• Category Archives Self-publishing

  • Posts pertaining to self-publishing books and comics.

  • Publishing Isn’t Free

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Publishing Isn’t Free

    Pen and keyboard publishing isn't free

    Raising Capital for Your Book
    by A.P. Fuchs
    (from Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book)

    Publishing books costs money. Like the saying goes, you’ve got to spend money to make money. There’s no way around this. Thankfully, desktop publishing has dramatically cut that cost down and instead of having to spend thousands of dollars up front like in the old days, you can publish your book for less than a couple hundred on the low end, or a thousand or more on the high end.

    This book shows you how to publish your book for around $200, give or take a little depending on what you hire out when producing your book and where you live.

    Keeping up with the spirit of this book, which is starting out with little to no money like I did, let me make a few suggestions as to how to raise that $200 if you don’t have it saved already.

    – set aside a set amount every payday so you can publish your book in a timely manner

    – if things are indeed tight and nothing can be spared, then consider getting a temporary part-time job to cover the expenses of book publishing

    – if your book is complete, write up a synopsis of your book and take pre-orders from family and friends. This may be tricky, however, if you don’t know how to price your book. See the section on pricing for more info

    – have a yard sale

    – start a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign at www.kickstarter.com

    – sell off your unwanted CDs, books, records, etc. to stores that specialize in those items

    Of course, there are many other ways to fund your project but the above are a few suggestions. After all, publishing isn’t free.


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  • The Most Overlooked Step of Self-publishing or The Three Types of Writers

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    The Most Overlooked Step of Self-publishing or The Three Types of Writers

    The Most Overlooked Step of Self-publishing or The Three Types of Writers

    Choose Your Target

    You need to know where you’re going before you can figure out what you’re doing. A simple—even obvious—principle, but one often overlooked by writers and artists looking to get their work out there.

    I made the mistake of jumping right into this business and publishing my first book, A Stranger Dead, via a vanity/subsidy press. Next thing I knew, I was in the hole around $2500US and never made my money back. Back then, because of the US-to-Canadian-dollar exchange rate, you could add about 40-45% to that bill, so I plunked down somewhere around $3,625 Canadian for a book that went, well, nowhere. I think, all told, I recouped maybe a couple hundred bucks and that was it. Of course, a couple hundred is better than zero, but had I known that jumping in without stopping and researching and honing my craft, I would’ve come up with a different plan, especially since I was trying to make writing my livelihood. This was not proper self-publishing.

    Yet many jump in. They believe the self-publishing Kindle hype and jump in. They pay someone to publish their book and jump in. They hook up with a small press without knowing its history or who’s behind it, and jump in. The list goes on, and heartbreak and frustration often follow.

    The problem with jumping in and not knowing how to swim is that you drown.

    Like all journeys—and believe me, publishing is a journey and not some place you can just get to by stepping out your door and, poof, there you are—you need to figure out where you’re going first. And this destination is different for everybody.

    It’s based on goals.

    There are a few categories of people when it comes to the publishing business and though money is involved, it’s not all that’s involved.

    The first thing anyone needs to do before they embark on any creative journey in regards to getting their work out there, is to decide what their end game is. No way around this.

    Don’t go any further without establishing this. Without it, it’ll be like being in the middle of the ocean and not knowing which way to swim to get to land. You will quickly tucker out as you try different directions, get frustrated, even mentally broken in some cases and, eventually, you’ll pack it in.

    There are three general categories the writer falls into. Find which one you’re in and you’ll make your life easier going forward.

    The Hobbyist: this person creates solely for fun. Money is not the main motivator and they usually give away their work for free or sell it for very, very little, the main drive simply to have a good time with their art and that’s it. They might also not even distribute their work and just fill up a hard drive or journal with their stories solely for their own amusement.

    The Part-timer: this person is interested in making money with their work, but thanks to either a working spouse or a job they love, their craft isn’t a career-goal for them. Regardless of the money involved—but there has to be some as they are, indeed, looking at their art as a “part-time job”—the main motivator is to use their art to put food on the table in conjunction with other sources of income.

    The Full-timer: this person aims to make their art their sole livelihood and so work their butt off to obtain that. Some find success right away, others take years, even decades. The amount of money it requires to achieve this varies on lifestyle and personal desires.

    Each of the above involves taking a different path. Though “all roads lead North” isn’t true for this biz, there are many roads to achieve each of the above goals, most of them being a case of finding what works for you and running with it.

    However, generally speaking, the roads look something like this:

    The Hobbyist: with money not really an issue and/or motivator, this person will either invest their own funds into their project, put it out themselves, distribute however and whenever, or simply throw everything up on the Web for free and call it good. They might publish with a small press and if the book is a flop, it’s a non-issue for them. Also, as previously mentioned, publication might not even be pursued and the stories are kept private in journals or on a hard drive.

    The Part-timer: money being a consideration, this person will either get involved with a small-to-medium-sized press, make a few hundred dollars to a few grand a year, and are more than happy with that.

    The Full-timer: with their livelihood at stake, this person will aim to find incredible success with a traditional publisher, whether big, medium or even small, depending on the number of copies sold. Though lifestyles vary, $20-25,000 minimum would probably be required to live off of if you are single in today’s economic climate. To secure this kind of advance for a first-time author is difficult, but not impossible. First-time author advances range from $100-10,000 in general (and depends on the size of the press), but with a good marketable book and a good agent, getting $20,000-plus up front isn’t farfetched. While the high-end first-time author advance of $10,000-$20,000 may or may not be enough to live on, it does give you access to a publisher’s resources and distribution channels, their brand and connections, and, you never know, your book might take off thus putting you in demand and getting you a higher advance for a second book. There’s also the possibility of signing a first-time author multi-book deal (i.e. $30,000 for 3 books at $10,000 each).

    All three of the above can also take one final path: entrepreneurship, in other words, self-publishing, which is the main focus of this book.

    Each goal can also be achieved self-publishing-wise based on one’s entrepreneurial model.

    You can also mix-and-match, meaning you can shoot to be a part-timer but end up scoring on the publishing roulette wheel and still net a full-time income on the side.

    In the end, goal-setting is priority one. It’s the first step. You’ve got to know which way your feet are pointed before you can walk out the door.

    I’ll emphasize it again: you must do this if you are to save yourself weeks, months or even years of frustration and spinning your wheels. Self-publishing is no easy feat despite how it may look. What goes on behind the scenes is definitely a journey and a lot of work, but it can pay off for you, dear reader, as well. After all, isn’t that what self-publishing’s all about? Bringing stories to readers?

    I think so.


    Self-publishing Writing 📎and tagged

  • A Self-publisher’s Book Stock

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    In the corner of the studio is my shelf of books. These are for conventions, book signings, direct sales, and any other venue I can sell paperbacks at. Selling direct to the reader is a market that most modern self-publishers don’t take advantage of and is one I highly recommend as I’ve been doing direct-market sales for eleven years, and convention sales for eight. Save for the occasional bad book signing, it’s always been a good method for me to move copies. Typically, I’ll order in a bunch of books in moderate quantities, anywhere from 25-100. Only once have I gone way over and got in 300 copies of a title. By doing it this way, I know I have stock for all my shows for a year, possibly two, depending on quantity ordered. By all means, there’s a small financial outlay at the start, but as discussed in my book, Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book, this cost is quickly recovered and everything above that is profit. Likewise, the more you get in, the cheaper your per-unit cost is thus making it fewer copies to recoup your investment and also increasing your per-unit profit.

    Here are pics of the big bookshelf in the corner. Some book and comic stock also pepper the studio in other places, but this is the main go-to shelf, which is stocked two books deep and as high as is possible. Click the pics below for a closer look. Recognize the titles?

    DSCF3027

    DSCF3028

    DSCF3029

    DSCF3030


    Books and Bookshelf Pics Self-publishing 📎and tagged

  • Why You Should Self-publish Part Two

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Why You Should Self-publish Part Two

    why you should self-publish

    (from Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book)

    By taking on the role of a publisher, the one who fronts the cost to turn a manuscript into a published book, the self-publisher takes all the risk—but also reaps all the reward as a result. Think of it as an investment. Folks go to the bank all the time and dump in fifty dollars, a hundred dollars, a thousand or more into RRSPs or GICs, money they’ll never touch for years, but while it’s sitting there, it’ll earn them much more than they originally invested given enough time. Self-publishing is the same way. Even if your up-front costs are a thousand dollars, you start selling your books and, depending on format, make $3-10 profit, once you’ve sold 100-333 copies, you’ve made your money back. Everything above that is your return on your investment. And instead of making a dollar or even two dollars a book sold as per the traditional royalty system with the rest going to your publisher—and to be fair, they deserve to make money for bringing the book to market for you and taking care of you during your contract with them—you get to keep all the profits for yourself.

    There’s huge potential to make a lot of money self-publishing. Like I said, if you set up your system to ensure you make $3-10 profit per book (i.e. $3 minimum on an eBook sale and $10 or so on the high end for a paperback sale), you could come away with a very secure future assuming the market is kind to you. To sell 50 eBooks would pay my water bill for three months. I could do the same if I sold 15 paperbacks at a convention as I average around $10 profit per sale through those direct-to-reader venues.

    Before, a writer would have to sell thousands of copies of their book just to stay afloat because they made anywhere from 80 cents to a couple bucks a book depending on format. Sometimes less. And while it’s great that they sold those thousands of copies so they could pay their bills, imagine how much more they could’ve made had they been able to do the same volume of sales on their own? If they sold 2000 books total and made the aforementioned 80 cents to two dollars, that would be around $1600-4000 in their pocket. If they self-published and averaged $3-10 per sale, that’s a range of $6000-20,000 to their credit. A huge, huge difference, and for some, enough of a difference between having a bed to sleep in and food on the table.

    The beauty of self-publishing is the ability to produce a book for a niche market, something that you don’t typically find in the mainstream, if at all. For example, I write superhero fiction. Back when I started doing it in 2006, my series, The Axiom-man Saga, was one of a handful of other independent superhero fiction books. There was no way I could take my manuscript and sell it to a publishing house because no one would take the risk on a completely unknown superhero with no proven track record. Well, guess what? By self-publishing the series, I’ve been able to find an audience for it and every time a new installment in The Axiom-man Saga comes out for a convention or on-line, people buy copies. And when I’m behind on getting a new book out because I’m committed to other projects, people start asking me when the next book in The Axiom-man Saga is coming out.

    Self-publishing is also great for those who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Some writers need to be involved with their book every step of the way, and while this goes back to self-publishing enabling the writer complete control of the project, it also lends itself to writers who are also entrepreneurs, who are business people by nature.

    There are two types of people in the world: those who take risks and those who don’t. Entrepreneurs are risk-takers. They see the potential for a business and are willing to spend the money—sometimes money they don’t have—to make it happen even though there’s the possibility it might not work out. And that’s their mindset when it comes to self-publishing: it’s a business. And what do businesses do? They manufacture a product and market it to people. Even service-providing businesses do the same because a service is a product. The entrepreneurial self-publisher is someone who isn’t just a creative individual, but also one with a business-oriented mindset, someone who has a vision for their book beyond simply writing it and are willing to take the risk(s) involved to make that vision a reality. While I personally don’t view books as “products” but works of art, from the outside looking in that’s what a publisher does: sells a product.

    The other advantage to self-publishing is to take a book and prove to a traditional publisher there is a market for it. There are many stories of writers self-publishing rejected manuscripts—which weren’t necessarily rejected for quality reasons—and turning them into bestsellers. There are also those who have self-published, had major success, and then were picked up by a traditional publisher who took on the publishing duties of the same book. Often, these publishers paid a lot of money to have these books in their catalog because the writer showed them there’s an audience for their book(s) out there. You need to sell several thousand copies to catch a traditional publisher’s interest, something to the tune of 5000 copies-plus, but self-publishing is an excellent way to give a chance at life to a book that otherwise would’ve been sitting in a rejection pile somewhere.

    By self-publishing, you are also the sole rights holder to the book. And while true even if you sold the book to a traditional publisher you’d still be the sole author and copyright holder, the traditional publisher would be the one who holds the print and electronic rights to it, meaning they could be the only ones to publish the book in the language they represent. Depending, some traditional publishers take additional rights when taking on a book: audio, film, even foreign translation rights if they are connected in that way. The first two are the most common. By going it alone, you decide who gets what, so if some guy from Hollywood wants to make a movie out of your book, you don’t need to share the monies offered with anyone if you negotiate the deal yourself. You’d also get to decide how much influence you’ll have on the movie, though, of course, if you want too much influence—and how much influence is “too much” is up to Joe Hollywood—then the deal might not happen at all. Regardless, to be the one in charge of deciding what other ways people can experience your story is up to you if you self-publish.

    If you’re a salesman or are good with people, then the marketing of self-publishing should excite you. For some, sales are a thrill-of-the-chase thing and for every sale they land, they get a high off it. And to know that for every hour of effort you put into selling your book will reap you and you alone the financial reward of doing so should make you even more excited. Books usually don’t sell themselves, but if marketing and creating campaigns is an area of interest for you, self-publishing is an excellent field to do it in.

    As you can see, there are numerous advantages to self-publishing your book, the main ones being control and the potential to make more money. You also get to bypass anyone who might reject publishing your book and just take it directly to the reader themselves and let them decide.

    But most importantly, self-publishing is a ton of fun and I love every minute of it. Unless a traditional publisher comes along and can do something for me I can’t do on my own, then I plan on self-publishing for the remainder of my writing career.

    Having too much of a blast doing so.

    Maybe you will, too.


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  • Why You Should Self-publish Part One

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Why You Should Self-publish Part One

    why you should self-publish

    (From Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book)

    There are those on the planet who enjoy making things. I mean, really making things, going from mere idea to its actual physical reality. There’s a sense of pride in seeing something through start to finish, crafting something with your own hands, making something that wasn’t there before.

    Our world wouldn’t be where it is if not for those who saw it fit to make their ideas a reality, for others to see, feel and experience those ideas and, hopefully, make the world a better place as a result. Sometimes we’ve succeeded at that, others times not. Regardless, bringing something into existence that wasn’t there before is incredible.

    That’s what self-publishing is: an incredible way for writers to bring their ideas into physical reality for a reader. And while before it was a joint effort between a publisher and writer to do that, taking the path of self-publishing enables the writer to be the sole creator of a book.

    The reasons people take the self-publishing route vary from individual to individual, but there has to be a few positive reasons behind doing it for it to be a viable option and worth the writer’s time, effort, and money.

    Self-publishing puts the success or failure of a book on the writer’s shoulders. By them being the publisher, it rests on them if the book succeeds or not, and by walking the book from conception to finished manuscript to formatted and printed paperback/hardcover and eBook, they can oversee each step in the process to stack the odds in their favor for a successful outcome.

    Why should anyone self-publish? I mean, it is an awful lot of work. Some, like me, would argue that the writing of the book is the easy part, but turning that manuscript into a published book is where the challenge is.

    It’s not for everybody and is certainly not for those seeking a get-rich-quick scheme, but it is for those who are entrepreneurial by nature, are very hands-on, enjoy a great deal of control, and even are lone wolves at heart. Writing itself is a lonely job, sitting there for hours on end typing on a computer or writing a book on a legal pad. Throw taking that manuscript and turning it into a published book into the mix and you’ve just added even more hours spent by yourself.

    For me, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love my alone time and prefer to spend the majority of my time that way if it can be helped. Ever since I was a kid I enjoyed time by myself, with time spent with others more of a chore than a joy. Nothing against anybody; just how I’m wired. But if this is you, too, then you’ve already got the makings of a writer and a self-publisher.

    To see a book through from start to finish, there’s an immense amount of control. Unlike the traditional publishing model where things like the cover or even the book’s title are under the domain of the marketing department, everything is up to the writer if they self-publish. The beauty of this is you can not only call the book what you want instead of giving your baby another name, but also decide on its presentation.

    When writing the book you no doubt had the story’s different scenes playing through your head. I’m sure there was at least one moment or two where you thought, Man, if only this scene was on the cover. Well, self-publishing gives you that chance. You can be very specific with the artwork and hire someone to bring to life that image you saw in your mind’s eye. Likewise, the book’s interior can be presented the way you want. Do you want spot illustrations in it? Hey, hire and artist and put them in. A traditional publisher might not go for that if you asked because it’s an added expense for them and an additional hassle in terms of coordinating with the artist for those images. Same with even font style, or simply labeling your chapters as “Chapter One” or “Chapter 1” or “1.” However you want it is how it’ll be which, to me, brings an added level of artistry to the book. Not only did you write the story, but you also designed the canvas for it to be presented on. Self-publishing is the only way to have this kind of control.

    Same with picking the price point. Traditional publishers have a bottom line they’re trying to feed and, depending, that bottom line might not even be dictated by the company owner but by others with their fingers in the pie. After all—and as I’m sure you’ve experienced if you’ve ever worked for a big company—the almighty shareholder comes first and who cares about practicality, right? By being in control of the pricing, you get to decide how much you make as the author/publisher and have the ability to experiment with different price points to see which one yields you the most earnings.

    Speaking of money . . .

    Please go here for Part Two on why you should self-publish.


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  • Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    In an age of self-publishing hype and scattered sources of reliable information, it’s difficult for the would-be self-publisher to learn how to properly launch their career and avoid the inevitable pitfalls the world of independent publishing is known for.

    Not anymore.

    Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book is by self-publishing veteran A.P. Fuchs, who has been self-publishing fiction for nearly a decade. From getting suckered in by a vanity press to learning the hard truth behind successful self-publishing, A.P. Fuchs has been through the school of hard knocks and beyond, coming out on the other side with a publishing platform that has enabled him to support his family while independently publishing fiction.

    In Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book you will learn: the most critical lesson about self-publishing you will ever discover; a no-nonsense, non-hyped approach to desktop publishing; proper paperback and eBook formatting; book marketing strategies for on-line and off-line sales; all explained in an easy-to-understand, step-by-step format, helping you to take your finished manuscript to market with ease; paperback and eBook publishing checklists and notes section.

    No hype. No bologna. Just pure, honest self-publishing.

    If you’re tired of the confusion, tired of the hype and just want a simple and concise way to properly self-publish your book and be successful at it, then Getting Down and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book is required reading for any serious self-publisher, whether just starting out or having self-published already.

    Available as a paperback at:

    Amazon.com
    Amazon.ca
    Amazon.co.uk
    Barnes and Noble
    Other On-line Retailers

    Available as an eBook at:

    Amazon Kindle
    Drivethru Fiction
    Smashwords

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  • Canadian Scribbler: Collected Letters of an Underground Writer

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Canadian Scribbler: Collected Letters of an Underground Writer

    Canadian Scribbler: Collected Letters of an Underground Writer by A.P. Fuchs

    Bringing together letters from 2005 – 2013, Canadian Scribbler: Collected Letters of an Underground Writer is a look into the world of independent publisher, author, editor and cartoonist, A.P. Fuchs.

    Topics include: self-publishing tips and tricks, writing advice, the C4 Lit Fest short story critiques, Fuchs’s superhero epic The Axiom-man Saga, book reviews and commentary, the Second Coming, thoughts on the comic book market, the gray areas of modern day society, and much more.

    Includes letters to such literary notables as Stephen King, Dave Sim, George Clayton Johnson, Piers Anthony, Brian Michael Bendis, Kevin J. Anderson and many others.

    Always insightful, often witty and consistently inspirational, Canadian Scribbler: Collected Letters of an Underground Writer is a thoughtful collection of letters from one man whose passion for the creative industry—and trying to survive in it—shines through on every page.

    Available as a paperback at:

    Amazon.com
    Amazon.ca
    Amazon.co.uk
    Barnes and Noble
    Other On-line Retailers

    Available as an eBook at:

    Amazon Kindle
    Drivethru Fiction
    Smashwords

    For more non-fiction, consider Look, Up on the Screen! The Big Book of Superhero Movie Reviews.


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