Adventures in publishing
Today marks the first month of my self-publishing adventure. As most people say, its a fast moving, fast-learning experience.
My novel Lions of the Grail has been available for the kindle at Amazon since mid-June, on Smashwords for 5 days, as well as in printed form from lulu
So hows it going?
Well I'm not a millionaire yet :-) , however I'm pleasantly surprised to report that I've sold 32 copies, which isn't bad I suppose for starters. Also things seem to be settling down to a steady one or two copies a day. Hopefully this will start to multiply as folk read and recommend it.
Things I've learned so far:
My novel Lions of the Grail has been available for the kindle at Amazon since mid-June, on Smashwords for 5 days, as well as in printed form from lulu
So hows it going?
Well I'm not a millionaire yet :-) , however I'm pleasantly surprised to report that I've sold 32 copies, which isn't bad I suppose for starters. Also things seem to be settling down to a steady one or two copies a day. Hopefully this will start to multiply as folk read and recommend it.
Things I've learned so far:
- Time spent proof reading before ordering any printed copies is time VERY well spent. I've gone through 4 versions of the book and wasted money on mistakes on the cover, unintentional blank pages etc.
- "Standard Manuscript Format" is NOT print format. I submitted my manuscript as I would to a publisher or agent: 12 point font, A4, double spaced. A printer kindly pointed out that printed novels dont look like that. Removing the double spacing and setting the page size to A5 knocked 40% off the price of printing the book.
- The profit margin on kindle way outstrips printed books.
- Its very hard to make any profit selling hard copies: High street book chains like Waterstones won't order books from independants and you have to have an account with a book distributer like Gardeners or Bertrams that they will order through. That means you must have an ISBN (which costs money). Distributors also expect a 60% discount. The average price for a paperback fiction book is £8.99. If you sell the book to Gardeners at a their expected discount rate that mean syou have to find a way of printing the book at £3.50 before you can break even (don't forget postage etc!)
- An agent just told me that if I've published on kindle no publisher will now touch my book. Oops. One thing I should mention is that before heading down the self publishing route, make sure you've exhausted the "traditional route".
Comments