Questions to Ask Before Publishing Your Book (Part 1)

If you are considering publishing your work, please taste, chew, and digest the first part of this article before doing so. For the complete article, goto: http://controversialwriter.tripod.com Should you need help in editing, re-writing, ghostwriting, reviewing, promoting, or publishing your book, mailto: controversialwriter@yahoo.com ................................................................. ............................... "Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have."--Tom Wolfe Publishing is an uncertain business. Like an election. Things may go wrong. Back in the days, when men knew nothing about the sphericity of the earth, U.S. cartographers dreaded sailing the oceans. So they would point their fingers across the seas and say to one another: "There be monsters!" The sailors meant that anything goes in the high seas. They may even have thought that literal monsters and their fellow dragons were performing what Googol delights doing on land: rampaging the oceans. And the heart-in-the-mouth sailors couldn't play Odesseus, who successfully sailed the devil-may-care whirlpool of Scylla and Charybdis by clinging tenaciously on a floating piece of wood. All hail the aged Greek hero! (Who says it didn't happen?) So it is in publishing: A risky adventure. So before you actually send your best-seller to the publisher, there are some questions that would like to ask yourself in order to test your preparedness to make your work available to the pubic. You will do well to ask yourself these questions: Am I ready to gamble with the publishing cost? To begin with, know this: book publishing is not as cheap as MacDonald's Burger. (That is if you think that the bread is chicken feed.) When we talk of publishing, however, we no not mean only the set up fee for producing your book. Other things are involved. To publish a good work, you would have to edit it before approaching the book publisher, and you should be prepared to market your work. Now let us make an estimate of what is involved: editing cost, $500--$1,000; publishing, $700--$1,200; initial promotion, $1,500--$3,000. Totals, $2,700--$4,200. Then ask yourself: Do I have this amount? Even if you were to crunch the figure to half the amount, will it make a hole in your pocket? Then ask, Can I risk the fee? If I can't afford the cost, Can I borrow it? If I do, will I be able to repay the loan? These questions are appropriate so that you don't end up in the hole, or worse, bankruptcy. You should know this: lack of funds seems to be the major problem of first time writers. It is possible for you to find a "sympathetic" publisher who will accept your book free. If so, go along with him. But watch out for four shoals. Since the publisher is paying the piper he is to dictate the tune of the business. First, he might set up rigorous submission procedures. And your work must be OUTSTANDING to clear the hurdle. Again he might write or ghost write your story to suit his needs--something you will not like. Third, you might not have complete copyright of the work. And last, your royalty will be scanty. It is not an entirely altruistic gesture. This is why it is better for you to finance the publication of your work and be in FULL control. Do I believe that people will read my book? This question is very important. Why? Because if you are NOT sure that anyone will pick your work, you have no business publishing it. For did you not write it for people to read? So you must have faith that your book will find an audience, even if it might not be a large one. For example, could your work be enjoyed by only a few friends or towns folks, work or school mates? If so, you've got readers. Is my theme such a timely and interesting one that the public should know? It could be that the subject of your work is so timely that you can't wait. Could it be that the work is following an incident like a natural disaster such as an earthquake or a mine collapse, or a social problem like a terrorist attack or a revolution? Then it is the right time to publish your book. In that case, it will be appropriate for you to find out from your publisher how long it will take to publish your book. Some take days or weeks. For others it could be months. Can you afford the wait? Is this the best market to publish my book? Ordinarily, your locality is the best place to publish your work. But you have to ask yourself, Will my folks read my book? Or do they even read books at all? Although the reading culture is dropping, if you feel that people in your land do not read book or if they are too poor to buy one, then you have a problem publishing where you live. Why not then publish your book where an average number of people can afford to buy and read books. It will be helpful to know this: While the United States is the world's largest exporter of books, the highest producer of books is the United Kingdom. Let me give you a list of the top 10 producers of books worldwide per capita between 1991--1994. The United Kingdom takes the driver's seat, followed by Spain, Germany, France, and Republic of Korea. Others are Canada, Italy, Japan, the United States, and China in the back seat. Consider readership. The demographic characteristics of U.S. adults reading literature of 2002 give us the following statistics in percentages. Gender: female 55.1; male 37.6; ethnicity and race: Hispanic 26.5; White 51.4; African American 37.1; Other 43.7. Age: 18 to 24, 42.8; 25 to 34, 47.7; 35 to 44, 46.6; 45 to 54, 51.6; 55 to 64, 48.9; 65 to 74, 45.3. Knowledge of the reading culture of people of different lands will enable you to know whether the place you intend to release your book is the best market for it. In the above reading demography, you will notice that the readers in America are the women, the whites, and people between the ages of 45 to 54--that is the adults, and not the youths. Modern technology has, however, made it possible for a book to be published anywhere and be read in hamlets around the earth. This book that you are reading could be bought and read irrespective of where you live in this world--from the Netherlands to New Zealand and from Alaska to Azerbaijan. It is the power of the Internet. Use it. If your work is published and made available to be downloaded in online bookstores in the Internet, then you never need to worry whether you published in your home country or in the antipodes. The important thing is availability. It is cheap to publish in Australia. For example, equilibriumbooks.com which offers fee-free print publishing options can also give you a deluxe print package for as little as AUD$169! But this does not mean that you would have to publish your book in Australia if your audience is in the U.S. The reason is that the shipping cost of your book from down under will make your book very expensive for your American readers. Am I expecting responses from my readers? Know that readers must react to your story. This is even more so if you have written a good book. Some critics might write to say that is was a good read while others might just say that it was the worst book that they have ever read. This should neither surprise nor annoy you. After all, you need reader's response. And sometimes these comments help to pop up your book's sales. Your other consolation is that these critics can't write or are afraid to write. You are a step ahead of them because you have written a book. And know this: that perfect book that they are all looking for, does not exist. It has not been written. Because man--the writer--is an imperfect creature. Will I benefit in one way or the other from the publication of this book? A book's publication brings some measure of prestige and authority to the writer. It could help you to advance in your job, business, or career. It could widen your circle of associates. And your speaking travels could take you foreign lands--places that you likely wouldn't have been. Would you like to take advantage of all these by publishing that your book? Will I be content even if I don't make money? Consider this question closely because the mere fact that you have just published a book is not the equivalent of digging a field laid with gold. Truth is, it could make you poorer. I will like to leave you with these home truths about book publishing: book publishers are not generally interested in book promotion. When you pay a publisher to publish your book, he has made all his profit. Period. The money he gets from the sales of your book only adds to his profit margin. His next move is to woo you to submit another work or to purchase a promotional package. And he makes more money. It does not matter if the publishing fee is small. The publisher collects several other books from other authors. So the "small" profit he gets from each writer translates into huge sum of money. Let's consider our earlier estimate and assume that you paid about $700 to publish your book. And let's also suppose you did not pay for editing and promotion. You can never ever recoup your publishing fee in a year. Even if you are a marketing whiz. You could end up selling about two books. Take it from me. If you are able to regain your publishing costs and make profit, then we are to roll out the red carpet for you to receive the Marketer of the Year Award. It is not always easy to find publishing houses like zumayapublications.com, the Canadian publisher which offers free publishing and promotion for both e-book and paperback. Twenty years ago, Vantage Press would take $7,000 from you to publish, distribute and sell your book. Presently, authorhouse.com takes about $700 to publish you, and iUniverse.com will also take about the same amount to edit and publish your book. And booklocker.com will publish your e-book free of charge. The point you will have to know is that the publishers are getting smart. They have to be in business. Even if you are given a discount, don't begin to laud the "benevolent" publisher. The trick is to bring you in, take your money and go to sleep. They never really worry if you sell or not. So, is it OK with you if don't sell a dime? READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IN AUTHOR'S WEBSITE BELOW. (Culled from HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER by Arthur Zulu, to be published soon.) http://controversialwriter.tripod.com Mailto: controversialwriter@yahoo.com Web Search: Arthur Zulu Mail the full article to 10 friends and get FREE copy of HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER. Copy the author in your mail.