by Later this summer I will be blessed enough to have my 12th and 13th books published. The first one entitled, “The Night After: WWE WrestleMania Edition” and the second will be on the Cleveland Browns, entitled, “First and Ten”. While these are my 12th and 13th books I’ve been LUCKY enough to get published, the path never gets easier, and each time I reflect back on the journey of how hard it was to get my first book, “HERO” published in October of 2012.
On that note, I don’t want to see young writers go through the same struggles I have over the years. Below, is a full “How To” list when it comes to getting a book published, and the differences between Self Publishing and Traditional Publishing.
Good luck!
Traditional Publishing:
This is the preferred route you want to explore. You write a “query letter” which is basically like a resume for the book. It is a page long and it talks about what the book is about, who you are and why you are qualified to write it and most importantly, why it would sell well.
Send the query letter out to as many publishing companies as possible. For a sports book I would have a ton of contacts for you to try. Any non-sports book, you would want to buy a book called “The Writers Market” and it will give you a gigantic list of companies and their contact information to try.
If and when you get picked up buy a traditional publisher, they typically pay you an advance. But, it is not an every time thing.
Here is the bonus of going with a traditional publisher. It is free, they will never charge you a dime to print and distribute your book. It will be in all major retailers such as Barnes N Noble, Books A Million, Costco, Target, Wal-Mart and all other book stores in Ohio. This is known as distribution and is very good to have.
When you have this, you sell anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 books in the first month. Such as I did with my Cavs and Indians books. The only downside to this is that you only make about 46 cents a book sold. But keep in mind, these same traditional pub companies allow you to buy your own book for 50% off and then turn around and sell it yourself at conventions and craft fairs for full price.
For example, I can buy a copy of my own book “Jacobs Field” direct from the pub for $7, and then turn around and sell it at a show for $20. Again, I have a huge list of publishing companies I can give you to query when ready.
The biggest bonus of a traditional pub company is that they do all the editing and typesetting. Both of those are EXTREMELY COSTLY when you self-publish. A traditional publisher does all the hard work, they edit, type set, cover design and sell the book for you.
Trust me when I tell you, traditional publishing is the way to go! The only problem is that is very hard to find a publisher even willing to read a chapter of your work, and it takes a while to get picked up.
My first book Hero took years to get picked up. It is so hard to get a book traditionally published people will never realize until they try to do it themselves. You must be persistent and have thick skin. When it happens, it is amazing because you walk into bookstores and see your book on the shelve and it is a great feeling.
Also, when you have book signings all the books are already there, you just show up and sign. You don’t have to lug anything around or count cash. I cannot stress this enough, if you can get a book published by a traditional publisher, it is the way to go!
Self Pub
This is a very boom or bust method. You have to spend some money, but you can make a ton if you’re willing to work your butt off. I would recommend using Amazon Studio, they did my first book Hero. It is free, you just have to upload your finalized proof, and get someone to do a cover design in pdf form to upload. You will also need to find someone to typeset the book, and that alone can cost around $1200. I got lucky with my self pub, because my buddy who typesets did it for free.
I can walk you step by step through the set up. They only sell your book on Amazon but give you a decent cut. If your book is 200 pages, and you sell it on Amazon for $14, your royalty per book sold is like $4. That is gigantic! Also, you can buy your own books directly from Createspace for around $3 and turn around and sell them for $20 to make a huge profit. That all sounds great right? Well, here are the list of challenges that come with self publishing.
1 – A traditional publisher assigns you an agent, who will call radio stations, tv stations, and newspapers and blogs and on line sites and just work their tale off to get your name out there and press for your book. Including flyers, postcards and a ton of advertising material for free. If you self pub, you have to do all the leg work yourself, and pay an arm and a leg for advertising. With all of my books, I did the media contacts myself, because that’s just how I like it, but if this isn’t your best skill then you may struggle.
2 – You have to find someone to edit and type set the book before you can load it into any self pub service such as LULU, Ingram Spark and Createspace. Most people will charge anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000 for these services. It is pricey.
3 – Unlike a traditional publisher who will sell the book for you, when you self-pub you have to do it all yourself. The only online sight that will have it for sell is Amazon. So, you need to hit the streets like crazy, calling every book store you can find and emailing them, writing letters and just pounding the pavement like a salesman trying to hit a quota. I have a ton of connections I can give you.
4 – A plus for self pub, is that it is quick, you can have a book in a month, unlike traditional pub where it takes about a year.
Motivational Press – This is like a hybrid. They won’t charge you a dime for editing and typesetting or cover design. They will place your book on Amazon as well. This is like self publishing, but free! They will also sell you your books for very cheap, and then you can turn around and sell them wherever you want. So it is like a hybrid in a way because they don’t charge you for anything, but at the same time once the book is printed you still have to do all the work yourself, getting it placed in stores and things of that nature.
This is also a quick way to get published, they would have your book done and on sale by Christmas. The royalty is cheap, about 56 cents a book sold on Amazon. The only other drawback, is that there editors are awful and you really have to be careful before you sign off on the proof. I learned this with Ohio Warriors, as the finished product has a few
mistakes.
The final tip I will give you is the most important one that no one gave me, and it nearly cost me my career as a writer before I could even get started.
After your book gets proofed, meaning after the basic “Word Doc” you used to write it, gets put into “Proof” form and looks like an actual book on the screen with page numbers and cool print. You MUST read it over one last time and check for mistakes.
Many times, when a word doc gets proofed, the words can change. I would say maybe 1 word every 20 pages, so in a 200 page book, it would change about 10 words causing 10 costly mistakes. This happened to me with Hero, because I didn’t know to check for mistakes after the proof was done.
Any questions you may have, please just let me know and I will do my best to help you. Remember, I have a list of publishers, a list of media contacts and a list of book stores, so if you go the self pub way, I can put you in touch with the main players in the game.
Thanks again and let me know whatever you need going forward.
Vince McKee
