The Traps and Pitfalls Of Getting Your Book Published?

Hallo all

I'm looking for advice, guidance, Yoda guru insights etc
regarding getting your research work published in the UK.

I know nothing, but my book is getting much closer to finish,
and I am starting to have a section of my head wondering what
to do with it.

I've noticed comments, for example, that "such & such are very
bad editors and fact checkers". any publishers to avoid or seek?

I know quite a few here are published and wondered what the
score was regarding %, how many are likely to be printed etc
and whether self publishing is a definate no no or worth looking
at as an option.

Many thanks for any assistance

 

Whatever you do, don't print a "Buy my Book" label across your Captain Haddock avatar

 

I would suggest having a good synopsis prepared together with a couple of complete chapters - depending on the subject either submit this to specialist publishers or look for an agent to take you on - remeber it will probably take two years for your effort to hit the bookshelves once accepted - publishers work a long way ahead.

 

The hardest thing IMHO is trying to find a publisher...unless you do self publishing......I've had several rejections in the past and a lot of publishers will limit you to about 80 to 100K words......how long is your proposed work?

Good luck!

 

@ AHD;

My background is a totally self published book and in the meantime two small boks published with "Books on Demand".

I cannot give you an accurate advice since I have no clue what your book is about, what format you want, what binding, how many pages, what paper, what about illustrations... this for the book.

Then it would be good to know, whom you think would want to read your book.

But ok. Some general advice would be this:

A) Forget about the idea to mke money with publishing a book. If you are lucky, you manage to recover your direct cost.

B) Do not expect that the "rest of the world" is as enthusiastic about your project as you are. I would say that 50% of the people who show a "preliminary interest" in your book will not buy it once it is published.

C) Don't cheat yourself when you estimate the expected sales. If you print 3'000 copies, you can sell the book cheaper than if you print 1'000. But you need 3'000 people to buy your book. Go for a realistic number and see at what price you will have to sell the book.

D) If you find a publisher, you have to be aware that you do not only give him your manuscript but that the contract will require you to sell your soul to him. I had recently the chance to study a contract of a well known Britih publisher who was interested in the next book project I am working on with two colleagues. There are points like this:

- The publiser can step out of the contract but you as the autor can not.
- The publisher has the right to shorten or amend your manuscript and to add or remove illustrations without consulting you. But you have to pay for his efforts.
- The autor is responsible for all copyrights (what is logical). But the publisher has the right to employ a lawyer to check if all is ok. At the cost of the athor.
- The autor has to hve the rights on the manuscript and all illustrations. But he shall not have the right any more to use photos or parts of the manuscript for anything else. The publisher can use the manuscript, photos and illustrations for whatever he want.
- The publisher will send you the original photos back. But you cannot hold him responsible if the photos are damaged or even lost in the publisher's mess.
- The publisher has the right for 'first option' if the autor would publishe any other book.

And whilst you might swallow all of above in your desparation - now this:

The autor gets the following "payment":

For the first 750 copies sold: 5% of the sales price.
For the next 750 copies sold 7,5% of the sales price.
For all following books 10% of the sales price.


If you consider a sales price of GBP 15.- and a total number of 2'000 books (what is considerably high for a "niche product") then you could expect an income of about GBP 2156.25

Now, take this amount and compare it to the hours you have spent to prepare the book. But first you have to deduct all your direct cost (obtaining of copyrights, photos, expenses during research etc.)

-----

Normally, a publisher takes these figures (I had a discussion recently with a German publisher): All related to the sales price of the book...

50% for the booktrade (thos who do the smallest part ;-))
15% for the publisher
25% to layout & print the book
10% for the author.

--------

Some publishers go even further - the autor has to share their expenses for the print run. Means that the autor pays to get his book printed. If the book sells within (say) 3 years, then the autor gets his money back. If it does not sell, the author gets a truckload of his own books delivered to his home (the transport has to be paid by the author...).

Should the latter be the case, then you could maybe build your new furniture all out of your own books!

---------

As I said - to give a bit more specific advice I would need more details.

 

brilliant advice all, thank you

and Kuno, that is an immense help,
not only to me but hopefully to others,
thank you very much indeed.

The book is WW1, timeline of a specific battalion
including personal anecdotes and many photos.
It also has a very specific 'niche' potential when
combined with 'marketing' such as a news worthy
exhibition at the Regimental museum.

Have 80,000+ words currently, just doing yet
another 're-edit' and polish at the moment, it'll
probably stretch to approx 100K

 

The Publishing world is a fickle thing. I think JK Rowling sent her first book to something like 30 different agents (or publishers?) before only one took her up on it.

If you want to go via self-publishing, I hear Lulu.com is a good place.

 

I must say that I had a relatively painless and positive experience with Pen & Sword.

But I spent several thousand dollars out of my own pocket having my manuscript professionally edited (from 100,000 down to 85,000 words) before I submitted it (sans agent). Not everyone has the luxury to be able to do that, but undoubtedly it played a role in fast acceptance and virtually zero editing by my publisher. And it took exactly 10 months from contract signing to receipt of first printed copies, in my case.

Always read what you sign. Don't be afraid to negotiate. You might not win on everything, but be prepared to stand firm on any items you feel are critical.

Do NOT expect to get rich. Do not even expect to cover your direct costs. You did this for your own reasons, and not many companies will share those reasons. They are in business to make money, not to make you feel good or to reward your patriotism/altruism.

Finally, the odds of finding an agent for work like ours are virtually nil, in my experience. The overall market (i.e. potential book sales) for books like ours is not big enough to attract an agent, and we are unlikely to write a series of books over our lifetimes. If your work is good enough to get an advance from a publisher, don't expect more than GBP 1,000-2,000. And then it will take sales of 2,000 copies to earn back that advance before you see a penny in royalties.

I hope that doesn't sound too depressing!

Good luck,

Marc

 

thank you Marc, that is helpful to know

 

When I did my first book, I had to finance all by myself and I knew that it was a "niche book" - I could have bought a new car instead but since I had a car already I went for the book. The car is 'lost in Libya' in the meantime but the book is still on my shelf

 

Pen & Sword are my publishers, but I would say you were up against it with a battalion history with a major publisher like them as it is such a small market. Having said that it's always worth contacting them about it, as the worse they can say is no. But I think thy would want a book of 60K words - 100K is a major work and would be an expensive book from a major publisher.

Probably your best route is self-publishing. Ryan Gearing of Tommies books seems to have a good reputation in this and I seem to remember he is offering a new service for this for WFA members? Ryan is a member here and at GWF.

 

I've gone both routes and the two best things about going with a publisher that I have found is that they put up all the money to get it published and they have a built in distribution network. This also gives them full control of when the book comes, where it sold and the price.

Going solo means that you do everything yourself, which is good if you know what you're doing and have the time to make and learn from your mistakes.

John Sliz

 

JohnS - I had a similar experience with my privately printed book. Writing a book is only half the work - distributing and selling it is the other - sometimes tougher - part.

Going 'solo' on the other hand has the main advantage of you - not the publisher - deciding on the contents of the work.

 

I'm assuming this work is on the West Ham Pals?

Pen and Sword do publish a range of Pals titles (the link follows) of which I have quite a few but none are anywhere near 100k words. I did some minor research for one of the authors of these titles and I'm sure he would be willing to offer advice on the way to go forward as he is a really nice guy. I will PM you if you are interested?

Pen and Sword Books: Military History and Nostalgia Book Publishers

Good luck.

Jonathan

 

"Up The Hammers!" - The West Ham Battalion in the Great War

The book will be out on Kindle for all electronic formats
(Kindle Fire, Kindle, Kindle PC, i-Phone, i-Pad etc)

90,000 words
60+ never published photographs

Release date: to honour my GtGrandfather, the book will be
available from April 27th 2011. This is the date he was killed
in action with the Hammers by a German trench mortar.

 

Congratulations and well done for getting there! Best of luck with the sales.

Lee

 

I may not be the best person to advise you, since I was extremely lucky at the start. I got a grant from the Australian Army to do my thesis, and when it was done the grant people (Army History Unit) liked it well enough to get a book version set up with Cambridge University Press. So first of all you should make as many connections as you can in the historical community; in my case, one connection led to another and another, and that is often how it works. Making excerpts of your book available in an online or print forum is another good way to stimulate interest. I think it's much better to do stuff like that than to simply send your work cold to a publisher who's never heard of you; in this country, at least, unsolicited manuscripts go straight to what we call "the slush pile," from whence they seldom emerge. The best thing of all to do is to get an agent, but of course they cost money.

 

At Home Dad,

I took the view that I wanted my book to be finished and available within one year of my starting to write it, so that I could then focus on other things (like my day job!). That's why I went directly down the self-publishing route, as I feared things might drag on forever if I started getting involved with publishers.

If you do decide to self-publish, then I can strongly recommend somebody called Miles Bailey at The Choir Press, whose website is here. All I had to do was write the book and convey to him roughly what I wanted the cover to look like. Everything else (getting an ISBN number, placing the book on Amazon and similar sites etc) he did. He instinctively understood the nature of the book I was writing and had a good feel for the industry, and gave me one or two excellent pointers (particularly as regards cover design) on how to help make it look like a "real" book (as I didn't want it looking too home-made). He can also advise on the other areas like costings - e.g. whether it makes sense to have an initial print run or to produce it as "print on demand" etc.

Best of luck!
Richard

 

PS Congratulations on getting it out on Kindle. I'm assuming your query about hard-copy publishing still stands.

Richard

 

At Home Dad,

I took the view that I wanted my book to be finished and available within one year of my starting to write it, so that I could then focus on other things (like my day job!). That's why I went directly down the self-publishing route, as I feared things might drag on forever if I started getting involved with publishers.

If you do decide to self-publish, then I can strongly recommend somebody called Miles Bailey at The Choir Press, whose website is here. All I had to do was write the book and convey to him roughly what I wanted the cover to look like. Everything else (getting an ISBN number, placing the book on Amazon and similar sites etc) he did. He instinctively understood the nature of the book I was writing and had a good feel for the industry, and gave me one or two excellent pointers (particularly as regards cover design) on how to help make it look like a "real" book (as I didn't want it looking too home-made). He can also advise on the other areas like costings - e.g. whether it makes sense to have an initial print run or to produce it as "print on demand" etc.

Best of luck!
Richard

I'm pushing two years with mine. Right now I am waiting on publishers who are looking at it. I keep getting emails asking questions that I addressed in my proposal, such as word count, pictures, etc.

I'm giving strong thoughts on self-publishing.