Stone In The Surf Press

I’ll cut to the chase here and lay out the basic fundamentals of the economics which drives this current opportunity to become an “Indie” publisher.  You can find the details throughout this website, but I’ll use When The Force Isn’t With You as an example.  Keep in mind I always set the goal as making your book available to anyone in the world who wishes to purchase a copy.  The specs are;

 

270 page book,

black and white photos

text,

color cover,

6x9 trade paperback,

100 marketing copies,

Press Release,

100 post card mailing,

USBN,

UPC,

Copyright,

1 Page website with “Buy Now” link

Available on Ingrams

 

Monetary and emotional success are very different beasts.  But, keeping to the goal that I have written a story I feel other people would like to share and that I would like to get some compensation for, I have three options.  I can go the traditional mega-corp publisher/agent route, POD or Indie.

If I choose to go the traditional route, my guess is I would have to send out at least 100 submissions to publishers and agents.  This book is so niche that my odds are slim even at that many.  Once you add up the cost of printing the first three chapters, postage, return envelops, etc, I’d be looking at $724.  Mind you could do this for less, but I like to send these packages at least priority mail with the hopes it will actually land on someone’s desk.  This process has no guarantee of any success whatsoever.  And in my experience it has always been zero.

POD houses like iUniverse or AuthorHouse are somewhat like remodeling with a contractor, hand them your check book and let them deal with all of the hassles.  If you don’t have the ability or time to take on the effort of being an “Indie” and you have cash to burn then this is the best way.  To get my book where I’d want it, going POD would cost me around $2,800.

I’m a bit of a do-it-yourselfer.  I won’t make my own plywood or mill my own 2x4’s but I will tackle almost any remodeling project you can think of.  As I tell my son, if an Accountant from Burbank can do it, anyone can.  If you do your homework and keep things simple to begin with you can be very successful.  You’ll also have to be willing and have the time and patience to learn a few new things.  That being said, you can be up and running as an “Indie” for just shy of $900 cash outlay (less than $200 net if you sell copies to your mom).   That’s a little more than what the traditional route costs and has 99.99% probability of success.  And, it’s a fraction of what going POD runs and comes with a great deal more control.  And from my experience, I’d have to say with not too much more effort than was necessary to manage a POD.

Here are a few more points on industry economics….

Economics might as well be the Specter of Death to a first time writer.  Behind the door of every major publisher lies that sinister dark cloaked figure with the rusted and stained scythe.  After being told “no” by 110 agents and publishers in New York, you begin to think that vision is true.  Or you feel like the guy on the wrong side of the phone from David Spade in the Capital one commercial.  It seems like on the desk of every editor and agent is that big book, 1001 ways to say “NO!”. 

Unfortunately publishing is big business and big business is a matter of margins and economics, plain and simple.  Consider a first run book.  A publishing company is going to invest a minimum of $50,000 to get a book to print.  They have all of the marketing, and production costs, not to mention the time consumed internally by editors, artists, sales and distribution.  Add at least $100,000 to $150,000 to the cost of printing.  When I lived in the world of high tech start-ups, VC’s (venture capitalists) had a rule of thumb, out of 100 companies they seed, 97 will fail, two will do ok and one will hit it big.  That one that hits big, has to cover the risk and money invested in the other 99.  In the dot com era, it happened.  The same is true for publishers.  My guess is they are banking on at least one in ten of their new titles will hit it big.  That means that if a book is going to be successful it not only has to recoup the initial investment, but that of nine other duds as well.  If you were sitting behind that desk and your job depended not on bringing the next wonderful story to the world, but proposing a low risk high probability of return investment to your management, would you choose a children’s book written by an unknown accountant born in Burbank, that does not fit well on a shelf or one sort of written by a pop icon who nails herself to mirrored crosses?  I hate to agree with the corporations on this one, but after being a CFO for many years, if I only had one book to pick, I’m going with the world famous and highly controversial pop icon.  You can’t blame them.

For those of you who are so inclined, you can submit your manuscript to agents and publishers.  A few words of advice.  Do you homework.  These people get thousands of manuscripts every week.  If they publish or represent romance novels, don’t send them a western.  They won’t read it, you’ll waste the postage and printing and envelops and the day you do write the next great romance novel, they won’t read that either.  Follow their submission guidelines carefully, they post them for a reason.  One rule I do break is when they state that they do not accept multiple submissions.  Please, do the math.  If every time you submitted your manuscript you had to wait the three to six months before you can submit the next one, it would take years to find a publisher.  I figured out that for Charlie’s Treasures I would have waited fifteen years to find out no one was going to publish my book and if I added in all of the agents and publishers I contacted in New York, it would have been a total of sixty five years.  Giving the statistical average life of a male in this country is around seventy-three, I would have been dead for thirty three years before the last “No Thank You” letter showed up.  There is an old Chinese proverb that states “May your first manuscript be such a wonderful work of art that you must worry about multiple acceptance letters.” 

A word of caution, there are a lot of slimly agents and publishers out there.  If their claims seem too good to be true, they probably are.  If they agree to take your work or review it or edit it for a fee, run.  No legitimate agent or publisher charges you for your work.  I’ll repeat, do your homework.  There are a lot of good sites on the web, see my resources page as a starting place.  And always include a stamped SASE.  It’s the best way to insure that you will get a reply.

Oh, one last thing, never, ever take their “Drop Dead and Die” letters as I like to refer to them, personally, they don’t.  Save them for that day when you hit it big.  Then send each one of them an autographed copy of your book.

A word to the publishers and agents out there, it may be your job, but its our life’s dream.  Be kind and cordial in your reply.  There’s no need to be snide or nasty or tell us not to quit our day jobs.  It doesn’t hurt to use a full sheet of paper either.

I tried this approach for The Chronicles of Adrian Smith and then Charlie’s Treasures, which I was certain would hit it big.  I even bounced When The Force Isn’t With You off my former agent thinking that this rather odd autobiographical tale might be easier for them to sell.   So certain was I that these books were destine for the New York Times Best Seller List that I opted for sending my manuscripts via Priority Mail.  I think I sent out about thirty copies of Charlie’s Treasures and thirty of The Chronicles of Adrian Smith.  And it took about two calendar years each to send out and wait for replies.  I’m purposely leaving out my trip to New York for this example.  It is almost $10 each to mail add to that the envelop, manuscript, SASE, postage and cover letter, I’m it this about $12 per submission.  Now add to that the value of my time and the number easily doubles if not more.  That’s $360 cash to find out no one was going to publish The Chronicles of Adrian Smith.  I spent $700 with AuthorHouse (formerly 1stBooks) and had books in stores in a few months.  I understand that the same package is now somewhat higher.  For just over $600 (I already have the website, USBN, Fulfillment, inplace), I will have When The Force Isn’t With You in print with a fulfillment and distribution channel, in a few weeks.  The industry has become more competitive, a little more mature, and a bit more advanced since I published my first book.  I’ve also learned a great deal of what worked and a lot about what didn’t.

There is one more important shift in the mindset of the “mega-corp” publishers.  It used to be that agents and publishers would never touch a book that had been independently produced.  They considered them to be too amateurish.  I asked a very well known agent from Tiburon if she would ever consider picking up an author who was “self-published”.  He replay was, “Never.  Their work has already proven there’s no market.”  It felt as if my story somehow bore a scarlet letter.  Not so anymore.  The “mega-corps” now see the successful indie book as having proven itself and therefore far less risky.  Susanne Severeid recently was approached by one of the top literary agents for her book The Death of Milly Mahoney.  Consider this, if you don’t think you can afford to become an indie then you probably can’t afford to submit you work to agents and publishers.  Do the math.  For Charlie’s Treasures and The Chronicles of Adrian Smith I had a very narrow target market of agents and publishers.  For more mainstream works and works of non-fiction I say you can estimate sending out at least 50 to 100 submissions.  Try this simple model and see what it will cost.  You’ll need to go to your local office supply store and the post office.  

1	Paper	$
2	Ink
3	Large Envelop
4	SASE Envelop
5	Postage
6	Return Postage
7	Total Cost Each		Add 1 thru 6
8	Number of Submissions
9	Total Cash for Submissions		7 Times 8
10	Your time to prepare One
11	Total Time to Submit		9 Times 10
12	Hourly Rate
13	Value of your time		11 times 12
14	Total Cost of Submissions		Add 9 and 13

I apologize if this looks like a tax form, force of 25 years of bad habit.  If you wonder about the cost of paper, divide the price you paid for one ream, usually 500 sheets by the number of pages in what you intend to submit.  This can vary from an entire work, to the first three chapters (common industry practice) to a proposal of a few pages.  Include your cover letter as well.  You can make a similar estimate for ink as well.  Since Charlie’s Treasures was full of color illustrations, I was blowing through ink cartridges like there was no tomorrow.  At $50 each, it was very expensive.  You can also substitute the cost of copying the materials if you indented to use your local copy store to reproduce your manuscript.

Why add in the value of your time?  When you decide to go “indie” you are entering into a business.  In business time is money, your time has value.  You need to know what the value of your effort is worth.  Every cost accountant learns the basics of the tried and true “time and motion” analysis.  Time yourself.  Figure out how long it takes to search for that publisher, adjust your cover letter, manuscript and SASE to their format, print them, stuff the envelops and drive them to your local post office.  You’ll be surprised at the answer.  When I do the above calculation, I realize for the hours I have spent, I would have been monetarily better off getting a job flipping burgers.  But, I never would have received the personal satisfaction I have by being an “indie” and I’m in this for the long term investment.  This exercise is all part of what I like to refer to as “establishing reasonable expectations”. 

If your goal is to get your book into print.  We won’t go beyond that into level of sales, but keep it at the milestone before that.  You, Jane or Joe writer have a burning desire to see you book in print.  You now have a tool for evaluating which road to choose.  If you have no desire to become an “indie” which is no small task, you can take the answer above and determine if that level of investment is worth it to you for an uncertain outcome.  I am willing to invest “$X” for a chance that my book may be published.  Or, if you are driven like I am, you can use that time and capital (money) and become an “indie”.  The certainty is almost 100% you will get your book into print and available to bookstores all over the world.  Notice, I’m being very careful not to mention sales.  That’s an entirely different subject.

So why did I decide to go “indie”?  After trying the traditional approach with no success I knew it was the only way that I could share my stories.

In Academia there’s a term often heard, “publish or perish”.  This referrers to the professional demand for professors to publish thesis and as such reinforce their credibility and their University’s as well.  R&E Research Associates, the first publishers I worked for, made their niche in the market publishing just such works.  And Bob and Adam were in their own unique way very successful.  For me publishing became the logical extension of writing.  Once the story is down on paper, it must find a way to be told.

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there’s a classic scene where King Arthur rides up to a peasant and proclaims that he is King of the Britons.  He further validates his claim at sovereignty by explaining that the Lady of the Lake has given him the sword Excalibur as a symbol of his authenticity.  The peasant rebuts this by informing him “Look, strange women lying on their backs in a pond handing out swords … that’s no basis for a system of government”.  I can somewhat paraphrase that in my life.  Just because some muse living in the Hacienda Hotel in Cabo San Lucas throws a rock at you should not form the basis of a publishing company.  Bad example, because in my case it did.  You can read about my stone in the surf under about us.  That stone was a catalyst that set my life in motion. 

The cool thing is that your options to publish range form the one stop shops like iUniverse and AuthorHouse to being completely “indie” to somewhere in between, which is where I’m aiming Stone In The Surf. 

Spend your time writing a good story be it fictional, non-fictional, self-help or business.  Then look at all of your options for taking that story into a tangible book and making it available to the world.  If you decide to pursue the road of becoming an “indie” the following sections will help you gain a better understanding of to make your adventure as successful and rewarding as possible.