Self Publishing

To celebrate ten years of self-publishing business, Lulu.com has produced an infographic exploring some sales statistics over the last ten years.

We’ve embedded the whole infographic below–all publishers should be aware of the growing business of self-publishing. Check it out: “$36+ million earned by Lulu.com authors, $1.3 million of which was earned by the top 5 sellers.”

Bob Young, CEO of Lulu.com had this statement: “There has often been a stigma placed on self-publishing that says the self-published author doesn’t make any money – that he or she won’t be successful. In our ten-year history, Lulu has paid out over $36 million dollars to our authors proving that this stigma is outdated. It is now easier than ever to sell works in all sorts of formats, in all sorts of markets, on all sorts of devices, in some cases instantly. Publishing is changing. The concept of a book is changing.”

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Sylvia Day recently landed a book deal with Berkley Books for her self-published erotica novel, Bared to You. The publisher has launched a revised eBook edition and printed 500,000 copies of the novel for the June 15 trade paperback release.

So far, Vintage has sold over ten million copies of E. L. James‘ Fifty Shades of Grey, creating a booming new audience for erotica. Yesterday, Goodreads charted the spread of Fifty Shades among readers around the country, noting that Day’s novel had seen a significant spike on the social network for readers.

Here’s more from the publisher: “Shortly after its April 3rd release, Bared to You jumped into the list of top 40 bestselling eBooks at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The author is currently selling about 1,000 copies of Bared to You—every day! Bared to You is now a national bestseller, landing on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.”

The American Booksellers Association has posted a very useful article explaining how self-published authors can sell their books at a few independent bookstores around the country. We’ve posted links to those helpful resources below, but you should read the whole article.

If your bookstore has an option for self-published authors, share a link in the comments section–we will update our article with more resources. Watermark Books and Cafe owner Sarah Bagby explained how self-published writers can add books at her Wichita, Kansas bookstore. Check it out:

“No questions asked, we’ll take five copies of a book on consignment,” said Bagby. The terms are 60/40, and the store keeps the books on the shelves for 90 days. “If they sell, we’ll get back to the author right away and reorder. If they don’t, the author needs to pick up their books.” … A second Watermark program offers tiered event options, which can cost from $50 to $500. Elements include a signing, newsletter inclusion, and front-of-store title placement, or a reading and signing, 100-postcard mailing to the author’s list, a four-color 11″ x 17″ poster hung in the store, and more. (Via Victoria Strauss)

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Teaming up with 20th Century Fox, director Ridley Scott and producer Steve Zaillian have acquired the film rights to Wool–a self-published science fiction novel about a dystopian future.

You can read an early draft of Wool at this link. Author Hugh C. Howey (pictured) also landed a book deal with Random House UK this weekend. The former yacht captain published Wool in July 2011, and has since written four more books in the series.

Check it out: “WOOL was picked up by Century, a kick-butt division of Random House, which . . . wait for it . . . also did 50 Shades of Grey. After a 5-way auction that took place during the London Book Fair, Century and Random House came through with the most compelling offer. They addressed every single concern I had with the domestic offers. They appreciate how this was published, how important your involvement has been, and they want to maintain and even emulate those features.” (Via Sarah Weinman)

125 years after it was first self-published, Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio by naturalist and artist Genevieve Jones will be published by Princeton Architectural Press.

Inspired by viewing John James Audubon‘s The Birds of America collection, the 29-year-old author wrote and illustrated a lovely volume before her tragic death. The new $45 book, America’s Other Audubon, contains 68 color illustrations, the original field notes and new text by Joy M. Kiser.

Check it out: “Her brother collected the nests and eggs, her father paid for the publishing, and Genevieve learned lithography and began illustrating the specimens. When Genevieve died suddenly of typhoid fever, her family labored for seven years to finish the project in her memory. The original book, sold by subscription in twenty-three parts, included Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Theodore Roosevelt among its subscribers. Only ninety copies of the original book were published in 1886, and fewer than twenty-five copies now remain in institutions and private hands.”

In May, the University of Chicago Press will publish A Naked Singularity, a 700-page debut novel that Sergio De La Pava self-published in 2008 through Xlibris.

The story behind the book deal may inspire more literary authors to self-publish. In an email, Chicago Press promotions director Levi Stahl recounted how he discovered the self-published book:

late in 2010 I read a review by Scott Bryan Wilson in the Quarterly Conversation that said the novel was the best he’d read all year, maybe the best of the decade. And that praise, I discovered, had led to other critics picking it up—and they all agreed: it was brilliant, and it was a shame that no publisher had signed it. I got a copy, was blown away, and started rattling cages here at Chicago to convince people we should publish the book and give it a shot at reaching a wide audience. And in the midst of all the usual gloom and doom stories about the changing world of publishing, this one looks to be a story of success:, of a great book finding an audience—and then finding a publisher—through the conversations and opportunities that the Web has made possible. Without cheap digital publishing technology, the book would never have existed; without the Web, I would never have heard about it.

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GalleyCat contributor Jeff Rivera interviewed self-publishing success story Amanda Hocking for mediabistro.com’s So What Do You Do? feature.

When asked about why most writers who self-publish are not able to achieve what she has, she replied:

A lot of authors tend to over market or they don’t take criticisms very well. They think that their book is perfect. They don’t want to get bogged down with editing or covers, because they think their book is so good. Or they market too hard. All they do is talk about their book and nobody wants to hear, ‘Buy my book.’ They want to have a conversation with you … Also, new writers respond to negative reviews and have great catastrophic meltdowns. You can’t respond to reviews at all except to say ‘thank you for reading the book.’ That’s the best you can do; otherwise, you’re just going to look bad even if the reviewer is totally out of line.

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Ever since authors like J.A. Konrath and Amanda Hocking proved that writers can earn a pretty penny by self-publishing, what used to be considered an illegitimate approach is now losing the bad reputation.

Romance novelist Barbara Freethy knows that this is true. She shared the freedom she found in self-publishing in a Mediabistro feature, What Every Author Should Know Before Publishing an eBook.

But with freedom, comes more responsibility. Check it out: “There is a ton of work behind it, and the author has to really become a business owner and a marketing expert. And you are your own art department. You have to hire out your own editors, hire out various parts that would be given to you if you were working with a traditional publisher.”

Because of his brother’s tepid experience with a traditional agent and a traditional publishing house, author Francis Tapon decided to self-publish when he wrote his first book.

To do so, he created a publishing company called WanderLearn, bought a set of 10 ISBN numbers and used creative low cost ways to get his work edited and designed.

In an interview with eBookNewser, he explains how he found an editor. He said: “Instead of hiring an editor, I found two amateur editors (people very finicky about the English language) who were willing to edit my book for free. In addition, I had dozens of ‘Beta Readers’ who signed up for getting drafts of the manuscript in exchange for their feedback. Some people love seeing books before they go to print and they love the power that they can influence the author’s final work. With all those eyeballs scrutinizing the manuscript, there were no more errors in the book than if it had been professionally edited. I effectively crowd-sourced the editing of my book.”

GalleyCat contributor Jeff Rivera interviewed bestselling novelist Jackie Collins for mediabistro.com’s So What Do You Do? feature.

Collins revealed her plans to self-publish an updated version of her 1979 novel, The Bitch, as an eBook. Collins (pictured, via) will continue working with her traditional publisher for other books.

Follow this link to read the whole interview. Here’s an excerpt: “If it ends up doing very well, I will continue to self-publish books probably because I’ve got a series of short stories that have never been published. And I’ve always said to my publisher, ‘I’d like to do a book of short stories.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, short stories don’t sell.’ And dealing with publishers, it might be fun just to deal with myself. I always say, ‘If you have faith in something, do it yourself.’”

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