On Thursday, December 01, 2011 11:17:54 PM Les Denham wrote:
> Four years ago I accompanied my brother driving across Australia
> (and visiting some unusual spots). For his birthday last month I
> wrote up an account of the trip and had a copy printed (using
> Lulu.com). It is a substantial document: 164 pages (letter size),
> about 50,000 words, and approximately 220 figures.
>
> After he opened the gift, the book was passed around among those at
> the party, and many of the guests asked where they could get a
> copy. Among those asking was the assistant manager of a bookshop.
> I have sent her three copies to see how they sell.
>
> The book is not properly published yet, but it looks as if there
> will be enough demand to at least publish it on Lulu.com.
From my viewpoint it's the most properly published book there can be.
A few books printed and you're already profitable. You never signed a
contract with an indemnification, a noncompete, and one of those things
that if your royalties don't exceed your advance, you have to pay it
back on the next book.
From what I hear, the average "properly published" nonfiction book
sells about 3K copies. At that sales quantity, the author fails to
make minimum wage on his advance/royalties, and the publisher doesn't
make a lot of money either. And from what I hear, these days
publishers are actually charging authors for indexing and editing. And
then, for a royalty of a buck a book which will probably never exceed
the advance (and from what I hear advances are down in the mid four
figures now), the publisher expects the author to drive and fly hither
and yon promoting the book while the publisher does no sales at all.
After my first properly published book (Samba Unleashed, published in
2000), I decided to give self-publishing a try. I'm still doing self-
publishing.
From what I understand, publishers do a crappy job of selling. And in
this day and age, with LyX and Inkscape and Gimp and LuLu and eBooks,
you don't need their typesetting or printing services. With eBooks and
the Internet, you can do an end-run around that entire
printer/warehouse/wholesaler/bookstore supply chain, and sell directly
to the reader. Is it easy? Hell no. But at least you get every penny
of the profit (if you do it directly off your own website), or up to 70%
if you do it off Kindle or iPad.
I have the highest confidence in the propriety of your state of
publication. Keep up the good work!
SteveT
Steve Litt
Author: The Key to Everyday Excellence
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/key_excellence.htm
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/stevelitt
