Anyone who's ever picked up a good book likely knows the work it takes to create it. The author's job is a daunting task, one that requires hours upon hours of time to perfect, critique, and edit. But until I published my own book (nearly two now) I never had any idea that the authors job is just the first step in a much much larger process.

The work is hard, the rewards are often few, but in the end, there is nothing more rewarding that seeing success, even in the smallest form. Not to mention seeing your own "masterpiece" on Amazon.com et al take a while to sink in.

This is a blog on the all-to-often hidden side of book production...

When you sit down to write your book the blank screen in front of you sometimes can be the most frightening thing on the planet; you can't help but think, "God... where do I begin."

Once you pass that step it's easy until the end... then you have to make sure you end on as good a note as you started. Then comes the stage of proofing, editing, and perfecting the manuscript. Countless friends and family members may help in the process, people you will LOVE after the fact. It's amazing what all you missed when proofing yourself.

Then you go to press... or you get a publisher. But in the modern world most folks opt to self-publish because of the fact they can reap greater rewards, but only if they work for it. Self publishing allows you to maintain complete control over your book, whereas selling the book to a publishing house gives them control and ownership of the material, at least in most cases. A publishing house on average will pay you 4-8% of the total profits (called Royalties). Sometimes, if you are established, they'll also pay you up front for the manuscript. Given the average book only sells 1,000 copies, that's only a few hundred dollars at best. Naturally this discourages many first time authors beyond a level even describable. $400 for all the work it took to write the book hardly seems worth it, but you can't know that until you've been there (or passed beyond that point one). So if you write a book about green algae, well... good luck even with a big publishing house.

That is why self publishing, also commonly called Printing on Demand, and hereafter POD, is becoming more and more popular. No longer are the days when sheets have to be made and molded for every page of your book. Digital printing has revolutionized the industry and more and more folks are taking advantage of it. Furthermore the initial costs are only the printing costs themselves. And since you can order a single book at a time, you have no minimum order. In the old days you had to order, on average, 2000-3000 books at the first printing. Talk about big costs!!

The real benefit of self publishing however is the control of your product, and how much you'll make from it. Beyond printing costs you may have no additional fees and if you get in with the right printer, you're job might be done. Many printers make deal with Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, etc to have your book listed there. It's a great way to get exposure. Of course, your topic still makes all the difference in the world.

But the biggest part of self publishing is the "name game." When you have a publishing house they make it their job to promote and sell your book. That's why you make so little from it. When you self publish, that's your job... you are the marketing director and salesman. This is where the real "fun" begins.

Marketing on a store to store basis is honestly, impossible. We write travel guides, but there is no way on earth we can contact every retailer on earth to have them sell our book; that'd be a full time job for a full time staff. There's two of us... it isn't happenin'.

That's where wholesaler's come into the picture, and in the book world, they are called distributors. These are the guys that take your book, market it to their retailers while taking their cut and giving you the rest. In the end you end up with, at best, 10% normally, but that's still better than publishing with a larger company and letting them take all the rewards. We have been lucky in that we have been accepted by two large distributors, but we were lucky. Unless you have a book they believe they can sell, even getting in with a small distributor can be hard. They take, in some ways, as much risk as you do by stocking your book. And even though they can return the products to you at any time (which is where your largest risk comes into play, bc you make nothing until they sell your book, and if they can't, you get all those books back... mind you they stock 300-800 at a time), they still have to devote man power to selling the books. So a distributor is definitely the way to go.

Naturally selling through your own website is another good idea, and often is the most rewarding, bc other than shipping and initial printing costs, you make more profit by not paying anyone to market or sell your product. You did all the work yourself. This is where Google Adwords and Yahoo's Overture can make a big difference, at least until you can get in good with the regular search query results.

You'd also likely be surprised how many people DO judge a book by it's cover. This is a critical step in creating and marketing your book.

So the next time you pick up a book, make note of how fast you judge it by the cover... you might surprise yourself. And when you take the perfect book home, consider that after the words left the authors brain and went onto paper, that only then did the real work begin.

I can say this for sure looking back... if anyone ever says "How hard can it be??," I'll just direct them to this blog. I know I'll certainly never look at a book the same way again.

John C. Derrick
Founder