How to Publish Your Own Book

There are two answers to this question, the easy way and the right way.

The easy way is to hand over your manuscript to one of the many companies that advertise a publishing service, along with a cheque for whatever their fee might be, and leave it at that.

I could go on with a long diatribe against such companies, but for now I will simply link that subject with the purpose of this post with the statement that;

A great many authors believe they have published their own book when in truth they have done no such thing.

These authors may have been told they have self-published their own book. They may believe it to be true, but the true publisher of any book is defined and identified in a very specific way and this is not by whoever has paid the cost of that publication. They may have paid through the nose, hundreds or thousands of pounds/dollars, it matters not one iota.

So how do you become a publisher?

Before explaining it must be pointed out that anyone can produce a book and offer that book for sale. However, for that book to count as being published, according to the official definition and requirements of the law and the book trade, that book must be officially registered with the assignment of its own individual ISBN number.

 

The ISBN number, or International Standard Book Number, can be described, in part, as a marketing and distribution tool. When introduced, each ISBN consisted of 10 digits. These digits comply to a specific mathematical formula. In January 2007, the number of digits in an ISBN was increased to 13 digits.

Each ISBN consists of 5 elements.

(1)     The prefix element; always 3 digits in length.

(2)     The Registration Group element; identifying a particular country, language area or geographic region of those participating in the ISBN system.

(3)     The Registration element; identifying the particular publisher or imprint.

(4)     The Publication element; identifying the particular format and edition of a particular title.

(5)     The Check digit is calculated using a Modulus 10 system with alternative weights of 1 and 3. This check digit mathematically validates the rest of the number.

The part to note is number 3, the registration element, the part of the ISBN that identifies the publisher of any book. This means that if you use anyone else to produce your book and as part of the service they provide includes the provision of an ISBN, and that ISBN is one issued under their imprint name, then officially, they are the publisher. If they are the publisher, you have not self-published, you’ve simply paid someone else to publish your book for you.

 

The simple fact is that before you can publish your own book, you must first become a publisher.

Publication and production are two different aspects of the process and while a publisher can pay someone else to produce the required volume of copies of their book, a publisher must always retain their authority as being ‘the publisher’ and to do this, you must register yourself as ‘the publisher’ with the relevant ISBN Agency.

The U.K. ISBN Agency is Nielsen UK. In America is Bowker. Simply search ISBN Agency on the internet to find the one that applies. Books do not need to be registered in every country they are sold, only in the country of publication.

When you contact the ISBN Agency they will expect you to have an Imprint Name. An Imprint Name is comparable to a business name and can be anything you choose, with a few caveats. It must not be anything derogatory or indecent, nor can it be a name registered to and used by any other similar business. You will then need to purchase your first block of ISBNs, the larger the block purchased the lower the cost per ISBN, so purchasing 100 ISBNs is cheaper per ISBN than purchasing just 10. Remember that the cost of the ISBN must be included when calculating the cost of publishing your book.

Another responsibility for the publisher is fulfilling the legal deposit requirements relevant to the country of publication. In the U.K. it is a legal requirement that a copy of every printed publication must be given to the British Library and to five other major libraries that request it. These are, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, the University Library, Cambridge and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

If you have truly self-published your own book then you are legally responsible for depositing a copy with the British Library. The address is: the British Library,

Boston Spa,

Wetherby,

LS23 7BY

In return you will receive a legal deposit receipt.

Any request for copies to the other libraries listed above will come from:

ALD(Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries

Causewayside Building,

Causewayside,

Edinburgh,

EH9 1PH.

Note that supplying the legal deposit copies is the responsibility of the publisher. These agencies get the publisher name and address from a books ISBN registration.

Dealing with legal deposit requests is all part of being a publisher. If you haven’t done this, you are either legally at fault or you are not the publisher, despite what you may think or have been told.

 

Whatever you may be told and whatever you believe, the first step to publishing your own book is to become a publisher. There is no other way to do it.

This and other issues are dealt with in the book:

Available through Amazon: An Independent & Comprehensive Guide for Authors Wanting to Publish Their Own Books: http://www.amazon.com/dp/190030743X

 

What Should You Expect to Find In a Publishing Contract?

This is a question I’ve been asked quite a number of times and it appears a lot of would be authors are still unclear. What follows is an outline of the principles to look for when considering signing a publishing contract, and also some things you don’t want to see in such a contract. That said, anyone considering signing any form of contract should always seek legal advice and ensure that they fully understand the nature of the beast.

1)     A statement of what is being licensed to the publisher. This could be First Serial Rights, All Rights, or a list of specific rights. This statement is usually entitled: Licence of Grant.

(2)   A statement of countries in which this licence or grant applies. For example, this could be just Great Britain, or just America, or Europe, or Worldwide, stating where the publisher has the right to sell or sub-license the book.

(3)   A statement of advances, if any, may be paid, in a single payment, or half on signature, half on publication, or in thirds, or even in quarters, though this is more common where the advance is substantial.

Note that an Advance is what it says. It is an advance in royalties against expected sales, not in addition to royalties on those sales. In theory, if sales do not reach the expected level, the publisher can reclaim any advance paid, though they rarely do.

(4)   A statement on the level of royalties to be paid and when. This can be yearly, bi-annually or quarterly. Royalties can be paid on either the retail or wholesale price of the book. The level of royalties can also be staged, depending on the level of sales, rising as sales increase. For example: The royalty level may start at a base royalty of 10% on hardbacks, 7.5% on paperbacks, 5% on board or novelty books with this level increasing at sales achieve certain stated levels. (Note: All royalty amounts are subject to negotiation).

(5)   A statement of Subsidiary rights. These include reprint rights, large print editions, book club editions, paperback reprint, etc., serial rights (the right to publish in newspapers and magazines), anthology and quotation rights, educational rights, audio rights, e-book rights and so on. The percentage royalty to be paid should be listed against each right. Rights listed in the sub-rights clause should be checked against the opening grant of rights clause to confirm that they conform.

(6)   A statement of delivery and publication. This is a clause, or clauses, that state the agreed delivery date of the book along with an undertaking by the publisher to publish the work within a stated period of time.

(7)   Copyright and moral rights. As an author you are licensing the publication of your work, so you should retain copyright and this clause should oblige the publisher to include a copyright line in every edition of the work however published or sub-licensed by them. The author’s moral rights are also often asserted within the contract.

(8)   Publishers generally insist on having the final say regarding details of production, publication and advertising, though they should also consult with the author over the blurb, catalogue copy, jacket and cover design. This clause should include an undertaking to supply the author with a proof copy, giving the author enough time to check the proof copy for any error that may have occurred during the book design process.

(9)   The contract should state the dates on which author sales accounts will be published, including the dates that royalties will be paid for each sales accounting period. This is usually twice a year, however. The layout and detail including in royalty statements vary from publisher to publisher and mistakes are more common than one might imagine. The author should check these statements and immediately raise any anomalies with the publisher.

(10) Like any business, publishers can go bust and some fail to stick to the agreed terms of a contract. The contract should include a ‘reversion’ clause stating that in such circumstances, the author shall regain all the rights covered within the contract. This clause should also contain a segment stating that if the publisher allows the book to go out of print, the publisher may only hold onto the rights covered in the contract for a stated period of time. If this period is exceeded, the author regains the rights involved.

(11) The contract should include a statement saying that the publisher cannot assign any of the rights granted to them by the author without the author’s express written consent. For example, if a small publishing company is taken over by a larger publishing house, the original publisher cannot assign any rights to the larger company without the author’s consent.

AND NOW SOME CONTRACT CLAUSES TO AVOID

(a)    A Pulping Clause.

A pulping clause is an aberration to all genuine publishers and related to Vanity Publishing and the days before the advent of digital technology. In those days the only way to produce a book involved the use of the litho printing process. The only way for this to become anywhere near economical was to print in batches of at least 1,000 copies. However, book production is a two-part process, printing and print finishing.

Book pages are printed on large sheets, 8 – 16 or any multiple of 4 pages per sheet. Print finishing involves folding these sheets, collating, binding and trimming. Vanity Publishers save on this process, in the guise of saving the author money, saying they will bind maybe 6 – 10 copies and binding the remainder in response to orders that all too often never come.

Then comes the pulping clause. The Vanity Publisher contract states that these unbound pages will be stored for a set time, usually about 1 year, but if orders do not come, the author must pay an additional storage fee and if not, these remaining pages will be sold back to a paper-mill for pulping. This becomes additional profit for the Vanity Publisher and the author will not see a penny of this money.

Digital technology has made a pulping clause largely redundant, but they do still appear in some contracts and it can be argued that some Print On Demand contracts are an updated version of the principle behind this pulping clause.

(b)    Advance too low or paid in too slow stages.

An advance is based on an author’s credentials as a writer and calculated on anticipated sales. The only variation to this is with new authors where no such calculation can be made so if offered a contract, any advance may well be very low or even non-existent, especially if the publisher is a small independent.

(c)    The royalty rate is too low.

Royalties can be calculated either on the net, wholesale, or gross, retail list price of a book. As stated previously, there should be an escalating scale depending on sales called royalty breaks. For example, a publisher might state a royalty rate of 10% for the first 10,000 sales, 12% for the next 10,000, rising to 14% or15% thereafter. The higher the sales the greater the % royalties. Be wary if this escalating scale segment is missing from the contract. Note that the 40%, 60%, even 80% royalty figure quoted by some self-publishing service providers is meaningless because 80% of nothing is still less than 10% of something.

(d)    Related to the above. A sub-clause stating that book club and other subsidiary sales do not count, or count at a very low percentage, towards royalties or when calculating royalty breaks.

(e)    A deep discount clause.

The royalty rate is slashed on books sold at a discount on the publisher’s stated retail price. Considering that, as a marketing tool, many books are sold at a discount, this can dig deeply into the royalties an author should receive. While this can increase sales, thus increasing potential royalties, the author needs to keep any discount percentage on their royalties to a minimum.

(f)     A strict reserve against return clause.

Publishers are entitle to withhold a percentage of royalties against returns of unsold books from bookstores, but this percentage should be fair and reasonable.

(g)    Skewed or unclear distribution of subsidiary rights.

These include magazine articles, book clubs, film, audiotapes, foreign sales and electronic rights.

(h)   A vague out of print clause, as mentioned near the start of this chapter.

Copyright in the publisher’s name, either in the contract or front matter of the book. Copyright should always be in the author’s name.

(i)     Draconian penalties for late delivery of the manuscript.

(j)     A strict option clause.

An option clause gives the publisher first option on the author’s next manuscript. Such a clause needs to include a response time; the maximum time the publisher has to say yes or no. Delaying this decision prevents the author seeking another publisher until it is made.

(k)    A non-competition clause that prevents the author writing another book on a similar subject for submission to another publisher.

(l)     A clause requiring the author to repay the publisher any advance made prior to publication if the publisher then decides to cancel publication.

Despite being rarely used, publishers have the right to reclaim any advances paid if sales to not achieve the required level, but if the publisher decides to cancel publication, the responsibility for this loss lies with the publisher, not the author.

(m)  Missing clauses that should be in the contract.

These include an audit clause, a clause giving the author the right to audit the publisher’s sales accounts.

(n)   A bankruptcy clause. Any business can go bankrupt and all assets of that business get seized by the official receiver, or similar depending on which country you are in. This will include the rights to your manuscript, unless protected by a specific clause stating that in such a circumstance, all rights revert to the author.

(o)    Any of the other clauses or clause elements outlined in the first part of this chapter.

I have tried to be as comprehensive as possible but will still repeat, always seek legal advice before signing any contract.

This article is an extract for a book I am working on entitled:

The Independent Guide for Authors Wanting to Publish Their Own Book

(but not a guide to self-publishing)

You might think it a long winded title, or that an author wanting to publish their own book is the same as self-publishing, the book argues that it is not and you’ll need to read it to find out why this is true. The book will hopefully be ready for publication in September 2017.

Getting High on Old Books

Can you imagine being arrested for possession of an old book? It’s all the drug dog’s fault. The dog is trained to sniff out pot, magic mushrooms or whatever and you’re totally innocent. You’re carrying nothing except for an old book.

There is advice in writing circles, to visit antiquarian bookshops to seek inspiration for new ideas, but have you ever noticed the smell? Old bookshops and old books smell. It’s not an unpleasant aroma, in fact quite addictive and this might get a policeman’s nose twitching when he learns the cause.

The answer to this mystery is mould, book mould in particular, a type of fungus often mistakenly described as mildew, but mildew is a distinct and specific type of fungus in its own right. As with any fungus, spores are released into the atmosphere and like magic mushrooms, to which the fungal spores found in old books are related, these spores can produce a similar reaction.

Signs of this mould appear as reddish brown spots called foxing, generally the more red the better. So when you’re looking through an old book seeking inspiration and you see those red spots, try sniffing the page, or don’t!

I don’t want to be accused of encouraging such nefarious activity. But when your nose starts twitching with that distinctive odour, you could be getting higher than literature alone might inspire.