Publishers Question [self publishing options?]

Cathy McDowell · May 29, 2012

I am new, I mean a month new. I have written 11 short stories to date and am thinking about self publishing.

Has anyone gone this route and if so, what was your experience and who did you use if you don't mind sharing.

There are so many to chose from and I found one who claims they sell to over 25,000 stores including on line, BAM, Barnes & Noble along with Target, Walmart and the like.

Thanks for any input.

Smish · May 29, 2012

First of all, be sure you don't get scammed by a vanity press (a pay-to-play publisher). Check the Bewares, Recommendations and Background Check section here at AW. A look at the Self Publishing and POD room may also prove worthwhile.

I'll let others with self-publishing experience weigh in on the pros and cons of the various self-publishing options.

Good luck! And welcome to AW. :hi:

ETA: I'm going to modify your title a bit to make it clear you're asking about self publishing options (I'll just add [self publishing options?] to your current title).

Cathy McDowell · May 29, 2012

Smish said:
First of all, be sure you don't get scammed by a vanity press (a pay-to-play publisher). Check the Bewares, Recommendations and Background Check section here at AW. A look at the Self Publishing and POD room may also prove worthwhile.

I'll let others with self-publishing experience weigh in on the pros and cons of the various self-publishing options.

Good luck! And welcome to AW.

ETA: I'm going to modify your title a bit to make it clear you're asking about self publishing options.

Thanks, that title does sound better. I've been doing my homework and so far I haven't found any negative feedback on them.

I'm all over the net so anyone hearing of my name can google me. I blog, do facebook an have a website.
All are included with my signature.

My genre is "realistic fiction"
I find that realistic works best for me. Unrealistic is too,
well, unrealistic.

Polenth · May 29, 2012

The self publishing forum has more than you could ever need about self publishing. But as some general advice...

The company you've listed in other threads is a vanity publisher. You don't need to wait to hear bad news, because that's already bad news. Vanity publishers make you pay more than the services are worth. Your best bet is to go for an actual self publishing company, where they only charge essential costs (like buying your ISBN) and you find and hire cover artists, editors, etc. CreateSpace and Lulu are two popular ones.

Do go into it realistically. Few self published authors sell many copies at all, and the breakout successes tend to be novelists. A lot of short writers publish a collection at some point or other (usually after they've had some sales elsewhere), but it's more something to aim for because it's fun. Then if it is successful, you have a pleasant surprise.

Cathy McDowell · May 30, 2012

Polenth said:
The self publishing forum has more than you could ever need about self publishing. But as some general advice...

The company you've listed in other threads is a vanity publisher. You don't need to wait to hear bad news, because that's already bad news. Vanity publishers make you pay more than the services are worth. Your best bet is to go for an actual self publishing company, where they only charge essential costs (like buying your ISBN) and you find and hire cover artists, editors, etc. CreateSpace and Lulu are two popular ones.

Do go into it realistically. Few self published authors sell many copies at all, and the breakout successes tend to be novelists. A lot of short writers publish a collection at some point or other (usually after they've had some sales elsewhere), but it's more something to aim for because it's fun. Then if it is successful, you have a pleasant surprise.

I have used lulu. Not a place I would recommend to anyone. I went to createspace and didn't like their site.
Lulu is easy to use BUT, in order to sell your book, you have to price it at a comparable price therefore you make 4 cents on each sale.
I am on there now with individual stories, I will remove them when I publish OR I will publish my collection with them just to keep my name out there.

You called them a vanity publisher. You recommended lulu. Now I'm more confused than ever. The vanity publisher will distribute my book where lulu doesn't.

Too many choices . . . . I am writing a collection, my goal is to publish it in Sept so the book will be available for Christmas.

phineas12gauge · May 30, 2012

What brought you to self-publishing as opposed to the more traditional short story route: write story, edit, submit to suitable market.

Collections of short stories are hard-sells unless you have an established name.

I talked with quite a few self-pubbers on another forum and the one thing they had in common; if they had a short-story collection, it had the worst sales.

Polenth · May 30, 2012

Vanity publishers know how to talk the talk. They'll make what they're offering sound amazing, when it's not any better than what you can do yourself with an online POD printer (which is what the self publishing sites really are... they're printers for your book). Vanities are not going to tell you that you can get in the same bookstores yourself or via a self publishing service, or that their books are going to be very highly priced (because they use POD too, and they're not going to take a hit on profit to bring the price down).

Asking the same question in lots of places, in the hopes someone will tell you it's a good idea, is not helpful. We're not saying it to be meanies. We're saying it because vanity costs a lot for things you can get for free or cheaply elsewhere.

Vanity publishers are good at making their system look easy, but you don't need the easiest route. You need the best route, and that is going to have a learning curve to it.

Cathy McDowell · May 30, 2012

Polenth said:
Vanity publishers know how to talk the talk. They'll make what they're offering sound amazing, when it's not any better than what you can do yourself with an online POD printer (which is what the self publishing sites really are... they're printers for your book). Vanities are not going to tell you that you can get in the same bookstores yourself or via a self publishing service, or that their books are going to be very highly priced (because they use POD too, and they're not going to take a hit on profit to bring the price down).

Asking the same question in lots of places, in the hopes someone will tell you it's a good idea, is not helpful. We're not saying it to be meanies. We're saying it because vanity costs a lot for things you can get for free or cheaply elsewhere.

Vanity publishers are good at making their system look easy, but you don't need the easiest route. You need the best route, and that is going to have a learning curve to it.

I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you.
I know someone who did self publication and was given boxes of books to sell on her own. That is what I don't want.

shadowwalker · May 30, 2012

Have you also considered magazines/journals/etc? You might have more success going that route than trying to publish a collection. I'd start with Duotrope for possibles.

Cathy McDowell · May 30, 2012

shadowwalker said:
Have you also considered magazines/journals/etc? You might have more success going that route than trying to publish a collection. I'd start with Duotrope for possibles.

Done that too. It takes up to 5 months before knowing if they're interested.

I have read a ton of articles concerning short story collections.
I have also been seeing the opposite from what I read here.
It's a 6 of 1 . . half dozen of the other scenario.

Katrina S. Forest · May 30, 2012

Cathy McDowell said:
I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you.
I know someone who did self publication and was given boxes of books to sell on her own. That is what I don't want.

I mentioned this is your other thread but "available in bookstores" does not mean "on a book store shelf." It means someone could special order the book. And it's something you could set up yourself without paying hundreds of dollars upfront.

There's tons of deceptive language like this that some vanity presses use to entice writers to buy overpriced publishing packages.

Yes, waiting for a response from a magazine can take a long time, though Duotrope lists average response times for every market. You can always refuse to submit to places that take too long. But the long wait is why most short story writers have several stories they're trying to sell at once. I've backed off short stories for the moment, but when I was actively writing them, I had about four or five under consideration at any one time. If I got a rejection, the story went right to the next market on the list.

I'm not saying you have to submit to magazines. If you've decided that's not the route for you, then fine. But if self-publishing is your choice, you need to learn what that means and what your options are. You need to build realistic goals and expectations. You need to have a plan for how you're going to spend money wisely. Otherwise, you're an easy victim for every publishing scam out there.

drachin8 · May 30, 2012

Two of my friends have self-published short stories.

Friend 1: He chose a single story that he had sold to an extremely reputable market. He waited for the rights to expire on that story so that he could self-pub it (having already been paid quite nicely for the first publication of it). He then did all the research on formatting it himself and registering it with all the pertinent sell sites, and he then published it. He definitely did not pay a vanity publisher. Since then, he's made some money on the story (after paying for a few select advertising campaigns) and has learned a lot for publishing his next story. Should he do another story, though, he will likely follow the same process--sell it to a reputable market to get paid for first rights, then let those expire after publication, and THEN self-publish the story to try to make some extra money off of it.

Friend 2: She chose to self-publish a short story collection. A majority of the short stories had already been sold and published in reputable markets, and a few of the short stories were new "rewards" for readers buying the collection. She did her research, designed a great cover (she has some solid art skills), did her layouts and everything else on her own. She advertised through friends and word of mouth. She has done moderately well (considering short story collections honestly don't sell anywhere remotely near as well as novels, with occasional exceptions). If she does this again, she will likely follow a similar process, a process that again does not pay a vanity publisher for things she can do herself.

There are two key similarities between these two friends. First, their stories had already sold and made them money and an audience elsewhere. Second, they both did their research and put together their self-published titles on their own because they knew that, given the low returns on short stories and collections in the self-pub market, spending money on a vanity operation would be a waste. Not to mention, they are both strong believers in Writers Beware and in avoiding operations that make deceptive promises in return for making everything "easy".

When self-pubbing, you have to be smart with every penny you have if you want to maximize what you're going to get back and not come out at a loss. Money has to be spent, but it's up to you to spend it on the smart things that will help you and not on things that only serve to eat into your profit.

I, on the other hand, have not ventured into that distant land yet. I am still happily submitting and selling stories in the traditional market. I might go for a collection in a year or two, in which case, I will probably hit up Friend 2 for her full experiences and advice in addition to doing my own deep delving and research.

-Michelle

Buffysquirrel · May 30, 2012

Cathy McDowell said:
I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you.

Look at the language carefully. Does it say 'available in stores'? If so, all that means is it can be ordered through stores by people who already know about it. It does not mean the book will be on the shelf where anyone browsing in the store will see it.

phineas12gauge · May 30, 2012

Cathy McDowell said:
I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you.
.

Beyond putting it into the stores, what other details do they give regarding promotion?

As you know, there is a lot more to promotion than distribution ...

alimay · May 30, 2012

Hi Cathy.

I'm another one who'll advise you to take a step back and be very, VERY careful. Self/vanity-pubbing can be a very efficient way of losing a lot of money, if you ddo't know what you're doing, so please be careful.

I would strongly advise you to try submitting your short stories to magazines first, and then look at self-pubbing (maybe by Kindle) after all reprint possibilities have been exhausted. Yes, it can take time. Yes, it can be slow. But avoiding this wait is like searching for a quick-fix diet pill -- chances are it won't work in the long-term.

It sounds like what you write could be described as Womag type women's interest fiction (Womag = women's magazines), so I'd also STRONGLY suggest taking a look at this blog:
http://womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk/
which has a great deal of info about writing for Womag markets such as Women's Weekly, Take a Break and the People's Friend (it's UK based, but those abroad can still submit stories).

Womag fiction is about the only genre where us Brits have an advantage over the US (as in the range of homegrown markets to submit to, I mean).

Ali

jaksen · May 30, 2012

That publisher looks like vanity to me. Ask them where the physical books will be available - and placed - as on a shelf in a bookstore. Or, try a few bookstores yourself and see if any of their books are physically there. Also, ask the staff or owner of the store if they purchase books from this publisher and put them on their shelves.

I doubt they do; however they probably will say they can order books for you from them.

A vanity publisher will publish anyone's books who has the money to cover the costs, plus profit for the publisher. That's how they make their money and there is a place for these publishers. A fellow who writes his memoirs and wants say, 40 copies for family and friends. He'll pay to have these books available and then sell them to friends or just give them away.

Maybe a teacher who wants to write a specific text for students, then charges the students --- hmm, might be a bad example.

You are better off, imo, following the path that successful self-publishers have taken, OR, submit your stories to magazines and get them in a legit publication first. Your stories seem to be Christian in nature. I am sure there are Christian magazines which might want to take a look at your stories - or Christian publishers which are NOT vanity that would read your stories. If they like them and think they will sell, they will edit them where and when needed and put them on the shelves of Christian (and other) bookstores.

Do not be lured into doing things too fast because you are too anxious for your stories to be out there.

Ummm, addendum: this is advice from a published (the traditional way) short story writer.

Torgo · May 30, 2012

Cathy McDowell said:
I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you.

You need to ask them exactly how they intend to 'put it into stores'. Assuming you are talking about physical bookshops - they don't have to carry your book. The books you see on shelves are there because a bookstore buyer was sold it by a sales team working for a publisher. A bookstore only has limited shelf-space, so they have to be choosy about what they stock.

Most books, historically, have essentially been sold in twos and threes, in person, door-to-door. If a 'publisher' doesn't have a sales team - essentially, a person or group of people who go tirelessly from meeting to meeting and store to store trying to get people to carry your book - then I'd argue that they aren't actually a publisher at all. And again, no publisher can guarantee that your book will be stocked, which is one of the very dicey things about the business.

Do look out for "available in all stores" - a classic euphemism for "we will allocate an ISBN to your book so that people can order it if they want", which isn't at all the same thing, and which you can easily do yourself without giving away any rights in your work.

Old Hack · May 30, 2012

Cathy McDowell said:
I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you.
I know someone who did self publication and was given boxes of books to sell on her own. That is what I don't want.

I believe the publisher concerned is Schiel & Denver. Our BR&BC thread about them is here.

Discussion of S&D's relative merits belongs in that thread, not in this one: but having glanced through the S&D website I do not believe that they actively sell the books they publish to physical bookshops. They might well produce an emailed catalogue which gets sent out every now and then: but this is not the same, and is extremely unlikely to get their books onto the shelves.

Deleted member 42 · May 30, 2012

Cathy McDowell said:
I need a publisher who will promote my book and this one does that. They put it into the stores for you

No they don't. They get it listed in a single ordering system. The stores won't order the book unless a customer orders a copy, and in many stores, pays in advance.

They don't distribute it. They don't, in fact, do anything that you couldn't do yourself with respect to distribution.

You don't want a publisher who won't take returns, if your goal it to have your book in stores.

You also want a publisher who is known to you because you've read their books, see them in your local book stores, and in the library.

veinglory · May 30, 2012

I can guarantee you they will not cause your book to be physically stocked in Target and Walmart. I am not even sure that I believe they can get them on their websites. I would suggest going with a printer and distributor who makes less misleading promises. Where they make a claim, check it. Pick a recently released book under there banner and see where it is stocked.

The vanity will not do any more than Lulu/Createspace does. They are just more willing to lie about it.

Smish · May 30, 2012

Others have said everything I would have regarding vanity presses and the trickster language they use ("available in bookstores," indeed). But I wanted to address this:

Cathy McDowell said:
Done that too. It takes up to 5 months before knowing if they're interested.

So? Why the rush?

Traditional publishing takes time. 5 months actually isn't a very long time to wait for a response. And you'll get a ton of rejections; all writers do. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Weigh your options carefully. Do your research. There's nothing wrong with self-publishing, but you need to really weigh the pros and cons. Please don't go with a vanity publisher; you'll just be wasting your money. Again, you must absolutely do your research.

jaksen · May 30, 2012

I want to second what Smish said up there. Five months is NOTHING. A drop in the ocean of time. Keep writing, keep submitting and the time will go. It really does. I've waited over a year to get a nay or a yeah on a story, and it's been well worth the wait. What do I do in the meantime? I just keep writing.

And if you're 'older' - I don't know your age - keep in mind that many a time, and sadly so, the younger among us don't outlive the older. I recently read about a highly talented, young (22 year old) aspiring writer and journalist who died a few days again in a car crash in my region. She wrote the most amazing blog. She thought she had years and years to perfect her craft and try different jobs and things and alas, she did not.

Back to topic: just keep writing, no matter what else you do.

victoriakmartin · May 31, 2012

A friend of mine published a book on Lulu and she has gotten said book carried in local bookstores herself. Plus she's promoted it with readings and online and other things.

I get that you want to find a publisher who will do this for you but if you go this route, I do not think you are likely to find that because that's not what self-publishing does. Going this route means you will be responsible for getting interest up but word of mouth can be pretty powerful.

Cathy McDowell · May 31, 2012

Okay, I heard you all. I won't go that route. Which site does anyone prefer between createspace or lulu?

Cathy McDowell · May 31, 2012

i_paint_the_sky said:
A friend of mine published a book on Lulu and she has gotten said book carried in local bookstores herself. Plus she's promoted it with readings and online and other things.

I get that you want to find a publisher who will do this for you but if you go this route, I do not think you are likely to find that because that's not what self-publishing does. Going this route means you will be responsible for getting interest up but word of mouth can be pretty powerful.

I agree! I've been reading A LOT!!

Publishers Question [self publishing options?]

Cathy McDowell

Smish

Reads more than she writes.

Cathy McDowell

Polenth

Mushroom

Cathy McDowell

phineas12gauge

Polenth

Mushroom

Cathy McDowell

shadowwalker

empty-nester!

Cathy McDowell

Katrina S. Forest

drachin8

post-apocalyptic bunny

Buffysquirrel

phineas12gauge

alimay

jaksen

Caped Codder

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Deleted member 42

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Smish

Reads more than she writes.

jaksen

Caped Codder

victoriakmartin

Cathy McDowell

Cathy McDowell