| Home | Self-publishing | ||||||||||
by David Walker |
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| There
are two main reasons for wanting to self-publish a book: you have
become frustrated by the lack of interest by commercial publishers; or
you are aiming at a highly specific market that you believe you can
reach more effectively though your own efforts than through a
commercial publisher. There are five main steps in producing a book: 1. writing; 2. editing; 3. layout; 4. printing; 5. distribution. This article will cover editing, layout, printing and distribution with an emphasis on self-publishing. Editing The end product of the writing process is a manuscript — usually a computer document written using a word processor such as Microsoft Word, plus some drawings or photographs (black and white or colour). This may have been edited and revised numerous times, and read by friends and acquaintances, so as the author, you see it as being in final form. It isn’t. There are two levels in the editing process: 1. a substantive (“full”) edit; and 2. a copy edit. The purpose of the substantive edit is to ensure that the book reads well, is coherent, and has no missing arguments or sections, gross inaccuracies, unsubstantiated claims or loose ends. Commercial publishers do this as a matter of course. If you are self-publishing, get someone who doesn’t know you but whose opinion you would respect, to do it. They will probably identify significant weaknesses and possibly suggest changes. Even if you disagree with the comments and suggested changes, think about what in the manuscript would have led to them, and make changes that you see as appropriate to address that. Copy editing is about spelling, grammar and punctuation. Most publishers have a house style. As a self-publisher, it is a good idea to adopt some style conventions. The Macquarie Dictionary and the Style Manual (www.australia.gov.au/Style_Manual) are good sources, but you don’t have to stick to them provided that you are consistent. Layout Layout is done using a desktop publishing package. The currently trendy one is Adobe InDesign, but others such as PageMaker, FrameMaker and Ventura Publisher are still in use. It is tempting to try to use a word processer such as Microsoft Word, because there is a large overlap in features with desktop publishing packages, but that often creates problems. The reason is that a word processor treats a document as a long string of text, with inserted items such as pictures linked in specific places to the text. Page breaks are inserted dynamically. This means that changes earlier in the document can shift text or pictures that you thought were on one page on to a different page, mucking up your layout. Desktop publishing packages are built around pages, which stay as they are. You can insert and delete pages. The items on the pages are placed in frames, which are rectangular (or shaped) areas placed on the page and which contain text or pictures. Frames can be sized to suit the layout. A page can contain more than one frame. Text can be made to flow between frames, including frames on different pages. Fonts and paragraph formats can be specified as styles. Line art and photographs can be included anywhere (on separate pages or on pages with text) and resized if necessary. The final image to be printed needs to have a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). If the body of the book is to be printed in black, any colour pages need to be separated out into a separate section that can be printed in colour. The desktop publishing package can be used to generate a table of contents and an index if required. The end product of the layout stage is usually a PDF (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format) file that goes to the printer. This file format is the same whatever desktop publishing software is used, which is why it is called portable. Often the cover is a separate PDF file, as are any colour pages to be printed as a separate insert. Printing The question here is what sort of book do you want? The usual format is A5 (210 x 148mm), or maybe the slightly larger B5 (250m x 176mm) or a landscape (wider than high) format in A4, A5 or B5, with a perfect (glued) binding with a spine. This requires a commercial printer and requires commitment to a minimum print run (usually about 500 copies) to cover setup costs. Printers who offer a “demand printing” option can then produce more if required. Colour printing is much more expensive than black and white printing, so is typically limited to the cover and to separately printed colour inserts. Historically, spot colour (a single colour, or possibly two or three colours) was cheaper than full colour, which requires four colours (cyan, yellow, magenta and black), but this is true only if traditional printing methods (which require a separate pass for each colour) are used. Colour laser printers do four colour printing in a single pass. There are alternatives to perfect binding. It is not good for books that need to be opened flat or opened frequently over a period of time. A common choice here is spiral or comb binding. Books too thin to have a spine (up to about 60 pages) can be stapled (the printers’ term is saddle stitched). Both of these can be produced on a cottage industry basis using a laser printer and a binder or stapler, with the print run limited to the number immediately required, with additional copies on demand. However, bookshops are not keen on these types of binding, because there is no spine and so they can’t be displayed spine out. Another option is to put it on the Web. Charging for material posted on the Web is difficult, but if you are happy to distribute material free, it works well. You can post your book as a PDF document which can be read on-line or downloaded, or with sections (e.g. chapters) in native Web (HTML) format to be read on-line or printed. Distribution Distribution is a nightmare for small publishers and self-publishers. Only large publishers have national distribution, and even they are highly selective about what books they will promote. National distributors charge about 60% of the Recommended Retail Price (RRP), and often aren’t interested. Some bookshops will take a few copies, most usually on a sale or return basis (for which you should give a 33% discount on the RRP) or if you are lucky or push, on a firm sale basis (40% discount). If you leave books on a sale or return basis, check back after a few months. The bookshop usually won’t contact you. You can sell though a web site, but only if your publicity is good enough for people to know about it, and if you can find a payment gateway that doesn’t charge you too much. If you are self-publishing, most of your distribution will usually be though contacts: people or organisations that you know are interested and will promote the book for their own reasons. A launch is a good idea. It generates publicity and may sell a number of copies. With small print runs and unreliable distribution there is virtually no connection between pricing and production costs. The RRP should be set based on what similar books sell for. Note that the RRP is inclusive of GST. If you don’t have to be registered for GST, you can pocket the extra (or offer a discount) for private sales, but remember that the bookshops have to pay it. Most people overestimate the number of books that they can sell. If you are limited to the Canberra market, you are doing well if you sell more than about 200 copies. You will need an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for the book. These are issued by the ISBN Agency which is run by Thorpe-Bowker and charges like a wounded bull. Details and application forms can be found at: www.thorpe.com.au/isbn/index.htm Bookshops like the ISBN to appear as a barcode on the back cover. You can buy these from Thorpe-Bowker, or use other software to create them. The National Library offers a cataloguing-in-publication service. This isn’t mandatory, but is useful, and is free. It takes about two weeks from when you lodge your application. Details can be found at: www.nla.gov.au/services/CIP.html Once the book is published, you will need to satisfy legal deposit requirements. This includes sending a copy to the National Library. The individual states have additional legal deposit requirements. Details can be found on the National Library web site: www.nla.gov.au/services/ldeposit.html | |||||||||||
David Walker is one of the six directors of Boris Books (www.borisbooks.com.au), a small Canberra publisher that specialises in niche markets and demand publishing. He also provides advice and layout services to potential self-publishers. At his personal website at www.dwalker.id.au he has self-published (or re-published) some of his stories, cartoons and poems. | |||||||||||
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Pirion Printing is the major sponsor of the ACT Writers Centre and can assist you with your printing requirements at preferential pricing for members. Address: 47-49 Kembla St Fyshwick ACT 2609 PO Box 1387 Fyshwick ACT 2609 Phone: 02 6280 7199 Fax: 02 6280 4061 Email: sales.digital@pirion.com.au Website: www.pirion.com.au | |||||||||||
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