Guest Post: How to Publish Your Book (and Earn Royalties!)
Today I’m pleased to bring you a guest post from my friend and near-neighbour Sally Jenkins, a successful published fiction and non-fiction author (check out her latest novel Out of Control – a later-life romance perfect for summer holiday reading!).
Many older people (in particular) harbour an ambition to write a book and make money from it. If that includes you, I hope you will find Sally’s article of interest. In it she sets out the main options for getting your book published, and shares some valuable resources she has found.
Over to Sally then…
Everyone has at least one book in them, or so the saying goes. It might be a thriller, a memoir, a collection of poems or short stories, a ‘how-to’ non-fiction manual or something completely different. Finishing that manuscript is a laudable achievement in itself but don’t stop there. It takes guts to send any literary work out into the public arena; however, doing so can lead to an additional passive income stream in the form of royalties that continue to hit your bank account long after you’ve finished writing.
There are three main routes to publication that you might like to consider:
Traditional Publishing
Traditional publishers come in all shapes and sizes, from the giants like Penguin and Hachette to far smaller, less well-known companies who publish in e-book format only.
Traditional publishers bear all the costs of publishing a book, meaning there is no financial risk for the author. These costs may include editing, proofreading, cover design, marketing and the printing of physical copies. The author contributes nothing to these costs and receives a small royalty for each copy of the book sold.
The competition to be signed by a traditional publisher is fierce and only a very small number of authors are taken on. The larger companies will only accept manuscript submissions via a literary agent but it is possible for authors to submit directly to many of the small publishing houses. There is nothing to lose by trying this traditional route but be prepared to develop a thick skin to deal with the probable rejections. A good place to start is an up-to-date copy of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, which contains a comprehensive list of publishers and literary agents.
Partnership Publishing
In the partnership publishing model, the publisher and the author share the financial risk of publishing the book. This means the author will be asked to make a financial contribution towards the publishing costs. What proportion and how much this means in monetary terms will vary from company to company, so it’s worth approaching more than one partnership publisher and requesting explicit information about their offering. In return for contributing to the publishing costs, the author can expect to receive a higher percentage of royalty payments than under the traditional model.
However, care is needed when choosing a partnership company to work with – there are many rogue or ‘vanity’ publishers out there who will publish anything and charge a lot of money for very little service. Ensure that the company you choose has a manuscript selection process – even if this means you might face rejection as in the traditional model. A true partnership publisher will only publish books that it thinks have merit and will sell. Even so, there is no guarantee that you will recoup all or any of your publishing costs via royalties. Do not spend more than you can afford to lose.
The Writers’ Beware website has a section devoted to avoiding vanity publishers.
Self-Publishing
Authors who self-publish carry all the financial risk themselves but retain all the royalties (bar the amount taken by distribution platforms such as Amazon). It is possible to self-publish on Amazon at no cost or you might choose to spend hundreds of pounds depending on what services you buy in. The main services requiring financial outlay will be:
Cover Design – don’t attempt this yourself unless you are a graphic designer with a knowledge of the book covers currently selling in your genre. An amateur cover design will be obvious and off-putting to potential readers.
Editing – a novel (particularly a first novel) may benefit from a full structural edit. This will advise on plot, character development, pace etc. You might also want to consider a sentence level copyedit and/or proofread.
Formatting – some authors pay for this but, with a little patience, anyone who can use Microsoft Word can do this themselves.
Printing – there is no need to pay for a print run of books and hold them in stock.
Amazon (and other companies) use print-on-demand (POD) technology. This means that when someone orders a copy of your book it is printed individually and sent direct to the customer. Authors can also order copies at a reduced rate to sell direct to friends, family or the public at large.
The Alliance of Independent Authors has a directory of reputable editors, cover designers, proofreaders, etc. The directory also lists companies who can offer a complete self-publishing service for authors who don’t want to do any of the leg work – but this can be very expensive. As with partnership publishing, never spend more than you can afford to lose.
If you would like to know more about low-cost self-publishing via Amazon, the e-book Kindle Direct Publishing for Absolute Beginners (pictured, left) offers a good introduction. If you don’t currently read on Kindle, download the free Kindle app to your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Whichever publishing route you choose, enjoy the journey and the royalties!
Bio: Sally Jenkins (pictured, right) currently writes uplifting and hopeful novels for the traditional publisher Choc Lit (part of Joffe Books). She has also had a novel published in partnership with The Book Guild and has self-published several books via Amazon KDP. When not at the keyboard, she feeds her addiction to words by working part-time in her local library and running two reading groups. Sally can also be found walking, church-bell ringing and enjoying shavasana in her yoga class. Follow her writing blog at https://sally-jenkins.com/.