Just wanted to chime in with my opinion about self-publishing in general (and not necessarily a comment about
The Untold Story in particular)...
There are different types of self-publishing. The simplest and cheapest is POD (print on demand) which can cost almost nothing. It's free to upload and set up the book at giants like CreateSpace (owned by Amazon), and you would likely pay $10 for a proof copy of the book before final publication. The publishing itself is free. You can buy your own stock copies at the manufacturing cost. My printed
Island of Fog books, which are text only, cost me $3.50 each, and I sell them for $11.95. An illustrated book, especially a color one, will cost quite a bit more, and personally I think those types of books will price themselves out of the market. I put one together for a client recently, all about Russian paintings, and though it had very few paintings among all the text, just one solitary color painting changes the entire price structure and greatly inflates the price.
So another option is to go with offset printing, the traditional type we all know from big publishers. These are much cheaper for vast quantities and for books with color pictures. Maybe the most viable option would be LSI, who produce millions of books (both POD and offset) for many big publishers. But this means a huge payout and thousands of copies sitting for years in the author's bedroom or storage facility until they're all gone, which could be never.
I don't think POD books are as good quality as offset, but they're certainly more viable for first-time authors who don't have a publisher behind them.
There are also publishing "services" who charge through the nose to do some basic setting up for you and usually print you a few hundred copies. Oh, and some so-called "marketing and promotion." Yeah, right. Those services can cost thousands, and from my experience talking to other authors who have done this, it's a mug's game. And they don't even have the rights to their own books for several years.
Then again, producing books on the cheap that looked awful and won't sell is also a mug's game. So I think the best way forward is to LEARN stuff and be your own publisher, but contract professionals on a "pick-and-mix" basis as necessary. Hire somebody to do the book cover, $300 dollars at most. Hire somebody to edit and proofread it, maybe $1000 tops depending on how far you need them to go. Hire somebody to put the book together as an uploadable PDF and set it up (at LSI for offset, or CreateSpace for POD). This is fiddly work, so possibly another $1000 or more if you have to pay somebody for their time. As for distribution and marketing, nothing works better than personal legwork, which is free. There are a few outlets worth paying for, the main one being BookBub, which can cost $150 for one ad but is WELL worth it because you make that back almost instantly in sales.
As for these kick-start funding projects... I honestly can't understand how an author has the gall to ask friends, family, and strangers for money to pay for such a thing. It just feels wrong to me. And when the project is done, the author then reaps the profits? I can understand asking for funding on a project that involves a new, clever invention that will benefit many people, but not for a book, which is really nothing more than a very personal hobby.
I know that some people are luckier than others with publishing, in that some people are "jack of all trades" and can put the book together from start to finish. I'm not saying mine are fabulous, but I do the whole thing myself. But those who need help can get it if they just do some research first. Research is free. Learning the ropes is free. I don't understand handing over a massive amount of dosh to some faceless company who have a nice website and say they can publish your book for you. Even THEY say (in small print), "
...but you, the author, are responsible for your own success."
I'm not suggesting this is what Brian Carter is planning to do; again, I'm just speaking generally having met quite a few authors who have done this and seem to be at a loss to understand why they're still not in profit!
Put simply, spend as much as you need, but learn how to do publish your own book. Having complete control over every tiny detail is liberating. The same can be said of my father-in-law, who was very poor as a young adult and had to learn to fix everything himself -- cars, washing machines, blocked plumbing, everything -- and went on to build houses for a living, all self-taught with whatever qualifications he needed to get. He had no college education, just a stern father who said, "Get off your butt and figure it out."
Gosh, what a long post! You can tell this whole "paying through the nose to publish a book" thing gets me upset.
By the way, Brian is paying a small fee for the advert at the top left of EnidBlyton.net. We'll both see how it goes. If he doesn't get enough click-thrus in March, then we'll cancel it. So it's a trial ad at the moment.
Hello everyone!
