Why do I work with self-published authors anyway?

I can’t remember if I was asked this question by an author or if someone who knows me thought it would be a good idea to let people into a bit of my journey to how I came to work with self-published authors.

I reckon the bottom line is this. Having worked with entrepreneurs online I’m probably unemployable in a full-time in-house position in publishing now.

But that’s no problem. The beauty of that is all the training I’ve had and experience that I learned on the job across most areas of trade publishing mean that I’m very qualified to help you:

• an author who wants to write a book but doesn’t have two years to wait for it to be published
• an author who doesn’t wants to line the pockets of publishers rather than their own
• an author wants complete control of the process so they can design a book that will be a useful commodity for their business

publish a book that, when it does end up on a shelf in a bookstore or even when the thumbnail goes live online, that it looks like it’s been traditionally published. I can do this for you because I have been involved in creating books that looked like they had been published by other publishers for years. It’s literally what I’ve been trained to do.

These are some of the reasons that I work with authors to help them self-publish rather than for publishing houses.

My day rate is too high

?One of the things that entrepreneur life teaches you is to value (and place a monetary value on) your skills and not trade time for money. Publishing is ALL ABOUT trading time for money. Copyediting, proofreading, design – they are all skill-based action that mean time. It takes time to copyedit. It takes time to proofread. And publishing pays somewhere between ￡15 and ￡35 an hour for freelancers (and from what I hear is squeezing the top end if you are freelancing to create trade books). When your week is 30 hours of editing at ￡30 an hour, your earning ceiling is ￡900. And you don’t often get paid by the hour, you’ve negotiated a day rate or a job fee and if you’ve underestimated the time, well you still have to deliver the work. But ￡900 per week, if you are working back-to-back on titles, which is unusual, that’s a nice income, I hear you say. But it’s sort of in salary equivalent territory without the cushion of holiday pay, pension contributions – all the work perks. And it’s nowhere near the 6-figures that everyone shouts that an entrepreneur should be making.

Going back into working full-time means a commute (publishing wants people in-house three days a week now, even though they now hot desk everyone and there might not be space for you) and a salary somewhere between ￡35-45 and a return to ALL the hours expectations.

I’m not willing to work ALL the HOURS.

You know that phrase you see on Instagram from time to time that is along the lines of “Entrepreneurs don’t (won’t?) work all hours of the day for other people but they will have no boundaries and work all hours for themselves?” (It’s something like that…anyway you get the gist of it.)

Coming out of working for packagers in trade publishing, well I was already working all the hours. In the office by 9:30am but not leaving until 8ish. Working weekends. Always reading something. Months before book fairs – don’t make plans. Months when books were due to press? Cover the US and Singapore time zones as well as work your normal hours. We can only be one or two weeks late – make up the slack, twist the printer’s arm for the slot, get the paper, the shipping docs so we know the books are on the boat.

I don’t work all the hours now – but I do work “anti-social” ones, I guess, regularly each week. The only thing is that if I work at night or before 8am, I can then go and workout in the daytime or only work until the kids are out of school. So there’s a trade-off, beyond exhaustion, burnout and making money for other people.

Publishing can be a little snobby

The other week, a client had an unexpected email from someone who wanted to explore buying some translation rights to her book. One of my mates (a good mate, my 5-year-old daughter has written her son’s height on our wall in her bedroom when they were last here for a BBQ) is very high up in rights for a publishing house and I emailed her for a recommendation on an independent rights professional, the conversation headed in a different direction than I expected. In the direction of, well she needs to publish her book properly first.

The thing is, self-publishing is proper publishing. Maybe not ALL self-publishing is as good as trade publishing but the books of the people I work with look traditionally published because they have invested in them – not only the design and cover but also the words and stories. My client’s book has brought her clients, has won an award and now is of interest to someone else who wants to translate it into another language. It’s been properly published. Not by the gatekeepers, but it’s definitely been properly published.

You can write a better book for your business if you don’t traditionally publish

I really believe that you can write a more useful book that will attract more clients to you, that will help you clarify your methodology, that will help you discover your motivations, your stories and the core of your business if you don’t involve a traditional publisher. There are lots of reasons that authors are drawn to a deal. You get the validation that your book is a good idea and you don’t have to find the money to invest in producing your book upfront. And the aforementioned snobbery, that the only “proper” way to publish a book is to be traditionally published. But a traditional deal means that you have a publishing house investing in your book. And they aren’t a silent investor, they are very much in the business of making a book that makes money for them. Your goals – ultimately a business owner writes a book because they want to work with more people usually – are of secondary importance. If your goals are to grow your business with your book, a traditional deal will hopefully do that (when it gets published two years after you sign your contract!) but you can write a great book that is self-published that does all of these things.

I like being part of the whole process

When I worked in publishing, I worked for book packagers. As the Wikipedia entry says, this kind of publishing combines the roles of agent, editor and publisher. Which is essentially what I do with my clients. It’s no wonder that I’ve dropped the drama and stress of working for small packagers, trying to do things on a shoestring, struggling with the ethics of all the work we asked the authors to do without credit or further payment to work directly with the author. It's so much more fun and so much more fulfilling to see just how much writing and publishing their own book means to them and their business. When I freelance or if I went back inhouse, I’d be just editing or just proofreading. I really like the whole process.

I’m really good at what I do

I try to set myself apart as someone who has been trained to create books well. I know good design. I will tell you how to make your manuscript better. I will tell you what I really think of your book cover. I am on your team to make sure that your book would not look out of place on the shelf in Waterstones. I can do this, not because I’m an author but because I am, essentially, a publisher. My clients have 5-star Amazon reviews, have won awards, have people writing to them regularly telling them that they must be in their heads because they have hit the nail on the head of what they think and feel. They are making money from their books. They are proud of their books. Their business has changed or stepped up a notch from publishing their books. Their books are working for them. Why would I give all of this up, to go back to working on impossible schedules for less than my time is worth to line the pockets of traditional publishers?

So there you have it. Some of the reasons that I work (mostly) with authors who want to self-publish, rather than for a traditional publishing house.

If you want to self-publish your book and you want to work with someone who is well-qualified to help you do it “properly” (regardless of what trade publishing people say), send me a message and we can have a chat.

Or take my quiz to score your ability to write and publish a book that will build your business https://writenowwitherinchamberlain.scoreapp.com/