How Does Your Publisher Make Money?

How does your publisher make money?

Traditional publishers make their money selling books - that's why they're so picky about what they will publish. Back in the day, vanity publishers made their money from writers paying to have their books printed. In the new market, print-on-demand has made it possible to publish a book yourself and sell it worldwide for the minimal cost of copyright registration and ISBN purchase.

Some writers aren't comfortable doing it all themselves, so there are "self-publishing" and "hybrid" companies that will help you get that book into print. They're making most of their money selling services to authors. Some of those companies are expensive but legitimate; others are a complete rip-off. Investigate any company you consider using for self-publishing.

To read about my personal experience hiring the wrong company, read Never Pay to Publish – and OMG. (The OMG's about a daring surf rescue where my daughter and her husband risked their own lives to save three young strangers.)

For a more indepth description of publishing options see Deciding How to Publish Your Book. It also includes links to watchdog lists that help you avoid current scams.

There's also the option of hiring a book shepherd - someone to walk you through the self-publishing process, helping you become your own publisher. Some companies act primarily as printers and distributors of your work - such as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and Ingram's IngramSpark. They make money when your book sells.

Deciding How to Publish your book

When you are deciding how to publish your book, it's important to do your homework.

Traditional publishing is still an option, but you’ll need an agent unless you manage to connect with an editor through friends or at a conference. In any case, they want you to have a platform with an existing, involved audience who will buy your book.

If you already have a platform, you may decide to self-publish to keep control of cover and other choices – and to keep a larger share of profits. However, remember, most books sell less than 500 copies – even those traditionally published – so don’t spend more than you can afford to self-publish, expecting to have a best seller that will get you out of debt. Traditional publishers only make money if your book sells. Look for a POD operation where YOU are the publisher, and they are the printer/distributer. They should make most of their money when you sell books.

When choosing a company to help you publish your book, one of the largest red flags is a requirement that you order a hundred or more books. Thirty years ago, when traditional publishing required type be set for runs of 500-1000 books, vanity presses would require a purchase of hundreds of books to cover the cost of the run. That was reasonable to cover their costs, but most authors ended up with boxes of books gathering dust in a garage or attic. These "publishers" make most of their money selling authors services.

Today, with print on demand technology, this sort of requirement is not reasonable. Whether you are printing one book or a hundred, when you are using POD technology the cost per book is about the same.

Espresso Book Machine at Sacremento Library's I Street Press

If you have a chance, go see a POD machine in action. It’s really cool. You make one .pdf file for your cover and another for the interior of the book. The .pdf for the interior includes title and copyright pages, all your chapters, and any material you include after the story – every page that will be inside your book. Both files are uploaded into the machine – through a USB port, just like loading them onto a laptop. Number of copies is set and the book comes out in its final form.

On Demand Books introduced the Espresso Book Machine in 2007 and the publishing industry is still adapting. POD has made it affordable to self-publish. Unfortunately, there are many predatory companies who claim to help you self-publish when they are really operating like the old vanity presses.

The Authors Guild and Writer Beware warn against current scams. The Alliance of Independent Authors has a watchdog list rating services for self-publishers. (This includes some that masquerade as Amazon’s KDP.)

Do your research, analyze, then make your choice.