So I’m editing a manuscript for a woman who wants to self-publish her book. She signed on with a self-publishing company and has been considering their various packages.
This outfit quoted her rates for their services—including $5,000 to edit her manuscript. And $150 more just to make the book available on Kindle. These are just two of the large array of services offered.
$5,000 is an exorbitant rate for editing a manuscript of fewer than 300 pages. I know for a fact that there are great freelance editors out there who charge far less. And $150 to upload the book to Kindle—that is just ridiculous. Anyone can—for free—upload a manuscript to sell on Kindle.
To follow up on yesterday’s post about self-publishing options, a big part of the problem I have with self-pub companies is this outrageous up-selling, particularly for things you can do on your own without much trouble or expense.
Here’s a list of services I don’t recommend paying for:
• Copyright registration: Easy to do yourself at U.S. Copyright Office
• Obtain an ISBN: Via ISBN.org
• Making your book available as an ebook: Takes all of five minutes on Smashwords. And go to Amazon’s Digital Text Platform to upload to the Kindle.
• Website Set-up: Create your own simple Wordpress site, which can be a blog or a full-fledged website, for little to no money.
What is worth paying for?
• Editing: With all of the money you didn’t pay for the above services, if you can afford it I recommend professional editing. Of course, I’m biased on this point. If you have an alternative to share feel free to do so in the comments.
• Design: A good cover is essential. Unless you have amazing design skills, a good freelance designer is worth the investment.
More tips, advice and caveats for DIY authors? Please share here.
-Maria Schneider
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Depending on the type of book, I’d argue that paying for professional eBook formatting is just as important as it is for the printed book. Straight narrative fiction isn’t as big a deal as it for books with tables, bulleted lists, images, etc., but with the variety of formats and platforms in play right now, there is no single solution that will optimize for them all.
BTW, the DBW eBook webinar tomorrow will cover some of these formatting challenges.
@Guy, I know, I encountered that problem with ebook formatting myself when I tried to put an ebook up on Smashwords. The formatting is problematic with ebook conversion. I’d like to get a list of freelance designers who specialize in ebook formatting if you have one.
Hi Maria,
Having worked for one of the first POD companies, I agree with you that the fees have gone crazy, in most cases. I also agree that design and editing are very important (although a book cover is less important if you are selling mostly online).
I would hesitate to recommend that every author get their own ISBN though: as that means that all orders come to them, not to the self-pub firm (which is acting as their distributor and fulfillment house).
(At my company, we bundled the copyright registration in with ISBNs and LOC registration simply because we had all that information together anyway and it made more sense to us to do it that way — seemed like a better deal for the authors, too.)
But you’re right. All these things can be done by the author and in many cases should be. Certainly, they shouldn’t paying over the odds for packaged products if they can find reputable alternatives cheaper.
@Julie, thanks for chiming in, it’s always helpful to hear the voice of experience.
Re the ISBN issue: I’m assuming most self pub authors now use Amazon as their primary online distributor. Getting your own ISBN works if you’re selling via Amazon yes?
It is outrageous. $150 for a kindle version? I’ve done almost all of the above myself at very little cost, most was just shipping proof and completed copies to myself. Amazon’s Createspace (which is catching on) will give you a free ISBN. For self-pub fiction authors, it’s practical. Maybe not so much for business entities. But $5000 dollars isn’t worth what I’ve done for free, at the possibility that they might catch a single typo I missed after months of re-editing.
Editing and design, after doing both myself, I would think they are worth paying for if you don’t know how to do it or don’t have the patience to spend more time on them than the actual writing. But I wouldn’t cross self-editing out. I’m biased as well, of course. But I was more insistent on the editing than most, it wouldn’t work for all. Editing is worth paying for. Unless it will cost more than the profit you will ever make from your book. It’s a gamble, a large risk. And it’s more likely to pay off in the publisher’s favor.
I thought I was wading into familiar waters here but it seems I stepped off a sandbar. Interesting insights and other people using different ways and methods to self-publish.
If you’ve never done anything like self-publishing a book, the peculiarities can surely be intimidating. That alone might make it worthwhile to pay someone else to do your self-publishing for you. But if you pay someone else to do it, you won’t know much more by your next book.
I self-pubbed my first book in 1991 and things are so much different now. But really, except for the technology, how much have they really changed? I think you can spend a lot less to have a book in your hand today than you could two decades ago. I know I do.
Advice. Definitely get a pro edit done before self-publishing, Hire someone like me! I charge $40 an hour and edit tons of books for both small publishers and individuals self-publishing. A 300-page book will run under $1,000 but it will be a polished product you will be proud of. You don’t want to be like many of my clients who come to me, cringing in embarrassment over all the mistakes people pointed out to them in their published book. I also give a free sample edit of a chpater so you can see all your mistakes! How fun! http://www.cslakin.com
(I made this comment on Alegra’s status after reading your blog, Maria, and she suggested I share my perspective with you, and so I quote it here.)
I am gobsmacked.
Clearly, considering the number of manuscripts I have stacked here, I am in the wrong end of the business. If I had chosen to be a self-publishing entity instead of a standard publisher (albeit very small), I could have gouged these people blind and really racked up the money!
$5,000 to edit a manuscript?? That’s insane.
Getting your own ISBN is the way to go, because you know that the self-publishing company is getting blocks of them for a cheaper price than they’ll charge you for one. Remember, too, that they get credit as your “publisher” by buying them in blocks because of the assignation process. Self-published is a misnomer when you’re using a company like that.
Don’t let them nail you for Bowker or any other listing and for lord’s sake, don’t let them charge you for doing the “work” getting your copyright from the copyright office! It is not time consuming. It really isn’t.
(Okay. I shall now sit quietly in the corner and read and enjoy, as I have been doing for quite some time. You are fabulous, Maria.)
I agree with most things in this post, such as doing your own copyright and setting up your own ISBN, but some areas you might be better off paying a professional to do for you. You mention it is worth paying someone to make your cover for you if you have no artistic talent. If that’s the case, are you really able to do a good job of representing your online presence, which also requires artistic talent? As a web designer and a writer, I think template websites (such as Wordpress templates) are always easy to spot. On top of that, when I see the same Wordpress theme seen on a dozen other websites, I immediately know that. I guarantee I’m not the only one. It does not cost much to pay a designer to make you a good, original website. I think that is just as important as a good book cover, if not more important, because it can last well beyond your first book.
@Maggie. Thanks. :) And I love your use of “gobsmacked.”
@Robert. I do agree with you that a web/blog designer is helpful, although I don’t think it’s #1 priority for an author just starting out if he has to pick and choose where to allocate funds. I do think at some point in a writer’s career a well-designed site does become necessary, but starting off with a simple template isn’t a terrible way to go in my opinion.
I’d like to add that when writers consider their publishing choices that they be brutally honest about their understanding of intellectual property law and contract clauses that protect their rights. The best edits in the world cannot mitigate the dismal discovery that one has read the royalty clause a dozen times while the subsidiary rights and termination clauses received only a sideways glance and a shrug.
I also went the DIY route after my publisher folded, but have taken the approach of offering free e-book downloads from my website in order to build readership. I’ve been selling shorter works in tandem with that. (Fiction and poetry appear in the Oct./Nov. 09 Asimov’s, for example.)
I registered all six books of my series with the Copyright Office, the first four back in 2007. The final two are still being processed, but registration becomes effective from the date of receipt. Last I heard, the process takes up to 18 months, according to this Washington Post article. When I release a new work I mail copies to the Library of Congress, to meet its mandatory deposit requirement.
I purchased my ISBN numbers directly through Bowker, the official ISBN agency for the United States. Bowker also recently reduced the cost of its ISBN packages. Given that I offer free downloads at this time, those numbers do not get me into sales channels, but they put me into the system and into Books In Print.
I took several cues from Jeffrey A. Carver’s excellent how-to article, “Psst! Wanna Buy a Free Ebook?” (The Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Dec. 2008-Jan. 2009). You can see what he’s done with his work here. My blog entry You CAN Do This At Home!” walks the reader through my own file conversions, with images of what the files actually look like, because I wanted to make sure my books were compatible with different e-book readers.
One does not need a Kindle or Sony reader etc. to read e-books. I downloaded e-book creator and reader freeware to my computer. Those links appear on my blog entry and on Carver’s site. For example, someone with a Kindle can download the MOBI or PRC version of my books. Someone with a Sony e-reader can download an EPUB or LRF file. iPhone and other PDA users can download a PDB file. LIT files may be read on Microsoft Reader. HTML files may be read directly on a browser, and I’ve reflowed my PDF files so that they can be read on different-sized screens.
My own freelance work has included editing and desktop publishing services. I’ve created my own covers. In addition to self-editing, I belong to a critique group. Those extra eyes have come in handy. I also serve as my own publicist, and yesterday spoke at my county library on social networking for writers. An online version of the handout, with live links (including one to Editor Unleashed), can be found through my website.
For hardcopy books, I’ve recently learned that Lightning Source deals directly with individual authors. Lightning Source is a printer, not a publisher, but it serves publishers (self-publishing and otherwise).
Since May, when I registered with Google Analytics (a free service), my Deviations Series website has received 1000+ hits from 40 countries on all continents but Antarctica. Compare that with Kindle, which until recently did not enable downloads overseas, according to this New York Times blog entry. The new Kindle will allow downloads from 100 countries — not including Canada (!) — and is limited to works written in English, according to this NYT article. In addition to intellectual property rights, I also take distribution rights into consideration.
Manybooks.net also began carrying my books in May. When I last checked, Covenant and Appetite have had 541 and 487 downloads, respectively. Other sites now carry the books as well. I’ve managed to find people willing to review self-published e-books, which has also helped with exposure.
I’m still learning as I go along, especially given such rapid changes in industry technology and culture.
Fantastic post and discussion. Disclaimer: I own a fee-for-service publishing company and although we don’t charge $5000 for editing services we do allow a margin in our fee structure for *profit*.
I’m always interested in the notion that fee-for-service charges are ‘outrageous’ vs the intrinsic fees being paid under a traditional deal structure.
For example, by the time an author earns out their advance under a traditional deal, how much of the revenue earned by the publisher *and forgone by the author* could be considered as being fees for editing – and the other functions that go towards making a book? If the book sells well, dare I suggest significantly more than $5000.
Just because an author doesn’t hand a check to the publisher in the traditional model, doesn’t mean they’re not ‘paying’ in some form, somewhere along the line.
Pay for eBook formatting a ripoff?
Many of our clients tried uploading their files for Kindle, or at other DIY sites, not realizing they had serious problems with their document.
On a daily basis, HTMPublishing deals with the under-the-hood coding details that can frustrate writers whose focus is writing.
Code blue? call the doctor – htmpublishing.net
Maria,
Another useful post, lots of good advice.
I’m inclined to agree with @Robert Collings. If you are traditionally published and you are receiving a 10% royalty, what do you think the publisher is doing with the other 90%? We all know what books cost to produce offset, and the old rule in publishing (although frequently inaccurate) was always “8 times paper and printing” to get to retail.
The publisher is paying the editors, proofreaders, typesetters, publicists, and all the other staff to make your book the lovely product it became.
When you self-publish, you become the publisher. That doesn’t mean you can “fire” the staff and just push your book out the door. In order to produce a commensurate product, you have to hire and pay the professionals who will make your book a thing of beauty.
Certainly you can save your money by doing your own ISBN and copyright registrations if you are capable of filling out a form. But be realistic. This is an 80/20 problem. You should concentrate on writing and marketing, period. Use professionals for the one-time expenses of making your book the best–and most marketable–product it can be.
I have to say, $5,000 does not seem necessarily unreasonable for help with self-publishing. Of course, for that price I would expect a pretty significant amount of editing — not just proofreading, but re-organizing where necessary, suggesting additional content perhaps, critiquing flow and voice and style. Self-published books have a reputation for being lower quality than traditionally published books, and often that’s because people believe “this is easy; I can do it myself” rather than hiring professionals. They don’t realize that people can tell when you’ve done a less than professional job.
Of course, just because you pay $5,000 doesn’t mean you’re getting professional work. It’s important to research whatever help you hire. You may be able to get professional quality results for a lot less money. Or, you may find that you CAN do it yourself, if you’re willing to invest the time. But contracts, ISBNs, cover design, editing, websites, Bowker, ebook formatting — these are details that some people would rather spend money than time on.
Good advice for the most part. I disagree about the Kindle, however. The conversion is not a small task to get it looking the way it should on the device (especially if the book’s formatting is complex). Amazon’s DIY conversion is nearly useless, as it is entirely automated. In reality, paying $100-150 for this is completely fair. With most books, there’s a need to go into the code (of the format Amazon DTP uses) and make lots of tweaks. It is not at all unusual for this to take 3-5 hours to get right (counting in the time to upload and properly fill in all the Amazon DTP info). Anyhow, suffice to say, there’s a lot more going on that just uploading the book.
It’s also worth noting, especially for any newcomers to self-publishing, that the term “self-publishing company” is an oxymoron. You are either self-publishing or you are not; in short, if you own the ISBN, you are self-publishing, and if you don’t, you’re not.
But Maria’s overall concern here about fees is right on target. The worst companies will suck you in, playing on your dreams, and stick you with a bill for thousands of dollars. I had an author come to me for help earlier this year who’d been hit for $20,000. Anyhow, if anyone is interested, I just published an e-book on all this: The 53 Biggest Self-Publishing Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them.
susanne, a freelance editor who charges $40/hour, said:
> I also give a free sample edit of a
> chpater so you can see all your mistakes!
susanne, you sly little advertiser, you spelled
“chpater” incorrectly on purpose, didn’t you?
-bowerbird
p.s. just like that first comma in your post
shoulda been a sentence-terminating period.
Bowerbird–there is nothing worse than hitting the submit key before you go through and check spelling. Most posts let you edit when you look it over, but not this one. I’ll be quite a bit more careful next time lol. Keeps me humble–that’s for sure. That’s what I get for trying to engage in commenting after a long day editing at the computer. Mea culpa…
Great advice on self publishing! I agree that paying for professional editing is where authors should put their money. (Of course, I’m biased as well since that’s what I do). It helps, though, to know what kind of editing you’re paying for:
A developmental editor helps with the “big picture” editing. This generally costs the most because it takes a tremendous amount of expertise and experience in working directly with writers to help them bring out their best. The developmental editor also has to truly understand what the author wants to accomplish with his or her book.
A line editor will go over the manuscript line by line, making sure it reads well.
A copy editor cleans everything up: grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.
Line editors and copy editors typically charge less for their services than developmental editors.
It’s important for authors to understand that having a “clean” manuscript with no errors does not necessarily mean their work is good. All of these forms of editing are necessary to end up with a polished, professional book.
That’s excellent clarification, Diane. Thank you for sharing that. I’ve been writing and editing for 20 years, and I’m still not always sure of what people have in mind when they say “editing”! Thanks for these definitions.
Lots of talk here about the importance of editing (hugely important) and cover design (equally as important, but in a different way) but not much talk about text typesetting, which is just as important as the other two. Given readers spend 99% of their time interacting with a book’s interior, editing and interior design are mega-important.
I’m a book designer and typesetter (and author) and here’s what I mean:
http://bit.ly/2Yj6HH
I couldn’t agree with Maggie more. Too many authors think that just because they know how to “type” and make something look good, that’s all they need to do. A talented and skilled typesetter or — as some publishers call them — interior designer can make the difference between a book looking amateurish and one that looks fully professional. The cover is what makes a reader interested enough to open the book; the interior design is what gives them an optimal reading experience. (Of course, that’s not to devalue the work of the author). All these elements should work together to create a polished, professional and aesthetically pleasing product.
Maggie, thanks for the link back to your article. Most interesting and very well written. I’m sure all typographic designers appreciate your compelling way of describing how important design is. I recently addressed this (not as artfully) here.
I’d add proofreading to the list of tasks/services an author should obtain when self-publishing. I have always found that some errors or omissions in the edit are picked up in proofing. This is not a criticism of editors at all, but it’s one of the ’stages’ a good publishing house applies to the production of a book.
Another expense for authors intending to self-publish to consider….
I also went the DIY route when my publisher dropped all their mystery writers. I formed my own publishing imprint and signed up w/Lightning Source. I spent the lion share of my small budget on editing and cover design because I felt they were the most important things. Even so, my cover wasn’t as expensive as it could have been. I bought a $5 royalty free image and had a designer turn it into a cover for about $200.
@Angela, your website is really nice, and I think you got a great deal on the cover, it looks awesome. Good luck with your new venture!
Thank you, Joel!