Ahh, I think we're nearing the end. In the 1st part of this discussion, I talked about the misunderstandings I had when wanting to self-publishing houses. In the 2nd part, I explained what a self-publishing house/"vanity press" along with what one might get from cover art to editing services. We're going to close this with the final two pointers on why one may not want to pay to have their books published: Pricing, and marketing.
Pricing- I'm not talking about the price of services in this regards. I'm talking about something FAR more important, actually, and that's the price of your book. The retail price of a print copy "Prossia" is a staggering $19.99! The reason why it is that high is simple: I had no say-so in the matter. Xlibris was kind enough to print my book for me, so it's only fair that they get a cut out of it as well, right? Well of course it is, silly! ^_^
All that being said, who in the world is Raphyel M. Jordan to people? Wait, but who is Stephen King? See what just happened? You didn't even really have to think about that second name did you? So, who would you be willing to invest 20 bucks into? Some new guy that just has one current book out there, or a numerous NYT Bestselling author who has a strong and solid name in the industry? Don't feel bad. I'd go with King or any other well-established author too. ^_^
Now, when I first published "Prossia," I figured I didn't have much of a choice since this was the only way to self-publish. Oh, the things I know now. I took the the time look up how much I would've paid for "Prossia" to get printed at CreateSpace, a company that has been spoken highly of from many authors, bot indie and traditional, in my network. After putting in the number of pages I have, Prossia would have cost a little under 6.00 to print. If I recall correctly, I currently pay 15.99 for a softback copy of the book with my author discount. As an author, do you think I'd rather sell 200 books for $8.00, or 8 books for $20.00?
Marketing- You know I'm all about marketing! As previously discussed, self-publishing houses offer tons of options for you if you're willing to pay. If I take away the cost of getting my novel printed and copyedited,
I paid around $900.00 for promotional items like a press release (which didn't provide any buzz, btw), a website, 5 posters, and 50 bookmarks,business cards, and postcards, all of them being "meh" in regards to quality. I also got a web site, and 100 outlets for a press release. I would've paid twice as much, actually, but I got in during a promotion. So the usual price would have been $1800.
My website, Prossia.com (it's not up anymore), was very basic, having a basic "home" button, a page covering "Prossia's" summary, an "about the author" button, and then a paypal link. That-will-not-cut it! Content updates were not an option for my site. . . that is unless I paid an extra $87.00 for an update. So, there was that site, and now there's this site instead. See the difference? And this isn't to say that I have the best looking author site out there. Regardless, it's a place on the web where I can constantly update content, something that webbers expect out of people they expect to follow. Best of all, my newer site cost me under $100.00. All the items that I got through Xlibris could have been done on my own for roughly $200.00, $300.00 is I was feeling a little "riskaye." :P
Marketing your book doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg, guys and gals. Go to sites like the ones I listed below to get posters, business cards, bookmarks, and other things that you might need printed for your book for reasonably and competitive prices.
Make a blog or wordpress for free. Create a facebook page for free. Go around town to the local bookstore or library to see if they can help you with promoting your story. Get the word out about your book by talking to those nice book blogging people. And guess what? A lot of them do it for free ;).
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Final thoughts, as I said before, companies like Xlibris aren't scammers or anything like that by ANY MEANS. They gave me the freedom to design the book I wanted to design, and I didn't even have to go through all of the hassle of making sure my book was on sites like Amazon or B&N. Also, I learned a great deal about how to promote my book. All in all, I agreed to pay them a certain amount on items for certain services, and they delivered. For this, I will forever be grateful. Regardless, if one is willing to do a little extra research and find the right sources, you can hold on to a huge chunk of money that can go to more effective items for your book. Invest in your book, but make sure you're not tossing away finances in areas when all that needed to be done was a little more time investment. Believe me, your writing career will love ya for it. ;)
