-publishing? Making your publishing system fit your circumstances? I don’t vehemently disagree with the premise of your post, just in the way you presented it. You present your method as sole fact, but your method is tailored to your unique circumstances, and like most publishing paths, should not be generalized for every author or even every book by a given author. That’s disingenuous for most people involved.