The business of writing and selling books is a lot like a ladder. If you’re currently on the ground and you want to get higher you need to take certain steps along the way. Attempting to skip a step on the way up can be dangerous and as you get higher the consequences of failure are greater too. So if you intend to succeed as an author you need to pay attention and take things carefully.
The 6 steps we’ve identified are…
- Creativity: Coming up with good book ideas
- Viability: Identifying and finding a market for your book
- Productivity: Writing the book quickly and easily
- Tangibility: Getting your book in print – whether you plan to land a publisher or self-publish
- Publicity: Selling loads of books – including everything from publicity to distribution
- Longevity: Cashing in on your position as an author – using your newfound authority to get paid big and turning one book into a full time income
…so where are you now?
Stuck at The Bottom: Steps 1 to 3
If you’re hanging around at the bottom of the ladder (steps 1 to 3) your publishing project will be costing you time, energy and money but will not bring in a single penny of income. Too many people stay here for far too long but the reality is that you can’t afford to. Doing loads of competitor and market research, or obsessing over your pitch, or taking too long to get it written will all lead to more up-front cost for you and a bigger up-front investment you need to recoup from sales in order to break even – let alone make any real money.
Stuck in the Middle: Step 4
If your book project stalls here – you could have real trouble. Not only have you invested time, energy and possibly money up front but if you fail to get your big idea into the hands of prospective buyers then there is zero chance that your hard work is going to pay off.
At this stage your options are…
- Land a deal with a Mainstream Publisher – if you’re after kudos over profits or the thought of sorting out ISBNs, book cover designs, editing, typesetting and distribution yourself scares you – then this is the way to go. While you don’t get to keep 100% of the profit (most mainstream publishers are seen as generous if they give you 5% but my own company pays up to 40% – which I think is unique) you aren’t taking a whole lot of the up-front risk either. But – if you have dreams of a nice fat advance then dream on – many publishers are doing away with this model – so unless you’re already a celeb – you’re not very likely to get one.
- Self-Publish - my preferred approach – especially for non-fiction – as you get to keep control and keep 100% of the profit. Of course you also take 100% of the risk too and there’s a lot of work to do in the early stages before you’ll see a penny back. With more and more Print on Demand (POD) companies springing up – self-publishing is getting easier – but as you’ll see the work only really begins when the book is in print. You’ll also need to be ready for some hard work and a steep learning curve – but that’s why Publishing Academy is here – right?
- Pay to Publish - whether they call themselves collaborative publishers, subsidy publishers or co-operative publishers – the simple fact is – this business is really just vanity publishing. As if the cost of getting this far isn’t great enough many of these companies charge more than they’re worth up-front and then make a huge markup selling your own books to you. No matter what they say – you’ll still have to market the hell out of your book and you’ll have a bigger hill to climb to break even. Only recommended for hobbyists – with few genuine success stories.
Stuck With A Book: Step 5
Sadly – this is where most authors end up stuck. You have a great book – you’ve invested loads of time, energy and possibly money (if not yours then your publishers), it’s out there but it’s just not selling.
To be honest – some books are doomed to stay here – especially if you didn’t pay enough attention to finding your market. It doesn’t matter how good a book is – if a market doesn’t exist for it – then you ain’t gonna sell it!
But what if there is a huge market? What if the content in your book really answers that market’s need? What if it’s not selling then? This will usually be a result of one or all of the following problems…
- The author is not doing enough active promotion. As someone who’s been on both sides of the fence I get really sick of whingy whiny authors blaming their publisher for not promoting their book. They took a risk in getting it published and if they’re a reputable publisher they didn’t charge you for that service. It’s your book. It’s your profile. It’s YOUR responsibility to get it selling. If you don’t know how – that’s what we’re here for! But never forget – make no excuses – all successful authors – with few exceptions – got there by taking responsibility for promotion and taking consistent action to get their book selling.
- The book’s packaging is awful. This includes a poor book cover (the cover is the number 1 selling device you have so don’t leave it amateurs), a poor book blurb (if your book doesn’t tell readers what’s in it for them – but instead bores them to tears your book will struggle), incorrect pricing (it doesn’t have to be cheap but it does need to fit your market’s expectations and budget), rubbish or non-existent endorsements (social proof sells – so get some!) Unfortunately – most self-publishers cut corners on packaging but it’s a key to success so invest the time and energy where it matters and use experts here. The only companies that consistently create covers inferior to the amateur self-publisher is vanity presses – they’ll either throw a clip art cover together (and charge you) or let you send them any old crud!
- The distribution is wrong. If your book is not featured where people go to buy books it’s going to be hard. Selling your own book – unless you’ve got a very high-value product and you are an expert direct marketer is stupid! We closed down our own online bookshop because we quickly realised it wasn’t worth competing with Amazon and Barnes & Noble for sales when we could instead focus on driving all our sales through them. People trust them. They’re a better book retailer than us. They employ loads of people to pack orders, send books and handle returns. They have their own merchant accounts. Sure we could keep an extra 35% of the profit by selling direct – but we’d also need to employ full time staff to check orders and dispatch books if we wanted to provide a good service! It’s simply not worth it. I’d personally focus on the killer apps for book sales – Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble – first and then look at offline bookshops second.
Even when you think you’re selling loads of books beware returns. My own publishing company currently operates a firm-sale-only policy. While this limits our reach with some offline retailers – we refuse to put our cash-flow and stock at risk by accepting this out-dated and un-fair practice.
Stuck With Sales But No (or Low) Income: Step 6
Most authors never get past this point. Selling loads of books is one thing. And if you’ve controlled costs, negotiated a decent royalty (anything less than 10% is going to be small change unless you strike it lucky) and done the promotion right you’ll be making an income from your book. But it’s probably not quite as much as you’d like.
So what do you do?
You could write and publish another 10 or more books until the combined income from all of them is enough to make you wealthy and happy. That’s one strategy (and it’s a fine strategy) employed by many rich and successful publishers. But I won’t lie. Each time you step on the ladder you’re taking a risk with your time, energy and money and, at some level, you’ll be playing a numbers game. Some books will do well – others will be fantastic flops! In most cases your successes will end up funding your failures – so you’ll have worked much harder for only a little more income.
I have another approach however. If you actually start your book project with this sixth step in mind – you can construct every aspect of your book and it’s marketing to lead to big rewards for you as the book becomes more popular. When you know this secret you’ll realise that the real money in books isn’t in books at all…
You’ll find out more about this inside…
