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Choose the Best Self-Publishing Services: ALLi’s Guide to Assembling Your Tools and Your Team
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Commencer à lireLongueur: 251 pages2 heures
- Éditeur:
- Publishdrive
- Sortie:
- Jun 2, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781909888920
- Format:
- Livre
Description
This guide, compiled by the Watchdog desk at the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), tells you all you need to know to choose the right services for your next book.
Drawing on real-life author recommendations and warnings from the ALLi watchdog desk, the guide explains and compares the most significant self-publishing services, from large players like Amazon KDP, Google and Apple Books down to your local friendly freelance.
Rating more than 100 well-known self-publishing services, it offers guidance on what to outsource, when to hire, and how to know what you need and what it should cost.
It also draws on ALLi’s Code of Standards for Partner Members to teach you how to evaluate any service yourself.
Everything you need to take control of the fast-changing world of self-publishing, produce a great book, and sell more copies around the world.
Informations sur le livre
Choose the Best Self-Publishing Services: ALLi’s Guide to Assembling Your Tools and Your Team
Longueur: 251 pages2 heures
Description
This guide, compiled by the Watchdog desk at the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), tells you all you need to know to choose the right services for your next book.
Drawing on real-life author recommendations and warnings from the ALLi watchdog desk, the guide explains and compares the most significant self-publishing services, from large players like Amazon KDP, Google and Apple Books down to your local friendly freelance.
Rating more than 100 well-known self-publishing services, it offers guidance on what to outsource, when to hire, and how to know what you need and what it should cost.
It also draws on ALLi’s Code of Standards for Partner Members to teach you how to evaluate any service yourself.
Everything you need to take control of the fast-changing world of self-publishing, produce a great book, and sell more copies around the world.
- Éditeur:
- Publishdrive
- Sortie:
- Jun 2, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781909888920
- Format:
- Livre
À propos de l'auteur
En rapport avec Choose the Best Self-Publishing Services
Titres dans cette série (2)
Aperçu du livre
Choose the Best Self-Publishing Services - Alliance of Independent Authors
desk.
Part I
Introduction
1
How to Read This Book
Self-publishing is, in many ways, a misnomer. Every good book is a team effort and every good book has been put through the seven processes of publishing that were outlined in Book One of this series: editorial, design, production, distribution, marketing, promotion and rights licensing.
As self-publishing authors we may have some of those skills ourselves but we are going to need to hire others. This book defines the questions we all need to ask about any services we’re considering for hire, whether we’re publishing our first book, or we have many books in our back list.
The self-publishing services landscape is constantly changing, and as author-publishers, we are all constantly learning and improving, so the services we need change over time.
In making such decisions for your current title, you are doing much more than simply choosing a service; you are adopting a method and a process. Our aim, in this guide, is to outline the options you are most likely to encounter and help you understand which services are optimal for you at this time.
We’ll show you which services are doing a good job, and why you might avoid others. Most importantly, in an industry where things are changing so rapidly, we also set the context within which your choices are made.
And provide the criteria by which you can evaluate any self-publishing service yourself.
What should you look out for when trying to compare one service with another in a landscape where they don’t all offer the same thing? How do you compare an apple with an orange with a cabbage? We’ve done our best. Offerings have been categorized, prices examined, royalty structures broken down, terms and conditions trawled, phone calls made, small print scrutinized, and claims checked against the experience of real-life authors who have actually used these services.
At the back of this book, you’ll find an index of the most significant service providers, rated against ALLi’s Code of Standards. Our assessment process takes into account dozens of criteria, as well as recommendations from our members, warnings from consumer watchdogs, and in-depth research.
How To Read This Book
This book will help you to appraise any service, large or small, à la carte or package, and know if it is right for you and whether it represents good value for money.
The best way to approach it is to go to the section which refers to the stage you are at in your author journey. If you’re in need of an overview, start at the beginning and read all the way through before beginning your decision-making process. If you are looking for an editor or a marketing service, jump in at chapter 7 or 12. If you haven’t made up your mind whether you want to hire a full-service company or individual freelancers, read Part III Assisted Self-Publishing
first.
All information in this book is up-to-date at time of publication but do bear in mind that the self-publishing sector is always changing. Members questions are answered directly in our member forum and through our Helpdesk.
2
Defining Our Terms
The publishing industry is now made up of two broad sectors. The first is self-publishing, also known as author-publishing, where authors fund and oversee the publication process, using a variety of services to help them produce the book and reach readers but, crucially, retaining all rights.
The second is what used to be called just publishing
and which we at ALLi now call trade-publishing, where a company other than the author invests in the publishing process in return for a rights license.
These businesses license publishing rights from authors and handle the publication of their books in return for a large percentage, often more than 90% of income (which they must share with wholesalers, distributors and book sellers).
Trade publishing is dominated by corporates with most trade-published books are brought out by one of The Big Five
corporate publishers: Penguin-Random House; Hachette Book Group (HBG); Harper Collins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. Or by an increasingly strong player in the trade publishing market, Amazon Publishing, a branch of Amazon that offer a traditional publishing model. (Self-Publishers work with Amazon KDP, a different part of the Amazon publishing empire).
Authors receive royalties (a percentage of sales revenue) from trade publishers in return for these publishing rights and should receive an advance on those royalty payments on signature of contract, to express the trade publisher’s commitment to the author and belief in the book’s commercial potential.
But authors now have other pathways to publication and many of them are choosing to publish their books themselves. These independent indie
authors understand the value of their publishing rights are in addition to self-publishing in ebook, audiobook and print, are selectively licensing some rights e.g. print rights in a certain territory, translation rights, film or TV rights etc. to publishers and other rights buyers.
These indie authors are rapidly changing how the publishing ecosystem operates, but before we go any further we need to define our terms because when we talk about indies and other people in publishing talk about indies, we are not necessarily talking about the same thing.
We also need to define exactly what we mean by self-publishing and how it relates to assisted self-publishing services, vanity publishing, hybrid authors and hybrid publishers, all terms you’ll hear once you decide to self-publish a book.
Assisted Self-Publishing
Independent or Indie
Publishing
Indie authors are not to be confused with indie publishers, small publishing companies which, like the big conglomerates, commission books from authors and publish at the company’s expense. They often operate in a particular niche. If very small, they are called micro-publishers. Some authors are now publishing other authors’ work in this way.
Hybrid Authors
Hybrid authors is a term used in the past to describe an author who publishes books through both trade and self-publishing platforms. At ALLi, we believe the term indie author
best describes such a writer as once an author has achieved success in self-publishing they are approached by rights buyers and will selectively license some rights. This is just part of being the creative director of your books and author business.
Hybrid Publishing
Hybrid publishers combine aspects of traditional publishing and self-publishing. They have very varied business models, methods of working with writers, and approaches to marketing and distribution.
Self-Publishing Services
These are services that handle some or all of the processes of publishing, at the author’s expense. Services run the gamut from freelance one-person operations, like designers or editors, to self-publishing services that handle everything for a fee (e.g. BookBaby or Matador), to trade publishers that license rights.
Vanity Services
Vanity presses are a sub-sector of the assisted services sector. The term is a hangover from the days when all author funded publishing was labelled vanity
by trade publishers. The term has stuck to those services that still trade on authors' dreams of publication to provide sub-standard services.
In ALLi’s definition, a vanity service (also known as vanity press or vanity publisher) is one that engages in misleading or deceptive practices, or that
. Vanity services often use trick tactics, bait and switch, and other unethical practices, purely with the intent of extracting maximum money from authors for minimal work on their part.
Vanity services are recognised by their intent. Unlike other assisted services, the intention of a vanity press is not to bring books to readers but to extract as much money as possible from the authors.
SELF-PUBLISHING SERVICES
The self-publishing sector therefore offers three separate streams of services for authors:
• Independent Self-Publishing Services
For those authors who want to maximise their control and their return on investment.
Companies and freelancers hired by independent, self-publishing indie
authors who upload their own books directly to self-publishing distributors and operate as the creative director of their book publishing and author business. Services in this sector vary from individual local freelancers to huge, global companies like Amazon KDP and Apple Books.
• Assisted Self-Publishing Services
For those authors who want more support or who value time more than money.
Companies and sole traders that provide assisted publishing services to authors for a fee. Though assisted, this is still self-publishing, as it is the author who funds the expense of publication. Some of these services bundle the seven processes of publishing into packages. Some offer hybrid publishing
arrangements that adopt some of the practices of trade publishing, including curation and physical bookstore distribution. Authors shopping in this sector need to exercise caution.
• Vanity Services
To be avoided
Controversial sub-stream of the assisted services sector. Vanity services engage in ineffective, sub-standard, misleading or, in the worst cases, outright deceptive practices, with the intention not of bringing books to readers but of extracting as much money as possible from the authors. (Also called vanity presses
or vanity publishers
).
Also to be avoided are inexperienced or under-performing freelancers who may mean well but not have the correct information or competencies to do more for your book than you can yourself.
The option to take a more independent route, uploading finished book files directly to one or more of the large online retailers and distributors, directly hiring editors and designers, virtual assistants and marketing services, is the one taken by most ALLi members who make a good income.
This means making choices that maximize your creative and commercial advantage, drawing together online tools and collaborators to supplement your own competencies and self-taught skills, and getting stuck into hands-on book preparation and production: learning by doing.
First time out, it takes the author on a steep learning curve, which is why some people like to break themselves in gently by starting with the support of a full-service package.
Yes, the independent option is most likely to give a commercial return on the author’s investment of time and money but juggling multiple service providers can create additional overhead and headaches in the form of research, billing, and coordination.
Time-strapped authors may instead choose to purchase a comprehensive, full-service publishing package from a single vendor for the convenience, or a smaller bundle of related services.These packages tend to have a higher price tag, and the author usually pays a premium for the convenience of one-stop shopping and more personalised service.
Contrary to what you might hear from some authors, not all assisted services charging higher-end fees are a waste of money, or dishonest, or vanity services by definition. As in any other
It’s not a question of price, but of value for money. What are you paying for? Does it have real tangible value in terms of helping you to produce a great book or reach more readers?
Authors must understand the value being offered and the values of the service company making the offer. In general, ALLi recommends purchasing services on an à la carte basis rather than as a package of bundled services. When services are separate, it’s easier to assess the quality, value, and performance of each. Breaking out services individually also eliminates the common problem of package bloat, in which low-value, high-markup services are used to pad the perceived value (and cost) of a package. (See Chapter 16).
Check terms and conditions as some service contracts may limit your opportunities and control. Control of your rights, control of your metadata, control of your positioning, marketing and promotion are rights that are not to be given up lightly, to either a trade-publisher or a self-publishing service.
Every author should at least consider the independent option of keeping as much control as possible, hiring freelance assistance for editorial and design, and uploading books directly to self-publishing platforms like Amazon and Apple. But if you can afford it, and it makes sense in your circumstances, having a reputable company hold your hand through the process can be comforting and make things easier to negotiate, especially first time out.
Be aware that it is in the package end of the self-publishing market that we find most of the rogue providers. Check ALLi’s Directory of Services to find our approved Partner Members.
If you’ve heard of a service and are unsure whether it is legitimate, you can check our Service Ratings page here.
3
Publishers Don’t Ask For Payment
This has long been the position of savvy authors. A trade-publisher pays you. A self-publishing service is paid by you.
In recent times, there have been huge
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