Mark Levine - The Fine Print of Self-Publishing

Copyright 2011 by Mark Levine

Bascom Hill Publishing Group

212 3 Ave North, Suite 290

Minneapolis, MN 55401

612.455.2293

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-935098-74-4

This book is dedicated to all the authors who know there is a book inside of them. One of the most amazing publishing experiences is holding a printed and bound copy of your own book for the first time. I hope The Fine Print helps you find the right publisher for your book.

The publishing world, as you probably know, is changing so rapidly it's hard to keep up. Amazon.com has eclipsed Barnes & Noble as the largest retailer of books in the U.S. Toss in the brewing eBook turf war between Apple, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and wowthis industry is changing fast!

There are the headline-grabbing changes, and then there are the ones that affect those trying to get their books published. If you are reading this book, you probably already know that it's harder than ever to get published by a "traditional" publisher. In 2008, there were at least ten thousand fewer traditionally published titles than there were in 2007. This means that more authors are competing for fewer spots on a publisher's roster.

You should be looking at statistics like these as blessings in disguise. They force writers to abandon the notion that nabbing a contract from a traditional publisher is some kind of Holy Grail. For writers "lucky" enough to get such a contract, the reality is that most traditional publishers have small or even nonexistent marketing budgets for books by new authors. Many of these publishers make the expenses of book marketing the responsibility of the author, who gets a miniscule royalty from each sale. In most of these cases, if a title by a new author is successful, it is due to the author's efforts. Guess who makes virtually all of the money in this scenario? The publisher. Guess who spends the most time and money on the book? The author. Yes, there are exceptions to this, but the odds of being the exception are about as good as winning the Powerball.

While it's great to be a dreamer, in book publishing it's smarter to be a realist. In 2004, Nielsen Bookscan tracked the sales of 1,200,000 books through retail locations (including online retailers) in the United States. Of all books sold, 79 percent sold less than ninety-nine copies.

If you're serious about publishing your book, self-publishing (either on your own or through a good self-publishing company) might be your only optionand your best one, even if a traditional publisher were interested. The biggest growth area in book publishing is in self-publishing (and short-run titles, which may or may not be self-published). The number of self-published titles has exploded since 2002, when there were only 32,639.Yes, the marketplace is more crowded than ever before. But the opportunities to distribute and market your book have also expanded like never before.

The Internet has helped to level the playing field. It takes more than having a website and being on Facebook and Twitter to be successful online. There are many facets to successful online book marketing. The conclusion touches on a few of them but, believe me: online book marketing could fill a book by itself. If you want proof that online marketing worksyou're reading it right now. Since the first edition of The Fine Print of Self-Publishing was released in 2004, I've marketed this book exclusively online. I've never purchased an ad in a magazine, on the radio, or on television. The website for this book is search engine optimized (SEO) and ranks high on search engines for terms that I know authors looking to self-publish are using when looking for information over the internet.. I also purchase pay-per-click ads on most major search engines, which help put my book in front of people who are already searching online for information about book publishing. These things really work. Combining smart online marketing with an ebook can bring things to a whole new level. By cutting out the costs of a printed book, the postage fees, and the customer's wait for it to arrive, a nirvanic book experience can be enjoyed (except by those who prefer the smell and feel of a physical book). This isn't to say that printed books are going away. They aren't. But, the advances in ebook reading technology (like Amazon's Kindle, the Sony eReader, B&N's Nook, and Apple's iPad) have made ebooks a very real and viable way for authors to sell and distribute their books. In July 2009, ebook sales rose 213.5 percent from July 2008.

While you still need potential readers to find your book in order to sell it to them in any form, having it available in every format readers want will help. As the e-reading devices move down in price and consumers become more comfortable with curling up with them instead of an actual book, ebook sales will grow even faster. In 2009, between one and two million e-readers were shipped worldwide. If you haven't muttered "wow," go back and read the last few sentences. There is a revolution happening right before our eyes.

So, as the publishing world changes and evolves, authors like you and me have more opportunity than ever before to carve out our slice of the publishing pie without waiting for traditional publishers to open the door for us. What makes The Fine Print unique among books on self-publishing is that I've experienced the industry as an author, a book publisher, and a marketer. I know what it feels like to hold a copy of my own finished book for the first time. I also know what it takes to publish, print, and market that book. In addition to this book (and its three previous versions), I've published two of my own novels. I've made every mistake you can make in publishing and tried just about every type of marketing tool available.

Being a successful author can mean a lot of different things. For some, it's making enough money to write full time or to use the book as part of an ongoing business strategy. For others, it's having a book for your family and friends. For still others, it's the fulfillment of a dream. For me, it was a combination of all of these and has evolved over time. In August 1992, I decided I wanted to write a novel. Although my manuscript was finished by 1995, I had no idea what to do with it. In 1999, I started Click Industries, a company that does online business filings, including copyrights for authors. In putting together strategic partners for the company, I found a small book publisher who accepted my book. Sadly, the publisher went out of business in 2004.

In 2004, I published the first version of The Fine Print. Since almost everyone (well, those who read this book) asked me how I came up with the idea for The Fine Print, I'll tell you. I'm a gut-feel kind of businessman. One day I got a call from an author who had been published by the same publisher that released my first novel. He told me that he had signed a contract with a self-publishing company and wanted to get out of it. He knew that I had been a lawyer and asked if I could help. He sent me the contract. He had signed the contract despite the fact that it contained a clause that gave the self-publishing company the rights to the book for the term of the copyright. The term of a copyright is the life of the author plus seventy years. This author was a professor at the University of California-Berkley. I figured that if a professor from a top university would sign such a ridiculous contract just to be published, there must be thousands of other authors who might do the same thing.