Book Publishing:
Introduction:
I have always been an avid reader and cannot remember a time when I couldn't read. My normal weekly intake is approximately 1,000 pages, equating to two or three books most weeks. Although I have never kept a diary I have tended to keep 'Journals' to cover times/periods of interest. These started when I built 'Gulliver' (my first campervan) in the late 70's and I hand wrote the 'Journals' in a posh leather bound book in the form of a 'Ships Log' for every journey undertaken.
In 1985 I wrote my first short story and since then have written another 19. In 2015 I was persuaded to write about my life in the army and 'Alan's Story The First Forty Years' was the result. The outcome was my first attempt at proper book publishing (my previous attempt with 'Driving Route 66' was merely a copy of my Journal), and I produced 13 copies. These were simple affairs consisting of photocopied pages printed and spiral bound at out local 'Office World' and distributed to family and close friends.
In 2017 we met 'Tony B' when he visited us to learn about doves and dove keeping. Tony must have been impressed as he persuaded me that I knew enough about the subject to write a book, which I did, (write a book I mean), and 'Practical Dove Keeping a Complete Guide' has since become an international best seller. Actually not really! but I have sold enough to make it worthwhile. As a bonus we have become good friends with Tony and Rosemary.
Publishing a Paperback or Hardback Book:
Once I had completed my draft book on dove keeping, it was time to think about publishing. I did not really fancy another spiral bound photo copied affair so when Margaret (my wife), spotted an article about self publishing in a woman's magazine, I investigated further. The result was I discovered that there are many firms out there who will publish your book. They're not worried if it's good, bad or indifferent; all they're interested in is getting paid. After a bit of research, I chose 'PrintMyBooks' as a suitable recipient for my charitable donations.
The Publishing Process:
The first decision was what size? The most common sizes are A4 or A5. Eventually I settled on A5 as it is similar to the size of a normal paperback, and in my mind, would be easier and cheaper to post. Enquiries revealed that I could submit my manuscript in Microsoft Word and PrintMyBooks would take it from there.
Some considerable time later I sent off my manuscript, front cover, rear cover and spine title. This was done via the Internet. You can elect to have a copy for proof reading which can be in the form of a paperback copy or a p.d.f. (Portable Document File), which is emailed to you. I elected for the latter, and after proof reading and making a few adjustments, I gave the go ahead for publication (printing).
When the books arrived a week or so later I spotted 2 problems. First although I am quite good at spotting mistakes when reading a book, I am less good at it when reading a word document on a computer screen. Second I had put a 2.5cm margin on the left hand side and a 1.5cm margin on the right hand side of each page. Consequently when reading the book all the right hand pages were easy to read and the left hand pages less so as the words at the end of the line were closer to the spine. You had to open the book out to almost 180 degrees to read the left hand side pages properly. This was solved with future books by having a 2cm margin on both sides of each page.
I kept a couple of copies of this first edition of my first book and sold the rest fairly quickly. After eliminating the mistakes in the first edition, I ordered another 30 books. (I never order more than 30 copies at a time as they take up too much space).
ISBN (International Standard Book Number):
Between the publication of the first and second editions of my book we spent a couple of days as guests of Margaret's brother and sister-in-law in the New Forest, (thank you both it's always a pleasure). One day we walked along the beach in Milford on Sea and ended up in a cafe. Margaret went to the counter (well it was her turn), and unbeknown to me bought me a couple of local paperbacks which were displayed on the counter. They subsequently turned out to be self published books by a kindred budding author. What struck me most about them was the ISBN (Barcode Symbol) on the back cover.
The end result was that I contacted the author and discovered that he sold his books on Amazon and they issued the ISBN as part of their normal publication costs. Interrogating the Internet revealed that you don't need an ISBN if you are the sole seller of your books. If you wanted/aspired to sell them through a third party then an ISBN was compulsory.
Further research revealed that you could purchase a single ISBN for £89. If you purchased ten they were £15.90 each and if you purchased a thousand they were £0.95 each.
Enquiries with PrintMyBooks revealed that they would sell me a single ISBN for £40 and print it on the back cover of each book for no additional charge. I took up their offer and all the second editions of my dove keeping book bear an ISBN on the back cover. Note, if ever I print a third edition or change the cover of the book, I will have to purchase another ISBN. It goes without saying that all current print runs have been revised second editions!
Amazon:
Eventually I decided to investigate selling my book on Amazon and discovered that there were two different methods namely paperbacks and e-Books. The good thing about selling on Amazon is that they deduct their costs at source and also pay the tax man his share of any profit you make.
Amazon e-Books:
According to Amazon, I could publish my book as an e-Book in 5 minutes!!! In the event it took me 13-days and numerous emails to their helpline (well I am old!). In hindsight, I think they were quite pleased with some of my questions as after a few days, I received an email stating that as a result of my queries, they were amending their e-Book Publishing Instructions. Incidentally when it comes to computers I would grade myself as a 'Phobophile'; i.e. midway between a 'technophobe' and a 'Technophile'.
To publish an e-Book on Amazon you first have to register and open a 'Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Account'; giving, amongst other information, your tax and bank account details. Once that is sorted, you can open your account home page and insert the title of your book, some search words, an introduction and some other basic details. Clicking on further pages allows you to design a book cover and add a few more details. Before you can proceed further you need to upload your manuscript.
First you need to write your book. You can write your book in Microsoft Word so no problem there. Once your book is written you download the Amazon Program called 'Kindle Create'. Once downloaded you then transfer your word document into Kindle Create and now your problems start**. All the nice formatting of your original document becomes corrupted.
Note.
** Since I first started with Amazon they have amended Kindle Create numerous times and it is now much better, however it still changes your formatting occasionally.
You now have to work your way through your complete book on Kindle Create making any necessary changes to make it look half decent. Once you have done that you click on a button which shows you how your book will look on a Kindle Reader, Tablet or iPad etc. Again the formatting can change slightly so any new errors have to be corrected. The next thing you will notice is that Kindle Create eliminates page numbers so you now have to formulate a 'Table of Contents'. The next major hurdle was to publish my e-Book by uploading it to Amazon. Despite several attempts, I couldn't manage it as the program kept cutting out. I diagnosed the problem as a low computer upload speed so, with everything on a hot-stick, I took a walk over to the local library thinking their computer upload speed would be better.
Success at last as my manuscript was finally accepted. Now you can download a preview and read your book exactly as it will appear on a Kindle Reader etc. After proof reading (a quick check), you click accept, and then go to a new page where you enter details of your 'Selling Price' and 'Royalty Options' etc. Once happy you click 'Publish' and it's job done. Within 24 hours your e-Book will be available for purchase on Amazon.
Flushed with success you buy a copy and read it. Now you notice all your spelling errors (that the spell-check missed). No problem you modify it and upload a new manuscript. Within another 24 hours your amended book is on sale. The last job is to delete your old copy from your Kindle reader etc. and then download an amended copy, fortunately (as long as the title remains unchanged), there is no additional charge.
Amazon / Kindle Royalty:
Two choices of Royalty are offered, namely; 35% or 70% sounds like a no-brainier doesn't it? Well it does until you read the small print. If you accept the 35% Royalty then it's straightforward and after all charges you end up making 35% profit on your selling price after deduction of VAT. If you select the 70% Royalty Option Amazon make deductions from it and every time anyone downloads one of your books Amazon deduct a download charge related to file size. Another deduction is based on colour content within that file size. As most of my books have a large number of pages and colour photos, I decided to go for the standard 35% Royalty. Your e-Book now sits on the Amazon server and every time someone buys a copy you get a Royalty payment. This time next year I'll be a millionaire! Well I said that last year and I'm not.
Amazon Paperback Books:
Once you have published your e-Book you can elect to have it published as a paperback. The good news is that Amazon provide you with an ISBN free of charge (well they are only paying £0.95 each or less for them). The bad news is that it is expensive. As an example I sell my book 'Driving Route 66' as an e-Book on Amazon for £1.99. As an A5 paperback it only has 128 pages. Amazon charges an initial £6.91 for each book to cover the printing costs. They then charge an additional £4.61 giving a minimum selling price of £11.52; so if I decide to sell it for £11.52 then I get 35% royalty from the additional £4.61, i.e. £1.61. Amazon allows me to sell my book for between £11.52 and £250, but I wouldn’t get any buyers at the maximum price, nor, perhaps, the lowest price.
Note.
Currently I get 10 copies at a time of my book Driving Route 66 from PrintMyBooks for £6.50 each. For each book I sell post and package costs me £2.50 so to break even my minimum selling price is £9.00. Anything I charge over £9 is of course my profit.
Your paperback book is now on the Amazon Server. Each order is dealt with individually and when anyone buys a copy of your book it is automatically printed off, covered and bound etc. and despatched. Note that it will never be out of stock. A main advantage for you is that as an independent publisher you get a cheap ISBN and avoid all the trips to the post office. Providing you don't change the edition number of your book, you can amend it without charge and any future purchasers will get the amended edition.
My Books:
Since publishing my first book, I have become obsessed and have now had paperback copies made of the following books:
Writing as 'Alan M':
'Alan's Story The First 40 Years'. (Only available to family and close friends).
'Alan's Short Stories'. (Only available to family and close friends).
'Driving Route 66'. *
Writing as 'RoadRunner':
'Practical Dove Keeping a Complete Guide'. *
'Lets Build a Dovecote'. * '
Let's Build a Dove-Loft'. *
Writing as 'AAM-TAI-PAN':
'Building a Motor Caravan'. (No longer available).
'Building & Using a Campervan'. * (Replaces the above book).
'Learning To Fly a Helicopter My Story'. *
'Learning to Fly an Aeroplane My Story'. *
'Let's Build & Equip a Wood Working Shed'. *
'Let's Build & Equip a Metal Working Shed'. (Currently not available).
The ones marked with an Asterisk are also available as e-Books although it should be noted that 'Driving Route 66' is published under the Pseudonym of AAM-TAI-PAN.
Margaret has also written her own book. It is titled 'Driving Across America West to East' and details our American holiday in late 2013 when we drove across America from the Pacific Ocean by Santa Monica to the Atlantic Ocean by Long Island, New York. It is quite lengthy and as the maximum number of pages in an A5 book is 300, she elected to have it in an A4 format. It's a very interesting book (I know that because I've read it). Unfortunately it is not for sale on Amazon as it contains personal details.
My Modus Operandi:
There must be numerous ways to write a book! Almost immediately I hit on a set-up that suited me. I do most of my writing on my iPad then transfer it via email to my desk computer. This is a lot more convenient than sitting at my desk for hour after hour, it is also more sociable.
Obviously the first thing you need is a subject followed by a name. It pays to consider the final name carefully as in itself it can help people to find your book on a 'Search Engine'.
Next I list all the proposed content in the form of an index, a process that might take several days. Once the 'Chapter Index' starts to take shape I email it to my main computer and then sort it into a logical sequence, it is much easier to do this on a computer as opposed to an iPad. Once I am happy with the 'Index' I send it back to my iPad, copy it and past it into 'Notes'.
Now I can start to work on each individual chapter, listing all the subjects that will make up that chapter. Once happy I email the 'Chapter Index' back to my main computer and 'sort' it again before emailing it back to the iPad.
That's a lot of the hard work done and all you have to do now is write the various sections so that all the subjects in every chapter are covered. Of course when writing the various subjects a lot of new ideas come to mind so you will need to continually update the chapter index and subject matter.
In the case of my book 'Practical Dove Keeping a Complete Guide' I had a bit of a start. During almost 7 years as a member of the 'Dovecote Spot/Forum' I wrote 2,188 'Posts' in reply to people's problems and general dove keeping related matters. This gave me a considerable head start.
I started by reading through all my 'Forum Posts' and copied and pasted the ones which I thought would be useful for my book. Each relevant post was then updated and inserted into the appropriate place in the book.
It took me 3-months and approximately 500 hours of work to complete that book and publishing it gave me a lot of satisfaction. Most of my other books have taken between 500 and 1,000 hours of dedicated input.
Summary:
It is very rewarding to publish your own book and there are 3 main ways you can do it. The first and easiest method is to publish it as an Amazon e-Book. The main advantage is that you can sell your book at a cheaper price and yet make the most profit. A major advantage is that you can easily amend your book(s) and both future and past purchasers can get an amended copy at no additional cost.
The second method is to have your book printed independently. The good news is that you control the selling price and make a small profit (normally less than £1). The bad news is the initial outlay, storing the books and the repeated trips to the post office.
Note.
Following a number of enquires from interested people on various campsites etc. I started to carry a couple of copies of my Motor Caravan book in the campervan. Since then I have sold two copies on campsites and three copies in supermarket car parks.
Thirdly you can have your paperback book printed and sold by Amazon. There is no monetary outlay but the initial higher selling price means that you could effectively price yourself out of the market.
A disadvantage of publishing e-Books is that my paperback book sales have dwindled to a trickle, but on the plus side, I am selling on average an e-Book every two or three days. The best seller is 'Practical Dove Keeping a Complete Guide' with 'Building a Motor Caravan' now republished as 'Building & Using a Campervan' a close second. It is interesting that my weekly royalty income is more than twice a week's pay at the time I joined the army in 1960, and I'm doing nothing for it apart from sitting on my aris. Another interesting fact is that royalty payments will continue after my demise and I will have to cater for them next time I update my will.
One final thought; “unless you intend to give your book(s) away you need to write books that will attract buyers!”
Alan
a.k.a. 'RoadRunner' / 'AAM-TAI-PAN'.