Recently, I talked about things to do before you self-publish. I mentioned that one should do a lot of research before making the decision to self-publish and I wanted to expand on that. Publishing is more than just "write, submit, profit." I think that anyone who wants to publish should be as well-informed as possible. There is definitely a learning curve--in self-publishing and, I'm sure, in traditional publishing--but by researching the hell out of your industry and your genre, you can decrease the slope of that curve.
The Big Six.
"The Big Six" is a phrase commonly used to denote the six largest New York publishing houses, the most powerful traditional publishing houses in the industry. Each house has a number of smaller imprints. If you submit a manuscript to a publisher, you are most likely submitting to one of these six publishers. Read up on them. Especially if you want to go the traditional route, learn everything you can. Start with their official websites (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House, Simon & Schuster) then drill down until you know everything you can about the people who will be touching your manuscript. Learn what they want, how they want it, and who they want it from. Examine the bestsellers in the same genre as your manuscript. Have you got what it takes? If you don't, can you develop what it takes?
Small presses and publishers.
An alternative to the big six, small print presses and publishing houses are more likely to take on untested authors and publish manuscripts that may not necessarily be surefire bestsellers, especially in the current economic climate. Poets & Writers has a database of small publishers. Again, do your research. Make sure that the company is still operating and do your best to find out if it's doing well (in this business, small publishers disappear all the time). Read what other writers have to say about the publisher's practices. Learn what they want, how they want it, who you'll be dealing with. Check out the books they put out. How well are they doing? What kind of marketing are they doing for their books? What kind of treatment can you expect?
Self-Publishing: Print on demand.
Sites like Lulu and CreateSpace (there are others, many others) offer print-on-demand publishing. Your book isn't printed until an order is placed, eliminating warehousing costs. Startup can be expensive, and you'll usually have to pay for your proofs unless you catch a great sale, but if you want to see your physical book in hand, POD can give you that. Shop around. Think about what you want to accomplish from POD and choose a company accordingly. Do you just want a few books for posterity? To give as gifts? Are you hoping to get your book into local bookstores, or sell through your website?
Self-Publishing: Ebooks.
With the Kindle, Nook, Sony e-reader, and iPad, more and more people are reading books on electronic devices. Amazon offers direct publishing for self-publishers. Smashwords offers direct publishing, ISBNs, multiple formats, and distribution. Self-publishing electronic books is probably the most popular way to self-publish right now. It's easy, it's fast, and it can be entirely free. It's so popular that there is currently a flood of self-published work on the market right now. It is not fast money. Smashwords may pay out as soon as you reach the threshold, but reaching that threshold requires sales, which probably requires marketing. Amazon doesn't pay out until 60 days after the close of the month in which you make sales and they only pay once you reach their threshold, too. If quick money is your goal, get out now. Start hooking or selling drugs or something. Do you want to reach a wide market? Do you want to make your books easy to find and easy to read? Are you comfortable with electronic reading technology?
Quitting your day job.
The big question: Can you afford to? In my specific case, my husband was transferred overseas and we were ready to have a child. I was going to be staying home, anyway, and while that was mostly to raise said child until she started school, it was partly to see if I could get a writing career off the ground. If you work to pay the bills--and who doesn't these days--sit down with your budget and see what can be done. Do you want to quit your job? Change your hours? Telecommute? Do what you need to do in order to free up time to write, to network, to market. As I mentioned in the other post, set reasonable expectations. I started writing in April and self-published my first short-story anthology in August. I won't see a significant royalty payment until February. That's ten months from start to money I can do anything with. Read what other authors, self-published and traditional, have to say about income, their day jobs, and when they could quit to write full-time.
Sizing up the audience.
What do you write? What do you want to write? Who do you expect will be reading your work? Research that. If you write romance, start with the romance bestseller lists, romance reader blogs, romance writer blogs. Check out forums, message boards, and other online communities. If you write how-to guides, or gardening books, or design knitting patterns, it doesn't matter: the Internet can tell you what you want to know. What does your potential audience like? What do they hate? Which writers are the most popular? Why? Which are the least popular? Why? What kind of money are the readers willing to spend? I am not saying write to a specific audience just because you can cash in, but if you've decided to publish, they're going to be judging you. They're going to determine your success. It's a good idea to know as much about them as possible.
Sizing up the "competition."
I use that word loosely. I guess, technically, because publishing is business that writers are in competition with each other, but I don't know a single writer who actually thinks like that. Sure, with the economy in the bad place it is now, people have less money to spend on books, so we want readers to buy our books. I guess. What I mean by sizing up the competition is see what others are doing. What works for them, what doesn't, and why. Get ideas about how to write, when and where to publish, how to market and promote. Figure out who you'll best fit in with and figure out how to target their audience. The competition can teach you a lot. Learn from them.
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