Comments on: Publishing Strategies

By: Fell

Fell — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 18:28:33 +0000

I’d be more than happy to help whenever you require me.

By: Occult Investigator

Occult Investigator — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 17:32:46 +0000

That’s great advice Fell, I appreciate it. I might have some more ideas to bounce off you, as I know you’ve thought a lot about this.

By: Fell

Fell — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 17:09:01 +0000

Ahh you’re familiar with iUniverse. I was going to bring it up as checked it out some time ago. I came across the book The Occult Art of War, by “Seth,” through my browsing of Amazon. I ordered it at my local neighbourhood bookstore, as I usually do, and it was self-published via iUniverse. Thing is, the book isn’t that good. All this self-publishing may be just ego satiation, for the most part.

Though that comment has nothing to do with Tim. For this stuff, I would maybe check out the sales of Disinformation’s books. They really pushed a few of them, and I got their Book of Lies: Guide to Magick, which was useless to me but perhaps not others.

It could also be the context by which you push it out there. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the context of the occult a lot. If you might be able to approach a different market or crowd? Just a thought. Writing one more occult book would be preaching to the choir, in effect, cuz are these “pop culture occult” books really drawing anyone new? In what fashion? Why would they be?

If the context is already ruined or saturated, the greatest thing you may be able to achieve is approaching the same content but from a different angle. This freshens it up, creates controversy sometimes, and offers appeal to a market that may not have been introduced to such ideas before.

I see something like Tool and they drew many people to mysticism through their music. Same with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and hell even some metal bands really draw youth to peculiar schools of practice and apparently Satanism or something akin.

I guess you just need to consider whether a) you are doing it for yourself; b) what will you gain from doing this; c) who is your readership and are they interested in it; d) what makes it different from the competition; e) how easy is it to find/ access/ purchase; f) will people talk about it; et al.

That is also the marketer in me just blathering on, however.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:17:12 +0000

Interesting to read your thought process on this topic. I’m a fan of independent publishing for some–not all–kinds of books, but then again I am a Lulu partisan. It’s worth noting that according to R.R. Bowker, the average retail price for a trade paperback is up to $15.95–I think you should use that as your benchmark regardless of how many pages the book is. You can sell the ebook version (ugh, I know) for much less just to give people more options.

Using Lulu for fulfillment and skipping Amazon/retail distribution makes perfect sense for authors like you who have developed your own audiences on the web. Unlike authors operating in a non-web-centric marketing environment, you can control where you send your customers to buy the book. This is the model used by all of the successful independent publishers on Lulu, I should add, although there are those who (like the relative of one of the prior posters) buy a bunch of copies of their own book and then schlep them around from event to event selling them in person. That can work, but it’s very time consuming.

By: Occult Investigator

Occult Investigator — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:27:02 +0000

thanks james, that 100 page thing is just an estimate, really. im just trying to kick the idea around right now

By: James Russell

James Russell — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 14:24:06 +0000

Possibly it’s just me, but I feel you might be better off doing three books of around 200 pages each rather than 6 of 100 pages… although perhaps it would depend upon the subject and how much substance you thought you could put into it.

By: autrect

autrect — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 05:53:22 +0000

Sorry to ignore your question again: I’d pay up to $10 or maybe $15 for a relatively short book. That’s why I recommended saving money by paying printing yourself. I’ve seen that model be relatively successful on a few occasions.

By: autrect

autrect — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 05:42:56 +0000

I routinely pay $20-30 for conspiracy books that are usually quite bad.
Never underestimate your worth.

By: Occult Investigator

Occult Investigator — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 04:41:37 +0000

The other thing I meant to bring into this discussion is that Amazon recently bought the Booksurge company, a POD self-publisher, which means they are anticipating/riding an important publishing market shift

By: Occult Investigator

Occult Investigator — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 04:36:03 +0000

a close family member who has self-published with one of those self-publishing companies, and heâ€™s had endless problems with Amazon and B&N,

I actually did one completely unrelated to my current work years ago, so I know the routine. It was through iUniverse. Went perfectly smoothly, but their price is now way too high to use.

Print a few thousand books at once and it would be more like $3-5 a book.

Not worth it to me.

you cannot expect to make any money at all that you would be able to support yourself on.

I don’t expect that, so don’t worry.

What I really want to know out of all this is: how much would you pay for an approximately 100+ page book on a subject you were interested in, from an author you had at least passing familiarity with and who has a website where you can check out their work?

By: autrect

autrect — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 04:20:13 +0000

I have a close family member who has self-published with one of those self-publishing companies, and he’s had endless problems with Amazon and B&N, but you encounter those problems if you self-publish the old fashioned way: that is, paying a printer yourself to print your book and kill the middle man. But the self-publishing companies do help you get into Amazon and B&N, but you still have to hustle — like, my family member has to every week set up his own readings at B&Ns, libraries, conventions, etc. That’s how he has to sell his books.
You obviously already have a base and could likely sell quite a few books straight through your site: PayPal works wonders.
Knowing this business, you could pay a lot less for books if you paid for the publishing yourself and didn’t go through a Lulu type company. Print a few thousand books at once and it would be more like $3-5 a book. Your profit margin would be much higher, but you’d have to pay around $10K up front to print — that’s how these self-pub companies get business. For you, it would make more sense to financially invest in yourself. You can always sell the books forever. If you believe in your product, you can afford to get a bunch printed at once instead of using the print on demand idea.
However, whether self-publishing or getting signed to a major book publisher, you cannot expect to make any money at all that you would be able to support yourself on. The book publishing industry is brutal, knowing it first-hand. Only if you sell millions like the Da Vinci Code can you make a living. It’s a shame, but there are a lot more writers and books on the market these days. However, clever writers who self-publish can make a little money if they’re smart about it. Hope this helps some.

By: Occult Investigator

Occult Investigator — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 03:16:50 +0000

Thanks. I’m not saying the money is bad. I’m over balking at the “selling out” argument. If I were to write something to a mass market, I would simply look at it like a job, and figure out how to effectively and creatively satisfy the requirements of that job. If I can do both that and this alternate strategy, that’s great. I’m just trying to not put all my eggs in one basket.

By: alistair

alistair — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:44:49 +0000

work with an agent who can get you to market. once you have some sales you can indulge yourself. money is good, that`s why they call it money. your style is clear and concise. just make sure that you don`t censor yourself by contract. you still need to blog and publish niche works.