The Publishing Process
The Publishing Process
What is publishing? Publishing is taking ideas, thoughts and information, packaging the aforementioned in a manner suitable for consumption by others and then distributing that package to the general public.
Many authors wrongly believe that publishing is printing. Printing is just one step of the publishing process, as is writing the work itself.
In general, there are 3 basic steps for publishing a book:
1. Writing of the work
2. Preparation in a format acceptable for public consumption. This starts with editing the work so that it conforms to generally accepted language standards. An author’s thoughts and ideas can’t be communicated to others if those reading the work can’t understand what is being said because of misspelled or incorrectly chosen words.
Then, the edited text needs to be designed or formatted in a manner so that it can easily be read by the consumer. This is commonly known as page design and/or typesetting.
Another crucial area of this publishing step is the creation of the cover. The adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover” is certainly true, but most consumers do not take this advice and many books are bought based upon the appeal of the cover and the “sales copy” (known as flap copy or blurb).
Additionally, administrative issues must be addressed such as obtaining an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and a copyright for the work.
Once all these elements have been addressed, the work then needs to be morphed into a form acceptable for mass consumption. This could be paper and ink, a computer disk or CD, or in a digital format (e-book).
3. Distribution of the work—once a properly prepared work is ready for mass consumption, the work of distribution begins. Today, many sales and distribution channels exist for a given work.
The traditional, and still widely used, channel involves the publisher selling the book at a discount to a wholesaler or distributor. These middlemen warehouse books from many publishers and then re-sell them to retailers. This allows a retailer (or bookseller) to buy many different books from one source at one time rather than trying to buy a variety of books from many different publishers. The bookseller (or bookstore) then sells the book to the consumer.
Distributors and wholesalers generally ask for a 50-55% discount from the retail price of the book from the publisher, and then re-sell the book to the bookseller at 40% from the retail price.
Who Makes the Money?
Distributors and wholesalers generally ask for a 50-55% discount from the retail price of the book from the publisher, and then re-sell the book to the bookseller at 40% from the retail price.
Example of a $10.00 book being sold:
Retail price: $10.00
Wholesaler buys for $4.50
Wholesaler sells to bookseller for $6.00 (wholesaler makes $1.50/book).
Bookstore sells to consumer for $10.00 (bookstore makes $4.00/book)
One crucial bit of information unknown by most people is the unique arrangement between publishers, wholesalers and bookstores.
Unlike any other sales and distribution channels the end purveyor of the product takes no risk!
That is because bookstores reserve the right to return any unsold merchandise for full credit. The wholesaler then returns the product to the publisher for full credit. The only one in the distribution chain that takes any risk is the publisher.
Bookstores can also order directly from a publisher if they wish to, generally asking for and getting the same 40% discount from the retail price.
Who is the author, who is the publisher?
Commercial or trade publication,
Self-publishing (of which there are many varieties) or
Putting the completed manuscript on the shelf to gather dust.
For most people, book publishing has a mystique perpetuated by such general media as “Murder She Wrote”, a popular television series of the 1980s.
That is, most people believe that an author simply has to write a good book and then some benevolent person agrees to pay all of the costs associated with preparing the book for consumption and distribution. Then, the author simply sits back, collects royalty checks and writes more books.
Does this happen today? Sure it does for an extremely lucky and select few.
This method of publishing is what is known as commercial or trade publishing. Following this route, the author writes the book, then obtains a literary agent. This agent then shows the unpublished book to different publishing house editors in the hopes that one of them would be interested in then pitching the book to the publishing house’s committee who decides what that house will publish.
Of course, the catch-22 is in full force with this method of publishing. Most agents don’t want to talk with an unpublished author and authors usually can’t publish if they don’t have an agent.
Option two is self-publishing. The name of this style of publishing accurately describes what happens in this method of publication. The author, yourself becomes the publisher of the work as well as the person who wrote it.
The author becomes the editor, the page designer, the cover artist, handles all the administrative chores, negotiates and works with the printer, takes delivery of the printed books, warehouses the books, implements a promotion campaign for the book, answers the phone and opens the mail to accept orders, packs, wraps and ships book orders, prepares invoices---giving the appropriate industry discount, and collects accounts receivable.
And, the expense of doing all this comes out of the author’s pocket.
It sounds like much work, and it is. However, many authors take this route since it allows them complete creative control and a bigger portion of the profits if a book ends up selling well.
Basic self-publishing means footing the bills and personally doing the work to change a manuscript into a finished book and then distributing the product.
However, there are variations to the broader self-publishing genre. Today, authors can do it all themselves or sub-contract some of the work to others.
When considering the publication of a book, a very strong analogy can be made to the construction of a house. If a prospective home owner is knowledgeable about home construction and possesses the necessary skills, that person might just set out to “self-construct”.
It is unlikely that our self-constructor would have the knowledge and skills to complete every task needed to build a house from scratch. Most likely, he would sub-contract some work to others who had superior knowledge and skills.
The same holds true for self-publishing. An author’s strengths might lie in writing, but feel less confident about editing their own work for writing mechanics. If so, they might consider hiring a freelance editor.
Or, perhaps the author might have an idea for the cover art, but need to hire an artist to actually render the drawing.
The author can act as the contractor, sub-contracting the many tasks involved in bringing a book into print to others. Or, the author could choose to hire a contractor to do all of the work.
This form of self-publishing is called subsidy publishing. In this form of publishing, the author hires a firm to be the contractor who oversees all of the elements for bringing the author’s work into print. The term subsidy publishing refers to the fact that the author is subsidizing (or paying for) the publication of the book. Some authors wrongly believe that it refers to someone else subsidizing the publication (as in farmers receiving subsidies from the government).
The subsidy publisher charges the author a flat fee to complete the work involved. The author hands the manuscript and a check to the subsidy publisher and it is the subsidy publisher’s job to create and market the book, while keeping the author informed along the way.
Print on Demand Publishing (POD) is a variation of subsidy publishing. With this style, again the author pays a fee to get the book into an appropriate format for printing and distribution; however, copies of the finished books are not printed until an order is received. Therefore, the fee paid to the POD subsidy publisher is generally much less that traditional subsidy publishing fees. Additionally, most POD publishers do less editorial and design work than traditional full-service subsidy presses.
POD books are printed on what is basically a high-end copier which allows books to be printed generally within 48 hours. A POD book looks like a book printed by traditional offset methods.
Print on Demand is actually a type of printing process, not really a type of publishing. It becomes a type of publishing when the company offering the service includes value added services such as page and cover design along with distribution and promotion assistance.
It can be assumed that since you are reading this, you want to publish your book and not put it into a drawer to gather dust, so we will not examine that option and it’s consequences at this time.
What Is the Best Choice for You?
There is much debate in publishing and bookselling circles about today’s publishing options.
The literary purists believe that if a book is published by anyone but a commercial publisher, it really does not deserve to be published. They base their view on the fact that the commercial publication route has a screening system naturally built into it.
First, the agent screens material to see if it is suitable for representation, then it is screened again by acquisition editors and committees at a publishing house, then the work is edited and sometimes re-written by an editorial team before being released to the public.
These purists put forth that booksellers are then more confident that the book produced by a commercial publisher is a “good” book because of this screening process and will purchase and stock these books because consumers will want to buy them because they are “good”.
Others contend that these puritanical literary views are in many ways defensive in nature. Most purists are generally directly or indirectly beneficiaries or employees of commercial publishing houses. As technology is allowing more and more effective, affordable “direct to consumer” publishing options to develop, members of the established publishing community are becoming concerned that their very livelihoods are at stake.
These purists truly believe that the average book consumer is unable to decide if a book is good or not and that there must be a screening process in place to save the consumer from themselves.
Some believe that the purist’s view is very elitist and that the very existence of the traditional publishing system prevents many books from being published.
Of course, this camp believes strongly in self-publishing. However, there are many divisions within this camp concerning which style of self-publishing to use.
One group believes that complete self-publishing is the only way to go. They believe the author should assume the cost and the burden of the work. They believe that any method of subsidy publishing should be avoided at all costs. They believe that subsidy publishers charge excessive rates and provide false expectations to consumers.
It is generally true that a subsidy publisher’s fee will be significantly more expensive than what an author will directly pay out to self-publish the same book. This does not include the value of the author’s time, but simply comparing actual dollars spent.
Subsidy publishers will contend that if an author included the cost of the author’s time and actual dollars spent, the cost would be comparable. Just as someone building a house will spend less real dollars if they build it themselves compared to hiring a contractor to build it for them.
While subsidy publishing has been going on for almost 100 years, Print on Demand Publishing is in its infancy. At this writing, most POD publishing companies have been in existence for less than 5 years.
Purists abhor and ridicule PODs because they truly offer the masses the opportunity to publish their work.
What type of publishing is best for you? In general, when making a publishing decision, you need to consider cost and control.
With commercial publishing, there is no cost to you, but then you give up all control. A commercial publisher will generally buy the rights to the work from you and since the publisher is assuming the risk of investing into publication, they have complete control of the work. That is, they can edit and change the material as much as they like and package the finished product in any form. The author has little or nothing to say about it.
With self-publishing you have complete control, but you have to want to invest the time and effort. Additionally, all the expenses are paid by you.
Subsidy publishing requires a significant financial outlay from you, and for the most part you are completely in control of the published editorial content and what the finished product will look like. In general, a subsidy publisher acts in a consultative manner suggesting the production specifications for your book and making editorial suggestions, but in most cases the final decisions rest with the author.
With Print on Demand publishers, investment into publication is less than with a full-service subsidy publisher because a supply of books is not produced. Books are printed only when an order for the book is received. Print on Demand publishers also tend to offer fewer services such as editing, complete page design and original cover design.
With a POD publisher, an author typically has even more control than with a subsidy publisher since most POD publishers do not make any editorial changes.
COMMERCIAL PUBLISHING
A commercial publisher accepts an author’s manuscript for publication, pays the author a specific amount for the right to publish the work, performs and pays for all of the steps to make ready for publication consumption, implements a publicity and promotion campaign at its expense, typically has salespeople who represent the book to the bookselling community, and handles all shipping, invoicing and return of books.
Basically, the author writes and gets paid. The publisher publishes. It is estimated 1 in 14,000 authors get commercially published.
Following this route, the author writes the book, then obtains a literary agent. This agent then shows the unpublished book to different publishing house editors in the hopes that one of them would be interested in then pitching the book to the publishing house’s committee who decides what that house will publish.
Of course, the catch-22 is in full force with this method of publishing. Most agents don’t want to talk with an unpublished author and authors usually can’t publish if they don’t have an agent.
An author can also make an unsolicited submission to a commercial publishing house. This means packaging up the manuscript along with a query letter (a letter of introduction) and sending if off to a publishing house for review.
Writer’s Digest Publication’s publishes a reference book called Writer’s Market that lists contact names and addresses if an author wishes to attempt this route. Unfortunately, due to the massive number of submissions, many larger publishing houses don’t read unsolicited material.
To obtain a commercial publishing house via the unsolicited manuscript route, the best chance of success is to target a smaller publishing company and be sure that they publish the type of material written. For example, sending a fiction work to a scientific textbook publisher is frustrating and pointless for all parties involved.
Responsibilities of the Author
In a commercial publishing arrangement, the author is responsible for providing to the publisher a complete manuscript within an agreed upon time period. This responsibility most likely will also require that the author get permission to re-publish any material used in the manuscript that might have been published elsewhere.
Rights and Terms
An author gives up all rights to the work when commercially publishing. If the publishing company is assuming the significant risk and expense to publish a book, they want the right to prepare the material in a way that they deem will return the most money back to them in terms of sales.
Generally, in commercial publishing the copyright to the work will remain with the author, but the author is selling to the commercial publisher the right to publish the work in book form. Generally, that right is for a specific term. After the conclusion of that
term, the rights revert back to the author. During that term, however, the author can not do anything else with the work.
Subsidiary rights
These are “other rights” to the work. This means things like book clubs, movies, television, paperback or hardback rights. In other words, to profit from the work in a form other than as a book.
Most commercial publishers typically will require that the author sign over these rights also. Generally, there is a provision that the author gets a percentage of the money should the publisher sell these rights to another entity such as a movie production company, etc.
Control
The author typically has little or no control. Once an author has signed a publishing agreement with a commercial publisher, the book is assigned an editor. That editor is responsible for reviewing the work line by line and suggesting or demanding the author re-write portions
in a manner that the editor thinks would enhance the work both editorially and/or commercially.
Sometimes the author does not even recognize the work when it eventually is released to the public.
Lack of control also extends to release time and promotion. The publisher will dictate when the book will be released which is often 2-3 years after being accepted for publication (or sometimes not at all).
When the book is finally in print, the publisher will decide when and how to promote the book to the public. Some books get significant advertising and promotion budgets, some don’t.
If a book does not realize the publisher a quick return on investment it will often quickly be “back-listed”. That is, if the book does not sell well right away, the publisher will stop promoting the book.
The book is still available from the publisher if someone wants to buy it, but the publisher does not promote the sell of it.
The author’s participation in the promotion of the book is often limited by the commercial publisher.
Money
Compensation is negotiated on a case by case basis, but usually a commercial publisher will provide an advance to the author and then the author gets a percentage of each book sold.
The advance is an advance against future sales. Let’s say for example that the publisher provides a $10,000 advance. The author won’t get another penny until the author’s percentage of sales exceeds the advance amount. Sometimes, if book sales don’t exceed the advance within a specified time frame the publisher asks for the difference to be returned.
Very few authors get an advance before they write a book. Many authors think that if they have a good idea, the publisher will advance them money so that they can write the book and that the publisher will pay for their expenses. This certainly does happen, but it is an extremely rare circumstance, generally reserved for celebrities (President Clinton comes to mind) or if the author has experienced some extremely rare and unusual circumstance that interests many people.
Authors get paid a percentage of each book sold. In commercial publishing an author typically will get paid 8-10% of the retail price of the book. Or, it will be 8-10% of the money received by the publisher---or the wholesale price.
This represents a significant difference. As noted earlier, publishers sell books to the distributor or bookseller at a 40-55% discount from the retail price.
An author paid on a retail price of $10.00 might get $1.00 for each book sold, but an author paid on the wholesale price would get $.45 for each book sold.
As you can see, it might take some time for an author to earn back the advance based on sales.
Production Specifications and Making Ready for Public Consumption
Production specifications refer to the way a finished book will look. When an author is published by a commercial publisher, the author typically is not involved at all with the production specifications of the book. The production manager of the publishing company generally makes the decisions regarding book production variables. The variables are typically:
Trim Size: this is the width and height of the book. Traditional trim sizes are 4 ¼ by 7 (this is like a mass market paperback that you will find in the grocery store), 5 ½ by 8 ½, 6 x 9 (trade paperback) or 8 ½ by 11.
Binding: this is the method of putting all of the pages together. Basic binding types are paperback, perfect bound, case bound (hardback), and saddle-wire.
Font: this is the way the letters look on the page and the size. There are literally hundreds of types of fonts. For example, this is Times New Roman, this is Ariel, and this is bookman old style.
Each font can be printed in any size. Generally the size is notated in this manner:
Size of type/leading or for example 10/12. This would be a ten point font with a 12 leading, which is a very typical font format.
Cover: the variables concerning the cover are original art and amount of color used. That is, will the cover be printed will all colors available or with only two-colors. Sometimes, it is only with one color ink.
Promotion
Promotion refers to how the book will be promoted and sold to the book buying public. With commercial publishing the author is generally not consulted.
Most likely, the author’s publishing contract with the publisher will require that the author participate in some manner with the promotion of the book, generally in the form of public appearances. However, when, with whom, and how many are typically at the discretion of the publisher.
Book Sales
Most commercial publishers will employ sales representatives or contract with independent salespeople to represent their book list to booksellers.
The commercial publisher handles all aspects of the “back end” servicing of sales which includes warehousing and shipping of books, invoicing retailers, paying commissions and accepting and crediting returns.
An author who commercially publishes won’t be exposed to any part of this process.
Unique Aspects of Commercial Publishing
When compared to other forms of publishing, commercial publishing seems to be a “knight in shining armor” for most authors. The author needs to just write, then leaves all of the expensive and time-consuming publishing details to the publisher.
The author gets an upfront check to compensate for the labor put into the book, and gets even more if the book sells well.
Most authors would prefer to be commercially published, but it is a challenge to find a literary agent to represent you or a commercial publisher to accept you as a new author