I don’t pretend to have come from the world of big or conventional publishing.  I’m a businessman who is also a writer/author and publisher.  I know how to publish and distribute books—just as they do—only with more control and money for the authors of the work.

Through experience with other authors, professional relationships in the industry and years of study and observation, I know a lot about the way conventional publishers work with authors.  There’s very often a lot of window dressing needed and a level of in-bred pretentiousness with conventional publishing that I did not care to contend with when I began writing. I did not want to be processed (or ignored) by the conventional publishing “machine”. I wanted to exercise some self-determination, control my own writing destiny—get things done more quickly—and make more money.

More about this in a minute but first, a couple of things I learned when I was very young, reinforced while in the service and that carried over into my business career (and have been instrumental in establishing my publishing operations):

1. If you’re damned good at what you do, you get a little more slack (and I needed it to offset being headstrong and a bit of a non-conformist)
2. If you’re damned good at what you do, and believe strongly in your self you can discover (in some ways carve out) paths that others would never see.

Being “damned good” at what you do takes faith in your self—trust in your capabilities—never letting up on a focus to be that good and never letting those who depend on you down.  And it takes willingness to learn how to do every fundamental piece of your job (and even things outside but related to your responsibilities) so that you know it instinctively and can do it better than anyone else can.  That type of professionalism manifested at a leadership level can carry others to levels of success they perhaps would not have achieved without you.  I did that while in the military and have done that in business—that belief and attitude has never failed me.

Here is what that means in the context of this snapshot on publishing.

I know I am a good and capable writer, and that I don’t give up on things I believe in.  So I could have gone the conventional route to being published. 

• Gone through the agent—submission—rejection—and ultimately, acceptance cycle (remember—because I have faith in my abilities).
• Gone through the many months to a year plus process of being published conventionally.
• Gone through the publishing company’s months long (and more) requirement to promote the book and dedicate myself to creating a market and to reaching those who would buy the book.  Unless you are a proven author, rock star or a hot media property—you are not going to be promoted/backed to any degree.  Promotion and marketing for new/unknown authors is “on you”.

All of that to make only 3% to 10% of the list price on the book I slaved hundreds of hours to write and that took decades of experience to base that writing on.

The thought of that ticked me off. 

So I did what I’ve done repeatedly throughout my life.  I dug in and learned how to do what I needed to do to get a better result. I studied and learned professional editing and manuscript layout so I could become a better writer and present my work in a professional and acceptable manner. I learned the mechanics and inner workings of how books are manufactured and how the publishing business really works. I spent some significant time and money on this—and it is paying off.

Interestingly I discovered that the publishing business is very similar to manufacturing and logistics/distribution businesses that I have started or bought and owned in my 26-year business career.  They key to good profit margins in manufacturing is to have proprietary products (like books) and control over your operating expenses to make them as low as possible (like having your own publishing company with printing/distribution capabilities).

With what I learned about the true costs of publishing and the mechanics of how to do it myself, I ran the numbers and could clearly see how to make it work to create a better result for me with my books (and eventually how this all would benefit clients/authors I worked with to help with their books).
 
Once I had my head wrapped around all of that it was easy to understand how things worked and how I could do them too … just like any big name publisher.  So I did.  I set up my own publishing operations.  In fact, I use the same production and distribution resources as these publishers:

• John Wiley & Sons
• Hachette Book Group
• McGraw-Hill
• Simon & Schuster
• Macmillan
• University of California Press
• W.W. Norton
• University of Nebraska Press
• Public Affairs
• Cambridge University Press
• Thomas Nelson
• Penguin Putnam
• Holtzbrinck
• And probably other recognizable publishing houses that I’m not aware of

What does the above mean for those of you reading this article?

It means I’m going to share with you some of what I've learned and give you a snapshot of of the economics of how publishing works that most people (including some writers/authors) don’t know or perhaps don’t care about—but should.  And that there are ways to make books more profitable —enabling significantly better bottom-line margins.  With this business model more proceeds flow to the author (while giving them more control of their book).

Following is an email I sent this week to a client/author we are working with and just published their first book for them.  It will give you some baseline information that you will find informative and perhaps interesting:

From: DMLowery [mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ]
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2009 5:38 PM
To: 'Lee Offen'
Subject: Gooch's Regiment - Now in production and available for orders - And the real world of book/publishing economics (broad overview)
Importance: High

Hi Lee, FYI

As I mentioned to you earlier this afternoon—now that we finalized the first version and approved it for production—it will start entering the Ingram/Distributor/Supply chain to make it available for order by booksellers and retailers. 

Concurrent with this, it will be picked up from the Ingram feed by Amazon and I will work with them to register/set up the title. The fastest I’ve heard Amazon pick up a new title from the Ingram feed is about 5 business days, so I will start checking with them next Monday.  It may take them longer than 5 business days so I will stay on them and check each day until it appears so I can do the title/book page set up. 

Once I have the book data page on Amazon set up I will send you a link to it and let you know it is live. Once the title is live in the Amazon system, we’ll set it up so that people (individuals/consumers) can click on the title display at www.Americas-First-Marines.com and it will take them to the Amazon.com page for the book so they can place their order(s).

How the economics of the book/publishing business and the numbers all shake out (in a broad way) for your book:

Once in the supply chain it is available for order by Ingram and other distributors and/or wholesalers—for simplicity I’ll refer to them all as “Ingram”.  When ordered, Ingram buys your book from us (the publisher & author) at a discount and they then sell the book to the retailers/booksellers at a higher price, which is how they make money.  The price they pay Ingram is still less than the retail list price of the book that they charge consumers and that is how they make their money.

Your book is currently set up with a 30% discount for Ingram—for a mass-market appeal best-seller type of book that discount might be as high as 40% to 50% because the booksellers will promote the book to sell in volume and want/need the incentive of a larger discount.  “Gooch’s Regiment” is not a mass-market type of book that retailers/booksellers will promote but they will special order it for customers so there is not a need to just give away that extra 10% to 20% to them.

At a $12.95 retail price (the list price of “Gooch’s Regiment”), that means Ingram buys it from us (via a direct order to my book manufacturing facility—Adducent gets copies of the orders—and we send to you in a monthly report on your book sales) for $9.06.  So Ingram and retailers/booksellers have approximately $3+ as their gross profit per book. 

Amazon will take the book and may sell it at the 30% discount they receive (the same as Ingram’s) … you may see it priced that way on Amazon—something like this: “regular priced at $12.95 … Amazon price $9.06”.  Or even lower. That way Amazon customers believe they are saving money (and in a sense, they are).  Though Amazon does not make money selling at the discounted price (or even seems to lose a bit if they sell at less than the discount price) … they make money off the shipping and handling and from customers who make multiple purchases with their order(s).  So the economics still work out for them and the numbers work out for us as the margin between the discount price and our internal numbers is still quite nice per book.

For wholesale orders from organizations who don’t have an Ingram account or those retailers/booksellers who may have an Ingram account but would like to place volume orders direct with us (and probably get a better discount than what Ingram may give them) please have them contact me directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to inquire about volume orders for your book.  I will find out what type of quantity they require and then discuss with you what discount works best to give them (since that discount effects the net proceeds that comes back to you as the author you have a major say about what discount to offer).  I’ll then go back to them with the discount decided on for them and work out the details of their order. Because there is enough margin in each book, we can probably offer direct volume orders at a discount of 40% to possibly even as much as 50% and still make good profit on a volume order. 

In our conversation today you mentioned that you might be able to get the Commandant of the Marine Corps to read/review “Gooch’s Regiment” … if they wanted to make that “required” or “recommended” reading for the Corp and/or OCS/Basic and ROTC units… a volume wholesale order to the Marines and/or Navy would be very profitable. Or even if they did no more than direct their people to www.Americas-First-Marines.com to order it … that would be a niche volume driver for sales of the book.  At that site I will also have a form set up for wholesale orders so that we show interest in that type of inquiry.

----

I typed the above out on the fly, but I think I got the way the numbers work and logic explained – let me know if something doesn’t sound right or if you have questions and we can go over them to clarify.

Thanks,
Dennis

---end of email---

A conventional publisher can take months, up to a year plus to get a book from manuscript to print and on the market. Lee went from manuscript through the book production layout and cover design stages to finished book published and in his hands in 40 days.  And in some cases that could be shaved down by 5 to 10 days. A conventional publisher pays the author 3% to 10% royalties on the list price. In Lee’s case he is looking at 25% to as much as 60%.

Does it make sense to go the conventional publishing route?

If you are a rock star, celebrity or other personality that is hot in the media right now (and hopefully long enough to get your book to market)—then going the conventional route will work out for you. 

But think about this … if you are that type of person or if you are someone with a compelling and interesting story—even if only within a niche—you have the market knocked/tilted in your favor.

Why should you go with a conventional publisher who will take the lion’s share of the proceeds from your book/story?  You can do better for your self by having some control over the publishing and getting your book to market, with more profits for you and quicker turnaround and time to the market.

If you are a writer or someone who plans on writing, the above are some of the real world business aspects that come into play on the road to being published. Having more control over your writing and publishing destiny is something to consider.  It has paid off for many (now) well-known authors and even set the foundation for their success with major publishers for future works.

Want to read how controlling your writing/publishing destiny has worked out for some others?  Read the following:

Controlling your own publishing destiny can be the best decision you make for your book