But unfortunately for the burgeoning self-help, fiction or memoir self-publisher, things are not quite that simple. While a blogger or e-book publisher can reach their audience relatively easily, the logistics of getting a printed book in front of a reader, can be dauntingly involved.
In Rees’ evocation of a rush of impassioned, but inevitably slightly green self-publishers, then, lies an opportunity for the short-run book printer. Cover design, editing, distribution and marketing are all services that self-publishers may need help with, and the printer, ever keen to find added-value services with which to boost profits, may well be able to lend a hand.
The first thing a printer considering going down this route will want to double check, of course, is that there’s definitely demand out there for publishing services. Bill Goss, founder of print-on-demand book printers Print and Publish, certainly feels there is. He reports that, in his experience, the vast majority of those getting books printed off their own backs today are individuals with limited experience of what’s involved in publishing a book, but with nonetheless pretty professional ambitions.
"Some just want to print a couple of copies for their family, but we’ve found about 90% want it stocked by the likes of Amazon and Waterstones," says Goss. "Most are serious about their book; they want it out there in some form or another." He adds that there is typically, however, a fairly wide gulf in what they’d like to achieve and how much knowledge, time and money they have to do this.
Miles Bailey, owner of author services company The Choir Press, agrees. "In some cases people’s interest is merely to capture something for posterity, but in many others they want to make money," he says. "Most of our customers are private individuals or companies for whom publishing is their non-core business, so they need a lot of hand-holding to do that."
Novice concerns
Audrey Ellis, a family memoir self-publisher, explains that even something as seemingly straightforward as commissioning a professional-looking cover can be daunting for the publishing novice.
"Berforts printers put me in contact with someone to design a book cover at a good price and that was really valuable," she says. "I’ve looked online and it can be extremely expensive, so it was so valuable to get a recommendation from a trusted source. People have so many concerns when they’re starting out on their own, so it’s important to find a company you can trust where everything is in one place, so you don’t feel vulnerable."
In this last of Ellis’ sentiments is perhaps the real crux of the matter. Simon Potter, design services manager at Fast-Print Publishing, confirms that Ellis is by no means the anomaly in seeking all services in "one place".
"We do a regular survey on the services we offer and one of the questions in the last one was ‘Did you compare our prices with anyone else’s?’ and the majority of people who commented said ‘No, I wanted to keep it all under one roof’," he says.
Potter explains, then, that the Holy Grail for most self-publishers is authoritative, trustworthy help with not just some, but every single self-publishing service, including cover design, distribution, editing, marketing and provision of an ISBN number, a step which ensures the book can enter mainstream retail channels.
The printer, he adds, should consider carefully the high stakes involved in transforming themselves into the kind of publishing one-stop shop the average self-publisher apparently so desperately craves. After all, he explains, if the self-publisher doesn’t find this, they may soon become disgruntled and go elsewhere, or in fact be pushed into the arms of the potentially more DIY friendly world of e-self-publishing, with the result that the printer never even gets to charge for the print job, never mind added-value services.
The question a printer should apparently be asking themselves, then, is not just ‘which services can I have a go at offering?’ but instead ‘can I offer them all, and if not how do I still ensure self-publishing print work comes my way?’ In The Choir Press’ Bailey’s mind, this question becomes a matter of deciding whether a printer can offer the full complement of publishing services, or whether they’ll need to work with a company like his – an author services company outsourcing the print but priding itself on otherwise offering the full package – to hang on to this kind of print work.
"My impression is that there are maybe 40 or 50 people like us who printers might be able to work with," he says. "Printers shouldn’t worry they’ll lose out because we do mark up the price to allow the printer to still get a good margin."
In Bailey’s view, most printers would be best advised to go down this partnership route, as it’s unlikely they’ll be able to effectively turn themselves into small publishing houses without endangering the already highly specialist and time-consuming endeavour of running a print business.
"It’s definitely better in many cases to have those two separate companies working on a project," he says, explaining that even those processes the printer is already well-versed in, such as properly preparing a file for print, will, where an amateur publisher is concerned, suddenly become very hard work.
"Printers’ repro departments have become very efficient in the sense that you have just one or two guys responsible for hundreds of jobs, so they don’t really want to be speaking to someone trying to explain that they can’t use the standard PDF driver in Word to make a good-quality PDF," he says. "Someone whose core business is printing doesn’t want to be bogged down with all of that."
And yet there are quite a few short-run book printers – keen to hang on to added-value profit margins as well as print margins – who do just this. Print and Publish’s take on the matter is that many of the services self-publishers need aren’t actually too onerous for the printer to take care of.
"With our in-house capabilities we can do many things such as cover design and page layout," says Goss. "The ISBN and distribution side is also easy for us to keep track of. We’re registered as a publisher so we purchase ISBN numbers. We’re registered as a distributor as well, so we’ll get an order saying we have to distribute an order to Gardners or Bertrams or whoever’s ordered it. That’s easy to keep track of."
Know your limits
Printers shouldn’t worry about executing every single service in-house, he adds. As the case of self-publisher Audrey Ellis shows, where her printer Berforts was able to refer her to a cover designer, what counts is being able to offer the advice and get experts involved. In fact it is vital, says Goss, for printers to distinguish between those services they will be able to successfully execute in-house, and those that should be outsourced.
"Our main principle is: stick to what you’re good at," he says. "So while we print out marketing materials as part of some of our self publishing packages, when it comes to editing and proofreading and marketing strategy, we would not do that in-house because it’s not our skillset."
Goss adds that he is particularly careful to keep marketing strategy at a good remove from the other services he offers. He does this by referring the publisher on to a marketing company rather than, as is the case with the editing services he outsources, including this service in his overall price.
Indeed, his approach here is representative of the general consensus on this matter, which warns that, even though self-publishers might demand marketing services from their publishing ‘one-stop shops,’ printers should seriously limit their involvement here. The reason behind this is that self-published work tends by its very definition to be books that, while potentially well executed and very interesting to some, won’t necessarily have obvious marketable appeal; hence their unsuitability for mainstream publishing routes.
Problems could therefore arise, explains self-publisher Rees (see box, right), when a willingness to market a book from a printer is mistaken by the self-publisher for a guarantee their book will achieve a certain notability or ROI. Accusations that those offering self-publishing aid are little better than the vanity publishers of old – who often promised the world but delivered little – may soon follow.
"A lot of people who have written a book think it’s absolutely wonderful and so may be disappointed if marketing efforts don’t bring the results they’d expected," explains Rees. "The problem is printers don’t know where the market lies now either. So they may not be doing themselves any favours by getting behind a book."
Bolstered by reassurance that it is okay, and indeed often advisable, to say no to some of the demands self-publishers may make –or at least refer them to someone else – printers may still however be worried about their ability to compete with Choir Press-esque author services firms.
But Goss feels they should be reassured on this count too. He says that it’s just a matter of printers really capitalising on and talking up those USPs – price and print expertise – that they can offer. "The economies stack up better for the self-publisher if all, or most, of the services are in one place rather than split between two companies," he claims. "And they will benefit from a much closer consultation with the printer on all the special effects, such as foil-blocking, leatherette covers and dust jackets- that make a book look really good."
Find a partner
Of course, hand-holding self-publishers through these kinds of decisions, and checking companies they’re outsourcing services to are reputable, may still prove too much of a headache for some printers. There is, then, still a legitimate case for them pairing up with an author service company, with this decision coming down both to how much time they have to help self-publishers, and of course how keen they are to be the ones making money not only on the print job, but on becoming publishing authorities too.
It does seem advisable, however, that printers choose one of these routes, rather than ignoring the publishing-services-for-self-publishers conundrum altogether. Self-publishers today are after all an ambitious lot. So printers will best capitalise on the self-publishing bug by offering, somewhere in their supply chain, the kinds of professional publishing services that might one day see the next Fifty Shades of Grey coming off their presses.
Self-publisher insight
Philippa Rees
Author of A Shadow in Yucatan and Involution: an Odyssey Reconciling Science to God
Involution, which might best be described as a poetic meditation on science and religion, illustrates the kind of book that won’t find a traditional publisher. I had eight say they thought a great deal of it, but couldn’t see where the market for it lay and therefore couldn’t risk backing it. That makes sense as I’m not sure where the market lies myself. While I’d adore an expert to help me market it, it would need to be someone who cared about the book as much as I did. My impression is that it tends to be tokenism; a publicist will go through the motions but whether it’ll bring any attention on your book is debatable
Again that’s kind of understandable as marketing books like mine can be tricky. And in fact many self-publishers might be best doing this themselves. I get the feeling that many fiction publishers are probably promoting their books through social media and the online audiences they’ve already generated, and doing it really quite successfully. That might not be improved by someone else trying to do it for them.
There are many other services self-publishers might be helped with though. Distribution can be a real nightmare for an individual working alone, and, for a floundering self-publisher like me, help laying out the book and cover design are a godsend."
Audrey Ellis
Author of Memories of Findon and Searching… Fifty Shades of Sight
When I first started out I had no knowledge at all, I was really raw with regard to publishing. I’d taken it upon myself to find my lost family, and interviewed 50 people over five years. I thought: ‘I’d like to do something with this otherwise it’s going to get bunged in an attic’, so in 2004 I wrote the book.
I didn’t think I’d get any help from a publisher because it was a local book. I looked online and in magazines to find a publisher and was shocked at what they were charging so I carried on searching until I found Berforts. When Dale carried the books through my front door I thought ‘My God, what do I do with all of these?’ but through word of mouth people heard about it, and those first 500, which went into a local Waterstones, went really quickly.
My recent book carries on the story of my family history, focusing on the fact that both my parents were blind, and I’ve been thrilled with the help I’ve received from Berforts. Without the help of small publishers and printers, a lot of ordinary everyday people’s work would be missed, and I think that’s quite a tragedy."
What they say
Should printers offer publishing ancillary services such as cover design, editing and distribution?
Dale Burgess
Sales director at Berforts book printer
I think you need to offer self-publishers everything right from guidance on how to set their book up in the first place, to help with distribution. We’re now classed by Nielson BookData as a publisher. We’ve bought ISBN numbers we can sell to self-publishers, which is handy for them because they would otherwise have to pay a fair amount to buy 10 at a time. We have a storage and distribution warehouse, which helps many, though others we deal with do go off and set up their own deals with book shops or their own accounts with wholesalers such as Gardners or Bertrams. If you don’t branch out into these services, you limit your field."
David Button
Managing director at 4edge book printer
I think offering extra services can detract from the main print business. We did start out trying to offer lots of different self-publishing services but got our fingers burnt. Things ended up getting very labour intensive; people would be creating things in Word, with no page numbers or indexes. Offering more products to the same person is an easy sell, absolutely. But if you’re only doing them once or twice a week and you’re not very specialised, the customer will soon see right through that."
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