Publishing a book non-traditionally

Cafe Society
1

Over in this thread, a poster got some advice about getting a book published through traditional channels.

What about non-traditional options?

My 80-year old father has written a book of essays on Sherlock Holmes. He’s a leading expert on Holmes, an invested member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and a published author. Ten years ago, his first book (also on Holmes) was published by a small, specialized publishing company that ran off a few thousand copies. (It is NOT a vanity press. He got a very small advance, but apparently the publisher has not broken even yet.)

He’s been considering looking for an agent to pitch his new book to publishers, but I’m not particularly optimistic that he’ll have much luck. First, the book is essentially complete, and I don’t think he’d be open to making big changes to suit a publisher.

Second, my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is that agents only submit books to one publisher at at time, and wait for a reply before going on to the next. This can take months or more at each publisher, so the whole process can take years before a publisher even agrees to take the book. Then, often, years more before it’s in print.

Dad’s in good health, but at 80, a long wait is less than ideal. And I can easily imagine spending years without getting an offer at all.

So I was thinking that some form of non-traditional publishing would be the best way to get the book in people’s hands quicker than the traditional publishing route, and perhaps putting more money in Dad’s pockets, too.

I’m doing my online research, of course, but would anyone care to express their opinions or recount their experiences with non-traditional publishing, including using a vanity press, print-on-demand, publishing to Kindle or other e-book formats, putting the whole book on the web, selling it as PDF, or anything else I haven’t thought of?

Also, if you know of any Web sites or other resources that can help us make this decision, I’d appreciate hearing about them.

Conversely, if you want to make the case for going the traditional route, we haven’t completely ruled that out.

2

Since the OP is seeking advice on publishing a book, this is probably better suited for Cafe Society than GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

3

This is generally wrong, although no one answer is ever correct in publishing. For nonfiction the general rule is to send the book to a number of publishers simultaneously. This sometimes happens for fiction as well, although agents would be more likely to send a manuscript to a particular editor who they think would like the book. Although it certainly can happen that a response from an editor can take months (the longest I know of is four years) almost nobody works that way in modern publishing. An agented submission will be looked at in a short time.

That’s also irrelevant, since no agent would look at a book of essays about Holmes. There may be a tiny few specialty houses like the one your dad published with before, but you deal with those directly. I don’t understand why he can’t go back to that publisher. Of course the book didn’t make back its advance. Who would expect it to?

So. Your alternatives.

If you can design a book yourself, you can look at short run printers (or presses). Just Google the term. They take a pdf of the text and the cover and print up copies. Costs probably range from $4-10 per copy depending on the usual million factors: length, use of color, page stock, number printed, shipping costs, etc. You can put together a basic book in Word very easily. You can do a more complex book with greater effort and swearing. There are many other programs which can be used for the purpose if you’re that type.

Or you could use the variety of PoD firms, which vary from taking a pdf from you to taking the manuscript and producing a full book. Amazon bought BookSurge, which gives them an advantage in listing books there. Amazon also has CreateSpace which seems similar to the non-Amazon Lulu.com. This approach has advantages and disadvantages. Easier to sell books online, harder to get the books into traditional bookstores, although there are ways. Costs are probably more. BookSurge charges $299 to convert a pdf and I assume that creating a design is far more. I don’t know what they charge for printing.

If you don’t want the luxury of having a physical book in your hands, putting a pdf up on the internet is easy. If you dad is already connected in Holmsian circles getting the word around should be just as easy.

It depends on what your wants, needs, desires, and expectations are. Decide those first and go from there.

4

My brother self-published a similar book on an esoteric subject (a history of the Harmony brand Guitar). It was a collection of articles he wrote for a guitar magazine; he collected them and used a press (I don’t recall if it was POD, but that doesn’t matter) to print 1000 copies, which he sold in his guitar store and via the Internet. The first edition sold out.

Your father has written the kind of book that could be a minor success at self-publishing: a nonfiction book with a small but definite audience. He should contact printers directly instead of a vanity publisher – it’ll cost him less. It’d also be good if he had a mechanism for selling the book, and a way to market it (say, a mailing list of Holmes aficionados). With work on marketing, he might break even or make a small profit.

I would think the audience for the book is too small to get an agent interested, but you could contact agents and ask. You should also try to contact small presses, especially those that have published Sherlockiana in the past.

Just remember – shop around and keep costs as low as possible.

5

I don’t understand why you don’t want to go back to the niche publisher. They published it in good faith, and probably sufficient for the market for that sort of thing. They even paid him!

How is paying someone to publish your book in any way better? If he is willing to put in the legwork to self market (which he would have to do, extensively, to realize even the slightest return from a vanity press or similar), he would be better served undertaking the same effort, with a traditional publisher on the backend.

6

Thanks, Exapno, for clearing up my misconceptions about the submission process, and to everyone else for the suggestions so far.

I didn’t do a good job describing the new book: unlike the first one, which was aimed at other Sherlockians, this one is intended specifically for general readers who aren’t familiar with Holmes. It describes how the the real Holmes differs from the common perceptions of him. (I haven’t read it myself yet, so this is just my interpretation of how it’s been described to me.)

Dad doesn’t see it as a niche work, which is why he thinks a more generalized publisher might be interested, and which is why he’s (probably) not going back to the first one.

I’ve tried to point out to him that it is not easy to market a book whose purpose is to get people interested in something they don’t know much about, and are therefore not looking to buy. But, as I said, that’s what he’s done, and it’s practically finished.

I will have to sit down with him and discuss his goals.

Any other ideas?

7

Has anyone tried electronic-only publishing? Like putting it up in the Kindle store, or other e-book formats?

8

While it is fiction, the writer of “Day by Day Armageddon” used Lulu.com for his initial run, then used a semi-popular website forum (his own site) to create enough buzz to get a second run done that was sold on Amazon, and in Barnes and Nobles (and now Border and probably many others) through Permuted Press.

Another friend printed a book (fundraiser, though I don’t believe he ever actually made any money on it) via Permuted Press, and his experience with them was quite favorable.

While they generally do fiction of the horror variety, I know they have published some RPG materials, and probably wouldn’t turn down someone offering them money…

9

In general, non-fiction books (unlike fiction ones) are not complete when they are pitched, because they often require costly research, which might not be practical to do on spec. Having a full ms clearly won’t hurt, though. In any case, time pressures mean that the author or the agent don’t send the full book, but rather a much shorter proposal and summary and a few chapters. That can be sent in parallel. If there is significant interest from several publishers, then the entire book can be sent serially. The principle is to not have a publisher waste her time on the book only to have it sold to someone else. From the agents/publishers I’ve talked to, most proposals don’t require a lot of time.

There are plenty of books out there on how to write a non-fiction book proposal.