Tag: Self-Publishing

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Consumer Product Safety Act and Self-Publishing Children’s Book Authors

What this means for you…

As a self-publishing Children’s book author, you may have seen news of a new lead testing requirement established in the Consumer Product Safety Information Act (CPSIA) on ALL children’s products, including Children’s books. The deadline for self-publishing authors and printers are looking at for acceptable lead levels is an approaching February 10 of this year.

Testing and certification takes place at the book printer level and full-service self-publishers of children’s books are working hard to make sure they meet requirements.  If you are in the process of publishing or currently looking for a self-publishing option don’t worry. There are those out there already covering their bases. Here is a statement from one printer/publisher posted earlier this week:

publisher and other book printing organizations are continuing their efforts to obtain a complete exemption by the CPSC by providing test results showing that the lead content level is either nonexistent or well below the standard set by the Act.

If it is determined that books are indeed covered by the Act, publisher will comply with the Act’s requirements by February 10, 2009, as the new limits on lead content begin to go into effect for products directed at children age 12 and under.

Make sure to check with your publisher when researching your options and establishing direction for your children’s book.

Have fun and keep writing.

– Karl Schroeder 

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Self-Publishing Stats: Retail and Royalty

The self-publishing journey isn’t always an easy one, even though we often claim it to be. There are many decisions to be made, and sometimes choices can get confusing.

While many of my posts may refer to authors who have yet to publish, the information is really universal. One thing I generally see successful self-published authors do is constantly learn and research. 
 
If you have published your book already, you may be starting to recognize some of the “fine print” issues involved with your publisher. For example, you may be discovering with your current publisher that their “20% royalty” is not what you expected.  Or you may be learning that your author’s copy price keeps increasing year after year, or that you have to buy 100 copies at a time just to get a fair price. You may be discovering that the royalty you earn for Amazon sales is much, much lower than the royalty they told you when you signed up. High royalties are usually reserved for publisher’s bookstores, but most books are purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Or you may be discovering that once your book was published, your publisher stopped communicating with you entirely and left you to figure out how to promote your book yourself.

These are all “tricks of the trade” and things that a good self-publisher will not do. Many authors have discovered that switching publishers is actually more profitable in the long run, even with additional upfront fees.

I recently reviewed one case study in which a best-selling author from “Publisher A” to another leading full-service self-publisher and that was the best decision he ever made. His royalties increased from 15% of his retail price to 55% of his retail price as a result. Instead of $3.74 per book, he started making nearly $14 for every book he sold on Amazon.

The good news is switching publishers is easier than you might think. Almost all publishers offer non-exclusive contracts, and you’ve already gone through the process once, after-all.

Have fun. Keep writing and keep learning!

 

– Karl Schroeder

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

More Copyright Information for the Self-Publishing Author

Copyright infringement is not a pleasant topic. Some self-publishing authors find themselves in trouble without even knowing it, by doing something as innocent as including the lyrics from their favorite songs in their book.

Music is one of the most protected copyrightable works; infringement of copyright can carry heavy fines for which the author is responsible. If you are going to use the lyrics from a song in your book, you will need to have permission from the original copyright holder. This includes cases where you are only using a stanza or two and sometimes even if you are using anything more than a single line.

Only song lyrics created and first published prior to 1923 are in the Public Domain in the United States. If the song was created after that, you will need permission to use it (or parts of it) in your work.

There are two great resources on the Internet for finding the rights holders for most music and song lyrics, from the two leading music entities, ASCAP and BMI, respectively:

http://www.ascap.com/ace/search.cfm?mode=search
 http://www.bmi.com/licensing

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Writing for Self-Publishing: Ask the Book Doctor

E-Books

Q: I am working on formatting and editing a nonfiction book designed to be both an e-book and a published hard-copy book. I will also likely end up doing the work to get this work accepted by a publisher. Can you tell me, have e-books become popular yet, or is the core of publishing still in paper and not looking to move forward?

 

A: Most publishers I know that help authors produce e-books and printed books are not traditional publishers; that is, they produce print-on-demand books and do not stockpile books or distribute them to stores. They simply print one at a time when they are ordered, so there’s no major investment on their part and no advance on royalties to you. Basically if you sell a book, you get a percentage of the profit, but if you yourself don’t sell it, the printer won’t go to any trouble to sell it for you.

 

As far as the popularity of e-books, several companies have tried to produce machines (Kindle and others) to make e-books more attractive to readers, but still e-books lag far behind printed books when it comes to sales. Still, after an e-book is created, you incur no further cost to reproduce and distribute it when sold, so e-books can provide one-hundred percent profit to authors who have a client base and can promote their own books or sell them through their own Web sites. 

What would you like to ask a book doctor? Send your questions to Bobbie Christmas at Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. 

Choosing a Publisher, Self-Publishing

Statistics Suggest Good News for the Self-Publishing Author

Bowker, the global leader in bibliographic information management, recently released 2007 book publishing statistics compiled from its Books In Print database. Based on figures from U.S. publishers, Bowker is projecting that U.S. title output  last year increased slightly from 2006 to almost 300,000 books. That’s over a quarter of a million books published in one year alone.

Here’s another interesting statistic, while traditional book publishing was basically flat last year, there was a staggering rise in the reported number of on-demand and short-run books to 134,773, pushing the grand total for projected 2007 U.S. book output to 411,422 books. In fact, Bowker has planned to separate this particular output from its traditional reporting and has begun tracking the On Demand industry segment separately.

What does this mean for you? To begin, your book may not stock in every bookstore. Or any bookstore. And it’s entirely possible that you may not want it to.

As a self-publishing author, these statistics undoubtedly suggest your sales opportunities will continue to grow and become more profitable. Sales are shifting from offline to online. More and more people are becoming comfortable with (and even accustomed to) shopping online. Selling books online is more cost-effective than selling through a typical bookstore, and that means more money in your pocket. It’s no coincidence that Amazon’s book sales numbers mirror the same increases on an annual bases. That’s good news.

It’s been said before on this blog, make sure your self-publishing choice lets you set your own retail price, royalty, and discount to take maximum advantage of shifting consumer trends.

Something to keep in mind as you wrap up your writing and begin the publishing process.

Have fun and keep writing

– Karl Schroeder