File under unsolicited advice: so you wanna self-publish a book?

With all the attention the whole phenomenon of e-books has been getting lately – and to a lesser extent the phenomenon of print-on-demand (POD) self-publishing or indie publishing – I thought I would say a few words to the wise on the subject.

There are lots of resources available out there in the cloud to help you work through the process of what you have to do to self-publish a book, whether POD or an e-book (which in many ways is arguably the cheaper, faster, less complicated way to go). I’m not going to repeat them, because you can Google as well as I can.

As a writer trying to understand the scary, crazy, interesting (and ultimately exciting) way in which the publishing world is evolving, I’ve read tons of these resources and talked to lots of people – and even dabbled in some of it myself. As a result, I can tell you one thing that I have not found clearly spelled out UP FRONT for someone wanting to get their feet wet in this arena – unless I have been reading in my sleep (no, really, it happens sometimes). Are you ready? Here it goes. Did you miss it? Wait, I’ll back it up and slow it down and play it for you again. You’re asking a lot, you know. “I said: If you think you’re going to just self-publish your book, and having done it (hey, congratulations by the way!), that’s it – you can then turn the page and start working on your next masterpiece, think again.”

Certainly it’s possible to do that. Just have at it, crank it out, and then move on. But the reality of it is, if you take that approach, the only thing moving will be you, my friend. Your book (which you probably spent the last year of your life agonizing over) will be sitting there, minding its own Ps & Qs, waiting for a little love to strains of Bob Marley singing “I don’t want to wait in vain for your love…” (Did you like that? Good – that one goes out to all the literary agents out there).

So what’s my point? I’m waiting. Oh, right! It’s not that I’m saying you shouldn’t do it; but if you do it, know what you’re getting yourself into. Here’s the hard, cold bottom line. You’re not self-publishing a book. You’re starting a business. And starting a business – any kind of business – is tough. You have to be very well informed, very well organized, very motivated, and have the ability to go for very long periods of time with little sleep and very little social interaction. The fact that you’ve actually completed a book says that you probably have some of those qualities already. Either that or you’re a total nerd. But it’s very different applying those capabilities to a creative project like writing and applying them to something which – okay, I’ll be generous – is “creative” (yeah, right) in a different sort of way. It’s the difference between being an artist and being an entrepreneur. Some people can do both, but it sure is not easy, and you’d be better off knowing what you’re up against.

Here is just a short list of things to think about off the top of my head (and not necessarily in order of importance):

1) Production logistics – what I mean here is everything from figuring out how to format that e-book properly for all the formats you might want to use (.mobi for Kindle – though I’ve heard talk that Amazon may soon start to accept .epub formatted e-books for Kindle as well; .epub for Nook, Kobo, iTunes and everything else – except, oh yeah, .pdb for Palm; etc.), which is not as easy as you might think; to getting an ISBN for your title; to choosing the right POD vendor; to figuring out your approach to cover art (i.e. use one of the services offered by a POD vendor like CreateSpace or Lulu or any of the others);

2) Marketing and promotion – in other words, now that you’ve got your magnum opus in print or in electronic paper, how are you going to let the world know it’s there? Who is your target market? Who are your distributors? How are you going to reach them and influence their decision to carry or not to carry your material?

3) Pricing – not necessarily as easy as it looks. If you’re working with an e-book platform like Amazon which requires you to ensure that nobody else beats their price in order to maintain your eligibility for the highest level of ‘royalties’, you are sooner or later going to have to deal with the question of how to control (or influence rather, because you just can’t control it) pricing on other platforms. If you’re talking about print, there are a whole raft of other considerations, depending on the capabilities of your POD vendor or distribution platform.

4) Buy milk – oh, sorry, how’d that get in there?

5) Admin – and don’t think there is none. There’s plenty. Everything from updating your editions, filing and controlling document versions, copyright registration and deposit requirements, and, and, and, and. The list goes on – but thankfully this blog post won’t.

It really is starting to sound like starting a business, isn’t it? See, I told you. Anyway, it may seem a pretty daunting task when you start to think about it in its entirety, and it is. But, seriously, the better informed you are about the process from the beginning, and the more organized you are going into it – well, I was going to say “the more successful you are likely to be”, but let’s take a step back here and remember that your ultimate success depends on the quality of what you’ve written and only partly on how well you are able to flog it. But if flog it you must, you might as well do it as efficiently and with as few major surprises as possible. Your sanity depends on it. Smile. (But not too much – they might think you’re crazy). And have a plan.

But no question about it – plan or no plan, it’s a whole lot of work. And at the end of the day, for someone whose dream is to sit down and just write, it’s a whole different ball of wax. Perhaps that’s why someone who has been so extremely successful at self-publishing – someone like Amanda Hocking, for example (Hi, Amanda! Thanks for reading my blog! By the way, I just did you a huge favor and sent a bunch of people over to your blog, okay? No, really, what are friends for?) – has just given up all that fun stuff (what were you thinking, girl?) and gone off and signed a…gasp…$2 million (okay, it’s not like you needed the money, right?) multi-book deal with St. Martin’s Press. (Oh, now that I mentioned them, I guess I have to mention my publisher too, or else, well you know…Pentelicus Press. There, is that enough?) Anyway, kudos to her.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will just have to content ourselves with pathetically banging out our little blogs, procrastinating on our next great American novels, and trying hard not to smile too much. Oh, and don’t forget the milk.