Jurdy Cartoon – Jurdy on Inauguration Day

Going with a traditional publishing house is good for a person with an
established platform (radio host, a speaker, someone with a huge
newsletter following, etc.). The good thing about traditional publishing
is that they take over, and do everything from editing, to cover design,
but you lose creative control much of the time. The book after the
editing process may not even resemble your work. But you do get an
advance, although it might not be too much for a first time author, and
if you don’t “sell through,” that is, make back your advance in sales, you
will have a really hard time convincing the publisher to put out another
book of yours. And you may never see a dime after your small advance. As
well, if your book does make it to the book store, if it doesn’t sell
in 30 days, the books will be returned and you will most likely be
blacklisted by the publishing house. You generally have to sign your
rights away unless you hire a good attorney who has stipulated that you
will get the rights to your book back if it does get shelved. Traditional
publishing houses used to pay royalties of 10% retail (i.e. if your book
is $20, you get $2) but now they mostly only pay 10% of wholesale, so you
only get $1 for that same book.

Self-Publishing is hard, because you have to do everything yourself, but
the returns are great, because you can retain 70-90% of your investment.
If you print them up yourself and then sell them, you really can make
some great money. However, the biggest stumbling block is distribution.
Very few distributors will deal with a self-published author. Even
getting online distribution with Ingram, Baker & Taylor is going to be
very tough. Plus, you have to print up at least 2,000 books to bring the
price down, and they will most likely be sitting in your office or
basement until you can figure out how to sell them.

POD – Print on Demand – is a great technology that combines the two types
of publishing. It’s great because there is no inventory to return, or sit
in your basement, and if you pick the right pay to publish company, they
will give you a pretty good return on your investment that is, if you
choose the lowest distribution discount (20%) to maximize your online
royalties. For example, the POD that I am with, they give me $6.28 out
of every $14.95 book that I sell. And the provide online distribution,
so the book is on Amazon.com, B&N.com, etc. The drawback is that you
have to pay an upfront fee, like $1000 to publish with them. And if you
are trying to be NYTimes bestseller this won’t happen because they don’t
review POD’s. As well, you will not be in bookstores becausePOD’s carry
a non-returnable status.

But, more good news: you own your rights 100%. What I do, is I use my POD
for online distribution and cover art (but you can also submit your own
cover design, interior files and retain complete control). Then, I
purchase the cover back from them,and take the files to a printer so
that I can get my book printed up for substantially less, so as to have
copies to send out to the media,sell at various events, etc. My POD
charges me $5.65/unit, whereas if I go to a small printer, I can get my
books for $3.60/unit.

This is just a quick overview. But choosing the type of publishing for
your book is an important one, so it is worth taking the time and energy
to figure out which one is right for you.

Please visit Sally, Self-Publishing Dream Coach and Free Publicity Specialist at
http://www.thedilrules.com/productsandservices/ for contest giveaways, free bonus gifts, Sally’s newsletter, free gifts, free music, … and more!

Jurdy Cartoon – Jurdy on Inauguration Day22183Jurdy Cartoon – Jurdy on Inauguration Day

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