HowToPubYourself is up and running!

[AubreyRose]

At the beginning of this month, I launched How To Pub Yourself with an author friend of mine. Our goal was to make an email tutorial series that would take a beginning author with no idea how to self-publish to an end product of publishing on Amazon, in just 1 month, a half hour a day. It's definitely geared towards writers who have never done this before, so some of the intro material might be too beginner for some people here.

If you want to see the first few days of tutorial, you can start here: http://howtopubyourself.com/how-to-self-publish-your-book-day-1-welcome/

We also have a community over at www.PubYourself.com (I know some of you have already joined) to support people through the publishing process. Eventually we'll be branching out to do publishing for people who really 100% don't want to self-pub, but for now we're focusing on tutorials.

I'm curious to know for those who are just starting or who remember their first time starting: what was holding you back from self-pubbing? What seemed the most scary at first?

And would you ever work with a full-service digital publisher who would handle everything but the writing and split royalties 50/50? If not, is it because you know how to outsource the other stuff yourself, or...?

Thanks to everyone who's sharing so much valuable information in this forum! I hope that my stuff can help someone who's unsure about taking the leap!

 

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[Lex DeVille]

At the beginning of this month, I launched How To Pub Yourself with an author friend of mine. Our goal was to make an email tutorial series that would take a beginning author with no idea how to self-publish to an end product of publishing on Amazon, in just 1 month, a half hour a day. It's definitely geared towards writers who have never done this before, so some of the intro material might be too beginner for some people here.

If you want to see the first few days of tutorial, you can start here: http://howtopubyourself.com/how-to-self-publish-your-book-day-1-welcome/

We also have a community over at www.PubYourself.com (I know some of you have already joined) to support people through the publishing process. Eventually we'll be branching out to do publishing for people who really 100% don't want to self-pub, but for now we're focusing on tutorials.

I'm curious to know for those who are just starting or who remember their first time starting: what was holding you back from self-pubbing? What seemed the most scary at first?

And would you ever work with a full-service digital publisher who would handle everything but the writing and split royalties 50/50? If not, is it because you know how to outsource the other stuff yourself, or...?

Thanks to everyone who's sharing so much valuable information in this forum! I hope that my stuff can help someone who's unsure about taking the leap!

The most scary part of self-pubbing for me originally was the thought of figuring out all of the formatting issues. Writing a novel in Microsoft Word is simple in theory, but once your mind starts breaking down the difficulties that may come afterward, things start to get a little worrisome.

I might be willing to work with a full service operation on a 50/50 once I had established myself and was able to make it work on my own. This is a personal preference though, because I like to know how things work. If I already had income from other books then working with a full-service organization would free-up a lot of time which would be really nice.

 

[Cruor Vult]

I'm curious to know for those who are just starting or who remember their first time starting: what was holding you back from self-pubbing? What seemed the most scary at first?

I'm just starting out. What I'd like to avoid is getting something important wrong, like the categories or keywords or super basic marketing things. Making critical rookie mistakes, in other words.

And would you ever work with a full-service digital publisher who would handle everything but the writing and split royalties 50/50? If not, is it because you know how to outsource the other stuff yourself, or...?

"Everything" here meaning editing, getting a good cover, formatting, writing an optimized description, getting blurbs from other authors etc.? It's interesting.
Even so, 50/50 seems pretty steep to me. I would want to retain a greater part of the split to not worry about losing out on the deal. Because even just starting out, I know that the writing is the most work intensive part, by far. But 60/40 would get my attention.

 

[Cannonball]

I'm just starting out, so I'll share my answers:

I'm curious to know for those who are just starting or who remember their first time starting: what was holding you back from self-pubbing? What seemed the most scary at first?

The scariest thing for me at the moment is editing. I'd like to get my work edited, but don't know who I can trust. Every penny I spend at the moment needs to be spent wisely.

And would you ever work with a full-service digital publisher who would handle everything but the writing and split royalties 50/50? If not, is it because you know how to outsource the other stuff yourself, or...?

Perhaps, but probably not at 50/50, unless the benefits were so good that I couldn't ignore them.

 

[AubreyRose]

I'm just starting out. What I'd like to avoid is getting something important wrong, like the categories or keywords or super basic marketing things. Making critical rookie mistakes, in other words.

You'd probably like this series then, although some of it may be overkill for you.

"Everything" here meaning editing, getting a good cover, formatting, writing an optimized description, getting blurbs from other authors etc.? It's interesting.
Even so, 50/50 seems pretty steep to me. I would want to retain a greater part of the split to not worry about losing out on the deal. Because even just starting out, I know that the writing is the most work intensive part, by far. But 60/40 would get my attention.

Yeah, the whole package.
Let me give you my reasoning for the 50/50 split, you tell me if I'm shooting myself in the foot. Most of the digital publishers out there are 35/65 splits, which to me is infuriating, especially when they don't do shit to promo their authors. All of the "digital publishers" that offer 90/10 royalty splits do so by offering no service at all - it's basically 10% their way for a shitty-looking automated format and upload, which is scammy as F*ck.

However, after running the numbers, it's hard to justify the upfront investment in a book that isn't definitely going to pay out, so I can see why the digital publishers do a 35/65 split. When I asked my RWA friends which small digital pubber had the best promotional strategy, they said "none of them - the author is on her own for promotion". I think that's also F*cked. I'd like there to be a better option for people who aren't tech-inclined enough to self-pub.

What I'd like to do is start with this 50/50 split for beginning authors and build their readership book by book. As they start selling more, we could up the royalties for their next book (probably by 5% in increments up to something like 80/20). But right now the upfront cost makes it hard to do better than 50/50 for a debut book.

I actually did a free test case on an author's book series who contacted me - we redid her cover and blurbs and republished the series. She went from selling 15 copies her first month to selling 200 in the rerelease month. I'm hoping that with a few testimonials like that I can make the case that even a 50/50 split is worth it if you know what the hell you're doing and how to actually promo books. But yeah, self-publishing is obviously the best option for someone who's willing to do the general contracting work, and I would never want to try and hide that fact from authors.[/quote]

 

[Cruor Vult]

You'd probably like this series then, although some of it may be overkill for you.

Already enjoying it and looking forward to more instalments

Yeah, the whole package.
Let me give you my reasoning for the 50/50 split, you tell me if I'm shooting myself in the foot.

Your reasons are good and sound and logical. And yet... the 50/50 thing is probably only psychological, but irrational, emotional stuff like that is possibly the most important factor in sales and marketing. I'd recoil at the idea, and you'd have to sell me real hard on a deal like that. As a new author with maybe months of hard work behind me, I'm not looking to give half of my world-shaking, ground breaking masterpiece away to someone who may or may not do a decent job. But 40 percent? Hmmmm... Rational thinking is not my strongest characteristic in that situation

 

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[Selfy]

Would be great to learn about getting "speed" up in writing. Checking it out.

 

[Rem]

This is a great idea. Would you be willing to partner with other publishing companies if they outsourced the marketing to your company. The reason I ask is I know several people who want to publish their books and I have a couple editors and I have a relative that knows the technical process and formatting for submitting books for print/ebooks etc. The issue I have is finding someone willing to market the books. Outsourcing something like that would be ideal for me.

This is not graved in stone on my end, but if I were to do this, is that something your company would even consider?

Regardless of whether I go that route I would definitely consider using your company personally. Is your company technically to help people through the process of selfpubbing or would you actually be a "publishing company".

 

[COSenior]

First, @AubreyRose, I want to thank you for providing valuable information. I'm subscribed to your weekly tutorial series on how to write a romance, and I love your style, the examples, the flashes of humor, everything. Although I've been self-publishing for a while, I'll probably sign up for the other series as well. It appears to be different info, and anything I can learn will no doubt enhance my experience.

Second, nothing scared me when I first started publishing, and perhaps some things should have. I'm a hands-on person, so I taught myself, but I know that things like understanding what makes a good cover and the finer points of formatting were sorely lacking in my first efforts. The biggie was not fully understanding my genre or even which genre would best reward my efforts.

I was fortunate to catch the attention of someone who knew of a publisher that had an established pen name going begging for a writer. I submitted a short novel, made the suggested changes and voila! I had someone that I'm going to call an indie publisher. I know he has plans to expand, but that's another subject. Before this opportunity came up, I was adamantly opposed to splitting my royalties with anyone and determined to do it all myself. The trouble was, I didn't know how to do a good job of 'it'. I had started to buy pre-made book covers rather than struggle with the technical aspects of graphics software, and I'd learned that if I had a clean Word format it came out okay when I uploaded with Amazon's auto formatter. I was learning a lot from these forums. So, why did I choose to split my royalties 50/50 after expenses? I had a good idea of how to market, but NO TIME to do it. And I had little capital for paid advertising. That's a longer story, too. Before, I had sold a total of 85 copies of all my titles put together. I think $22 was my best month's take. First month's royalties with the publisher, even splitting 50/50 after expenses, was over $800. Quick, someone do the math.

The moral of the story is that half of a lot is better than all of not much.

At this point, if someone from the US (so I don't lose taxes off the top before the split) were to offer me a similar deal, with the possibility of raising my side of the split, you betcha I'd look at it. I have a better grasp of my genre now, and my books have been well received. I'm ready to publish indie again, but I'll still outsource some of what isn't writing, especially the marketing. If that 50/50 were a split of the gross figure and expenses came out of the publisher's side, even better.

What I don't like about it is lack of control. Maybe I wouldn't choose to leave the books free for a full 5 days; maybe I'd choose different advertising venues, I'd certainly hire a better proofreader. But even with all of that, I'm still better off now than when I was struggling to do it all.

Bottom line, you guys above who have questioned the split, go ahead and publish on your own. After that, when you realize that your first book isn't likely to make you that fortune, or even enough capital to do the second one right, and you've spent a month doing something other than writing and you don't have another book to prop up your sinking sales, come back and take another look. If you knock one out of the park first time, hooray for you! You'll still need to spend your time writing instead of all that other stuff. Maybe then you'll be in a better position to negotiate the split.

 

[AubreyRose]

What I don't like about it is lack of control. Maybe I wouldn't choose to leave the books free for a full 5 days; maybe I'd choose different advertising venues, I'd certainly hire a better proofreader. But even with all of that, I'm still better off now than when I was struggling to do it all.

Yeah, that's the other thing most publishers suck at. I want to give our authors plenty of control over this stuff. Want to do a promo on a certain day? Just let us know and we'll have the price changed for you! That was one of the reasons I declined Montlake's offer (well, that and they were only offering me 35%)... no control over pricing for promotional concerns

 

[AubreyRose]

This is a great idea. Would you be willing to partner with other publishing companies if they outsourced the marketing to your company. The reason I ask is I know several people who want to publish their books and I have a couple editors and I have a relative that knows the technical process and formatting for submitting books for print/ebooks etc. The issue I have is finding someone willing to market the books. Outsourcing something like that would be ideal for me.

Sure, that would likely be a larger percentage for you (maybe 60/40? 70/30?) since you've done most of the upfront costs. I would say you're better off buying an ad package, but all the ones I've looked at suck balls. Contact me at gopubyourself@gmail.com and we'll work something out!

Regardless of whether I go that route I would definitely consider using your company personally. Is your company technically to help people through the process of selfpubbing or would you actually be a "publishing company".

We want to do both, which seems kind of silly for a publishing company, but we honestly think that for authors who want to build a writing career, self-pubbing is the way to go. If someone wants to self-pub, we want to help them do that. That said, some authors don't want to deal with the promotions and marketing once they're done writing. Some writers don't even want to THINK about cover design or formatting. For those, we'd have the publishing deals available.

 

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[Magik]

I was fortunate to catch the attention of someone who knew of a publisher that had an established pen name going begging for a writer. I submitted a short novel, made the suggested changes and voila! I had someone that I'm going to call an indie publisher. I know he has plans to expand, but that's another subject. Before this opportunity came up, I was adamantly opposed to splitting my royalties with anyone and determined to do it all myself. The trouble was, I didn't know how to do a good job of 'it'. I had started to buy pre-made book covers rather than struggle with the technical aspects of graphics software, and I'd learned that if I had a clean Word format it came out okay when I uploaded with Amazon's auto formatter. I was learning a lot from these forums. So, why did I choose to split my royalties 50/50 after expenses? I had a good idea of how to market, but NO TIME to do it. And I had little capital for paid advertising. That's a longer story, too. Before, I had sold a total of 85 copies of all my titles put together. I think $22 was my best month's take. First month's royalties with the publisher, even splitting 50/50 after expenses, was over $800. Quick, someone do the math.

Very interesting. It hadn't occurred to me that this even existed. Thanks for posting this.

I picked up that they design your book cover and handle all the tech aspects of getting the book formatted and up for sale. Regarding marketing, are they doing any paid ads, or do they just focus on social media (FB, Twitter, etc.) and content (YouTube, blog, etc.)? Also, do they offer any kind of editing beyond formatting?

 

[COSenior]

To avoid hijacking Aubrey's thread, I'll send you a PM.

 

[COSenior]

@AubreyRose, are you just kicking around your business plan at this point, or do you pretty much know what you're going to offer and under what terms? Are you already accepting submissions?

 

[AubreyRose]

@AubreyRose, are you just kicking around your business plan at this point, or do you pretty much know what you're going to offer and under what terms? Are you already accepting submissions?

It's not finalized, but the contract details are outlined here as a draft: http://pubyourselfpress.com/?page_id=14
My partner needs to go through and actually make up a contract thing for people to sign, but that's what we're planning! The asterisks are for future posts I'm writing up (like why advances are stupid as hell for fiction nowadays).

We were going to wait until we had the tutorials finalized to start working on the publishing arm of things, but yeah, hoping to get this thing going soon!

 

[COSenior]

It's not finalized, but the contract details are outlined here as a draft: http://pubyourselfpress.com/?page_id=14
My partner needs to go through and actually make up a contract thing for people to sign, but that's what we're planning! The asterisks are for future posts I'm writing up (like why advances are stupid as hell for fiction nowadays).

We were going to wait until we had the tutorials finalized to start working on the publishing arm of things, but yeah, hoping to get this thing going soon!

You mentioned earlier in this thread the possibility of raising the author's side of the split as your risk goes lower with an established market. That isn't mentioned in the contract details on your website, but if you were to throw that into the mx, I'd be quite interested in contacting you for specifics.

One thing I'd like to know is whether an author could expect the high end or low end of the range of expenses you mention in the first tutorial, or somewhere in the middle. Your estimate of $100 to $500 for editing was a pleasant surprise; I've been under the impression that it would be much more. Another thing is whether you would consider a previously-published author's track record, and if so, whether it would make a difference if that author wanted to switch pen names/genres. I would just as soon keep all specifics between ourselves, but perhaps others would like to have answers to these questions, too.

 

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[AubreyRose]

You mentioned earlier in this thread the possibility of raising the author's side of the split as your risk goes lower with an established market. That isn't mentioned in the contract details on your website, but if you were to throw that into the mx, I'd be quite interested in contacting you for specifics.

Yeah, I ran out of steam before I finished writing everything up, also it's something I need to talk with my partner about. If your pen name is already established, feel free to email me and I'll talk it over with him to see what we can do

One thing I'd like to know is whether an author could expect the high end or low end of the range of expenses you mention in the first tutorial, or somewhere in the middle. Your estimate of $100 to $500 for editing was a pleasant surprise; I've been under the impression that it would be much more. Another thing is whether you would consider a previously-published author's track record

We wouldn't ask our authors to pay for any editing, we'd be a full-service publisher. So we'd be the ones paying for all the upfront editing/cover design/etc costs. They would only need to pay for those services if they already had a separate editor/cover designer in mind that they wanted to use instead of our in-house services.

We'd consider a higher percentage split for an established pen name, for sure. I'd love to take over the covers/formatting/marketing and promotion for successful authors who need more time to write and would be happy with an 80/20 split or something similar.

 

[Magik]

We wouldn't ask our authors to pay for any editing, we'd be a full-service publisher. So we'd be the ones paying for all the upfront editing/cover design/etc costs. They would only need to pay for those services if they already had a separate editor/cover designer in mind that they wanted to use instead of our in-house services.

Would you be outsourcing the editing, have an editor on staff, or do the editing yourselves? Based on my research, freelance editors charge anywhere from .02-.05 per word, based on the level of need. Editing will be the most expensive and time consuming part of the process, especially if you have to send the author off for a few weeks to fix things, which some freelance editors do.

Fantastic idea all around though, for sure.

 

[ctcrompton]

As someone still very new to self-publishing, I would gladly sign up for this, especially since, as @COSenior said, half of a lot is more than all of nothing. However, as someone who barely has a following now, would there be help along the way? By this I mean that if you do all the marketing and editing stuff, would there be advice offered regarding writing so that I could help move the process forward as well? I'd imagine you'd prefer writers who are somewhat skilled rather than horrible writers. Something transparent that will help me understand better as I move forward would make me very inclined to join such a group.

 

[AubreyRose]

As someone still very new to self-publishing, I would gladly sign up for this, especially since, as @COSenior said, half of a lot is more than all of nothing. However, as someone who barely has a following now, would there be help along the way? By this I mean that if you do all the marketing and editing stuff, would there be advice offered regarding writing so that I could help move the process forward as well? I'd imagine you'd prefer writers who are somewhat skilled rather than horrible writers. Something transparent that will help me understand better as I move forward would make me very inclined to join such a group.

I can't speak to any other kind of writing, but I think my tutorials over at www.howtowritearomancenovel.com are pretty dang helpful. And yes, we aren't looking to sign on any horrible writers

Magik, for now we'd be doing the editing ourselves (for the first developmental edit) and with our current editors and proofreaders (sorry, not handing out names, they're already overbooked!) But yes, it is a heavy expense to take on, and we'll hopefully be signing our first writers who have pretty clean copy already.

 

[COSenior]

for now we'd be doing the editing ourselves (for the first developmental edit)

By developmental edit, you mean tightening the prose, smoothing the plot, in general improving the book? Or more along the lines of improving specifically the writing style? I never have figured out all the terminology.

 

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[mossie]

Aubrey. This is exactly what I have been looking for!

I have been self publishing non-fiction books for a while now. I have taught myself how to do that and the results are not too bad - although there is always room for improvement.

Recently I have also ventured into the fiction books in collaboration with COsenior. We have a progress page here New Kid On The Block if you want to have a look.

Since launching that first book I have learned a LOT of new things about publishing fiction - it is VERY different from non-fiction. And the most important thing would be that I have to learn a LOT about the marketing of a fiction book.

So as far as I am concerned to have publisher that knows the fiction market AND knows how to promote there AND who also has been publishing successfully there is the BEST thing since sliced bread for me!

I will be in touch via PM to ask a few more questions.

 

[Lauryn]

Argh!!!! So much great info in here. So busy lately. Bookmarking mentally because I MUST come back!

 

[ctcrompton]

I can't speak to any other kind of writing, but I think my tutorials over at www.howtowritearomancenovel.com are pretty dang helpful. And yes, we aren't looking to sign on any horrible writers

I read through some tutorials and indeed they are helpful. They also jive with what I've learned so far. If and when you begin such a publishing/promotional service for writers, please count me in!

P.S. Another question - would such a service apply to writers outside of romance fiction?

 

[AubreyRose]

We'll probably start with romance since that's what we know best (and we know many more romance authors!), but I imagine we'll be branching out as time went on.

 

[AubreyRose]

By developmental edit, you mean smoothing the plot, in general improving the book?

This one. Overarching characters/plot issues would be addressed first. I'm not looking to improve someone's writing style in any major way - there are plenty of resources out there for that. I want to take good writers and get their books sold.

 

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[webcomber]

You'd probably like this series then, although some of it may be overkill for you.

I don't think any part of the series is overkill because it is so vital to get every piece right!

I'm curious to know for those who are just starting or who remember their first time starting: what was holding you back from self-pubbing? What seemed the most scary at first?

The scariest part for me is spending all the time writing the story, and them messing something up like
the cover, the title, the blurb, etc. Bestselling authors like Aubrey know how to sell. It is as much of a science as it is an art.
If you have a good story, there is a fine line between success and failure. A bad cover can derail a book.
An unengaging blurb can derail a book that would otherwise sell. How much time do you have to learn it all? It could take years.

I thought the story was good, but the frustration was that it would just get buried in Amazon's sea of books, especially next to pros with the knowledge of how to sell.
It was my worst nightmare.

Halfway throuth releasing the series I was pulling my hair out as I watched my rank drop to 400,000 +. Other authors with similar stories catapulted to the top 1,000. I asked Aubrey for help because I was going crazy trying to find the missing ingredient(s). But with her experience, she could tell me right away. Continued in next post.

 

[webcomber]

I actually did a free test case on an author's book series who contacted me - we redid her cover and blurbs and republished the series. She went from selling 15 copies her first month to selling 200 in the rerelease month. I'm hoping that with a few testimonials like that I can make the case that even a 50/50 split is worth it if you know what the hell you're doing and how to actually promo books. But yeah, self-publishing is obviously the best option for someone who's willing to do the general contracting work, and I would never want to try and hide that fact from authors.

Aubrey is being way to modest here. She actually took a series languishing with a ranking in the 400,000+ selling little more than 15 books, and brought the series to selling over 200 within a week of the re-release. At the time of this post, two books were re-released, and for May they have broken 400 in sales (250 and 150 respectively), with a ranking of 3,500 and 4,500 just today. The final books in the series have not been released yet.

I have not read anything about the full service digital publishing until I saw this thread. All I know is that Aubrey changed the covers, the blurbs, the titles, and took a dying series and brought it to where I always thought it should be - making sales! She is awesome! Her blurbs are incredibly engaging, and the covers have such subtleties in what sells that it is a study onto itself. I wonder how many cover designers even know about these powerful visual cues that result in sales? After all, I hired a cover designer before the original release, and she did not know about these subtle selling points.I really want Aubrey just to keep doing them! I am scared to hire another designer now unless she recommends someone. It is that important to get the cover right.

For someone like me who just wants to write, and then maybe learn all this other stuff down the road, I would MUCH rather hand the covers and editing process to her. She also corrected POV errors (possibly amateur mistakes, possibly common) that were confusing the reader.

All I can say is she knows what the heck she is doing. In due time I would love to know how to do it all (covers, marketing, blurbs, titles, etc.), but it is just not realistic as this takes years of experience to really get it right. After all, this was basically the same story with a new cover and blurbs! I just did not know how to sell it. Thank you Aubrey for turning my series around!

 

[seamles]

This sounds really enticing. Sent you a PM.

To learn and partner with someone so successful could be a really great opportunity for newcomers like me!

 

[AubreyRose]

All I can say is she knows what the heck she is doing. In due time I would love to know how to do it all (covers, marketing, blurbs, titles, etc.), but it is just not realistic as this takes years of experience to really get it right. After all, this was basically the same story with a new cover and blurbs! I just did not know how to sell it. Thank you Aubrey for turning my series around!

Oh man, what a wonderful post to wake up to Can I use this as a quote for my website?

I'm so glad your books are doing well now! I gotta say, though, that even with covers, blurbs, etc, the BOOK has to be good or it won't succeed. So... congratulations on writing good books!

Happy mother's day to everyone, I still have ants crawling all over me from cutting lavender this morning to give away as bouquets. But now.. time to write!