In this article, David Carnoy shared the twenty-five things he thinks every writer should know about self-publishing. Following are excerpts from that article.

1. Self-publishing is easy.

You choose a size for your book, format your Word manuscript to fit that size, turn your Word doc into a PDF, create some cover art in Photoshop, turn that into a PDF, and upload it all to the self-publisher of your choice and get a book proof back within a couple of weeks (or sooner) if you succeeded in formatting everything correctly. You can then make changes and swap in new PDFs. (Companies may charge a small fee for uploading a new cover or interior.)

Both CreateSpace and Lulu offer good instructions for the DIY crowd.

2. Digital, not print, is your best bet.

The first thing I tell authors who tell me they want to publish a print book is that print should be their secondary focus. It’s much easier to produce an e-book, particularly when it comes to formatting and cover design. And you can also price a digital book for much less than a paperback, which makes it easier to sell.

3. Quality is good.

I can’t speak for all self-publishing companies, but the quality of print-on-demand books is generally quite decent. You can’t do a fancy matte cover (yet), but the books look and feel like “real” books. The only giveaway that you’re dealing with a self-published book would be if the cover were poorly designed—which, unfortunately, is too often the case.

4. Since self-publishing’s so easy, everybody’s doing it.

One of the unfortunate drawbacks of having a low barrier of entry into a suddenly hot market is that now everybody and their brother and sister is an author. That means you’re dealing with a ton of competition, some of which is made up of hustlers, charlatans, and a bunch of people in between.

5. Good self-published books are few and far between.

Again, because the barrier to entry is so low, the majority of self-published books are pretty bad. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say less than 5 percent are decent and less than 1 percent are really good. A tiny fraction become monster success stories, but every few months, you’ll hear about someone hitting it big (for those who don’t know already, the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy was initially self-published).

6. The odds are against you.

The average print self-published book sells about 100–150 copies—or two-thirds to three-quarters of your friends and family combined (and don’t count on all your Facebook acquaintances buying). I don’t have a source for this statistic, but I’ve seen this stated on several blogs. As a Publishers Weekly article titled “Turning Bad Books into Big Bucks” noted, while traditional publishers aim to publish hundreds of thousands of copies of a few books, self-publishing companies make money by publishing 100 copies of hundreds of thousands of books.

7. Creating a “professional” book is really hard.

Creating a book that looks professional and is indistinguishable from a book published by a “real” publishing house is very difficult and requires a minimum investment of a few thousand dollars. It’s hard to get everything just right (if you’re a novice at book formatting, Microsoft Word will become your worst enemy).

8. Have a clear goal for your book.

This will help dictate what service you go with. For instance, if your objective is to create a book for posterity’s sake (so your friends and family can read it for all eternity), you won’t have to invest a lot of time or money to produce something that’s quite acceptable. Lulu is probably your best bet. However, if yours is a commercial venture with big aspirations, things get pretty tricky.

9. Even if it’s great, there’s a good chance your book won’t sell.

If your book is really mediocre, don’t expect it to take off. But even if it’s a masterpiece, there’s a good chance it won’t fly off the shelves (and by shelves, I mean virtual shelves, because most self-published books don’t make it into brick-and-mortar stores). In other words, quality isn’t a guarantee of success. You’ll be lucky to make your investment back, let alone have a “hit” that brings in some real income. Don't quit your day job yet.

10. Niche books tend to do best.

This seems to be the mantra of self-publishing. Nonfiction books with a well-defined topic and a nice hook to them can do well, especially if they have a target audience that you can focus on. Religious books are a perfect case in point. And fiction? Well, it’s tough, but some genres do better than others. Indie romance/erotica novels, for instance, have thrived in the e-book arena.

Note: If it’s any consolation, the majority of fiction books—even ones from “real” publishers—struggle in the marketplace. That’s why traditional publishers stick with tried-and-true authors with loyal followings.

11. Buy your own ISBN—and create your own publishing house.

If you have market aspirations for your book, buy your own ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and create your own publishing company.

Even if you go with one of the subsidy presses for convenience’s sake, there’s no reason to have Lulu, CreateSpace, iUniverse, Xlibris, Author House, Outskirts, or whomever listed as your publisher. For around $100 (what a single ISBN costs) and a little added paperwork, you can go toe-to-toe with any small publisher. Lulu.com sells ISBNs; other self-publishing companies don’t.

12. Create a unique title.

Your book should be easy to find in a search on Amazon and Google. It should come up in the first couple of search results. Unfortunately, many authors make the mistake of using a title that has too many other products associated it with it—and it gets buried in search results. Not good. Basically, you want to get the maximum SEO (search engine optimization) for your title, so if and when somebody’s actually looking to buy it they’ll find the link for your book—not an older one with an identical title.

13. Turn-key solutions cost a lot of money.

You’ve written your book and God knows you’d like to just hand it off to someone, have a team of professionals whip it into shape, and get it out there. Well, there are a lot of companies that will offer to make just that happen—and do it in a fraction of the time a traditional publisher could. But those “packages” range anywhere from a few thousand dollars to upward of $25,000.

These folks can potentially put together a really nice book for you. But I’ve also heard a lot nightmare stories where people come away disappointed with the process and feel ripped off. You can do a search in Google for the companies you're considering and find testimonials—good and bad—from authors who’ve used the services. Proceed with caution.

14. Self-publishers don’t care if your book is successful.

They say they care, but they really don't care. You have to make them care.

15. Buy as little as possible from your publishing company.

Self-publishing outfits are in the game to make money. And since they’re probably not going to sell a lot of your books, they make money by offering services. If you can, it’s better to hire your own people and work directly with them. Ideally, you should be able to meet with an editor, copy editor, and graphic designer in person—and they all should have experience in book publishing.

16. If you’re serious about your book, hire a book doctor and get it copy edited.

These people are experienced and are going to be upfront and honest with you. They’re not just pushing your book out to move it along the line on the conveyor belt, though they are trying to make a living.

17. Negotiate everything.

CreateSpace and other self-publishing companies are always offering special deals on their various services. There isn’t whole lot of leeway, but it doesn’t hurt to ask for deal sweeteners—like more free copies of your book. It also doesn’t hurt to ask about deals that have technically expired. In sales, everything is negotiable. Remember, these people have quotas and bonuses at stake.

18. Ask a lot of questions and don’t be afraid to complain.

When I self-published, I paid an extra $300 fee to be able to talk directly to a live person on the phone for customer support. Companies like Lulu and CreateSpace have complete DIY options and require no upfront setup fees. It’s nice to be able to call up and complain (in a nice way, of course) directly to a live person on the phone, so take that into account when you’re examining your package options.

19. Self-publishing is a contact sport.

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to self-publishing is that they expect to just put out a book and have it magically sell. They might even hire a publicist and expect something to happen. It’s just not so. You have to be a relentless self-promoter.

What’s the secret to marketing your book successfully? Well, the first thing I advise—and I’m not alone here—is to come up with a marketing plan well before you publish your book. The plan should have at least five avenues for you to pursue, because chances are you’re going to strike out on a couple of lines of attack. It’s easy to get discouraged, so you have to be ready to move on to plan c, d, and e (and the rest of the alphabet) pretty quickly.

Bonus tip: When it comes to self-promotion, there’s a fine line between being assertive and being overly aggressive in an obnoxious way. It also doesn’t impress people when all you tweet about is your book (the same goes for your Facebook and Google+ posts). As one friend told me, the state you want to achieve is what she likes to call “comfortably tenacious.”

20. Getting your book in bookstores sounds good, but that shouldn’t be a real concern.

You may have always wanted to see your book in a bookstore, but bookstores aren’t keen on carrying self-published books, and it’s extremely difficult to get good placement in the store for your book—so chances are no one will see the three copies the store has on hand anyway. Furthermore, your royalty drops on in-store sales. Some of the self-publishing outfits offer distribution through Ingram, and CreateSpace offers its Expanded Distribution program for an annual fee.

21. Self-published books rarely get reviewed—for free, anyway.

It’s very hard to get your self-published book reviewed—and the mantra in the traditional publishing world is that reviews sell books. But that’s changing a bit. People didn’t take bloggers seriously at first, and now they do. And what’s interesting is that reputable book reviewers such as Kirkus and Publishers Weekly are offering special reviews services geared toward self-published authors.

In the case of Kirkus Indie, the author pays a fee to have the book reviewed. As for Publishers Weekly, it offers something called PW Select. While you can submit your book for review for a fee, only about 25 percent of the book submissions end up being reviewed. A third option is BlueInk Review, another fee-based review service targeted at indie authors.

22. Design your book cover to look good small.

Your book has to stand out as a thumbnail image online because that’s how most people are going to come across it. If you’re primarily selling through Amazon, think small and work your way up.

23. If you’re selling online, make the most out of your Amazon page.

You need to have your Amazon page look as good as possible and take advantage of the tools Amazon has to help you surface your book (“Tags,” Listmania, reader reviews, etc.). It may not have a major impact, but it’s better than doing nothing. You should check out Amazon’s Author Central to get some helpful tips.

One tip: Make sure your book is put into five browsing categories (it’s only allowed five). It helps to categorize your book to readers, and it will also make your book look better if it’s a bestseller in those categories.

24. Pricing is a serious challenge.

The biggest problem with going the POD route is that it costs more to produce one-offs of your book than it does to produce thousands. Overall, compared with what traditional publishers pay out, royalty rates for self-published books are actually quite decent. But the fact is, to compete against top-selling titles from traditional publishers, your book should be priced $8.99 or $9.99, and that’s simply not possible if it’s longer than 250 pages.

Many of the self-publishing operations have their own online marketplaces where you can offer up your book and get a significantly better royalty rate. Lulu.com, for instance, touts its own online store, which is well designed and has a big audience. But you obviously have access to a much larger audience on Amazon, which is the first place people generally go to look for a book when they hear about it.

25. Self-publishing is a fluid business.

Self-publishing is a rapidly evolving industry with lots of competitors that are constantly throwing out new information. Publishers are continually upgrading their facilities, infrastructure, and pricing, and what I—or other pundits—say today could be wrong just a few months from now.

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David Carnoy is an executive editor at CNET and is interviewed regularly on television as a tech expert, appearing on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, The Huffington Post, and other media outlets. Though he usually writes a column for CNET on cutting-edge technologies, Carnoy wrote a great column on the ins and outs of self-publishing. He knows what he’s talking about: after writing Knife Music, a mystery/thriller novel with a medical/legal slant, he self-published. His book was successful enough that a indie publisher The Overlook Press put his book out first in hardcover and then as an e-book; it rose to the number-four position on Kindle’s bestseller list. Overlook has now released his second thriller, Big Exit.

 

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