What are the pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing? If you’re a new nonfiction author both paths can prove to be very rewarding, depending on your personal circumstances.

In this article, I’ll make a case for both options and describe the ideal author for each. I’ll also delve into the pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing so that you can identify which option is best suited to your needs.

The World of Book Publishing

We all know that traditional publishing has been around for a long time. But, what you probably don’t know is that self-publishing has been around for a long time as well.

For example, Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) self-published the first edition of his manuscript, Alice in Wonderland, in 1865. Yes, he actually paid for the first print run of 2,000 copies out of his own pocket!

The book was produced at the print shop of Oxford University Press during his tenure as a mathematics lecturer at a nearby college. In fact, a copy of his first print run can be seen on display at the printer’s museum.

Book Publishing Then and Now

A lot has changed in the world of publishing since then, as both traditional as well as self-publishing continued to slowly evolve. Yet, the greatest transformation in the industry has been taking place just over the past two decades.

The main change agents have been, in approximate chronological order:

• The commoditization, miniaturization and cost reduction in personal computing
• The introduction of low-cost and no-cost word processing software
• The rapid expansion of the world-wide-web
• The creation and subsequent hyper-growth of Amazon.com
• The development of high-speed high-quality digital on-demand printing equipment
• The introduction of Web 2.0-based free online publishing services
• The development of low-cost worldwide digital book distribution channels, both online and offline
• The migration of offline book search and discovery to online search engines

All of the above forces have caused a leveling effect on the publishing playing field.

Nowadays, a quality self-published nonfiction book with the correct implementation of search engine strategies can appear side-by-side a traditionally published book in an online bookstore search.

But there’s a question that’s as valid now as it was then: is it better to be traditionally published or to self-publish? Let’s answer this question below.

Self-Publishing

The world of self-publishing has evolved dramatically since the publication of Alice in Wonderland.

For a great many of those years, the main driver behind the reluctance by authors to embrace self-publishing was the fact that you had to foot the entire publishing bill from conception to finished books shipped to your doorstep.

Even if you managed to do all the production work yourself, you still had to pay for large expensive offset print runs (which were the only option before the advent of low-cost digital printing) and then you needed to foot the recurring bill for inventorying your books in warehouses for months or years.

And most of these costs were incurred before you made a single sale!

Today, self-publishing and worldwide book distribution channels are very inexpensive both for digital as well as printed books, and they’re easily accessible to all with extremely low barriers to entry.

Anatomy of a Self-Published Author

Self-publishing requires a certain mind set and it’s certainly not for everybody (although everybody could technically do it).

First of all, you have to be a risk taker, because unlike traditional publishing, you’re taking on all the financial risk without knowing if you’ll ever get a return on your investment.

Therefore, self-publishing is best suited for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit.

You have to be prepared for the fact that sometimes it’ll feel like all the planets are aligned, and sometimes it’ll feel like the Wild West – and very often this will happen back to back!

For instance, you may have a deadline to submit your completed manuscript to your busy in-demand book designer on Monday only to find out last minute that your editor became violently ill over the weekend, when she was supposed to complete the final proofread.

Not unlike running any other type of business the stakes can be high, but so can the rewards. Now that we got that’s out of the way, let’s summarize the pros and cons of self-publishing:

Self-Publishing Pros

• 100% control over all book rights (e.g. right to publish in any and all formats, translations, derivative works, film and TV rights, licensing rights, international rights, distribution rights, etc.)
• 100% creative control (e.g. book cover, book inside, choice of title and sub-title)
• 100% control over all publishing decisions (e.g. publication date, publication timeline, etc.)
• 100% control over book pricing (e.g. list prices in all currencies for all territories)
• 100% control over all book marketing and promotion decisions (e.g. when and where to launch, choice of marketing and promotion channels, media appearances, etc.)

Self-Publishing Cons

• High financial commitment up-front (e.g. a professionally produced 50,000-word nonfiction paperback could cost anywhere between $5,700-$11,500 depending of the level of experience of the publishing sub-contractors)
• No guarantee of a return on investment (the above costs are before any book sales can be generated)
• You’re responsible for all aspects of the publishing process (e.g. book writing, production, marketing and promotion, distribution, sales, accounts payable and receivable, etc.)
• Need to search for, screen, interview and hire multiple publishing sub-contractors (e.g. editors, book layout specialists, cover designers, book marketing professionals)
• Higher overall stress than traditional publishing

Self-Publishing Summary

Self-publishing can be a highly rewarding experience for nonfiction authors if done right (i.e. hiring professionals where needed instead of following the DIY approach).

The upside can be tremendous because there are very few middlemen taking a cut from your profits (mainly distribution fees and wholesale discounts for bookstores).

Yet, it’s not for everybody. If you need peace of mind in the knowledge that someone else is taking care of all the details, the traditional route may be a better fit for you.

Having said that, there are a number of reputable author services companies that will manage the entire project on your behalf and do all of the professional work in exchange for a fee (full disclosure, I own one such firm).

This is a happy medium if you have a budget to work with and still wish to retain 100% control over all publishing aspects. But if money is an object, you may need to consider the traditional route instead.

Traditional Publishing

The world of traditional publishing affords authors a much more stable platform for developing and launching books. Plus, most traditional publishers have deep roots with booksellers, often meeting with them on a regular basis to pitch their titles.

Traditional publishers also have longstanding relationships with journalists and the media at large as well as with event managers, which allows their authors to receive preferential treatment in those circles compared to self-publishing authors.

Finally, traditional publishers take on most of the financial risk for your book project (save for some cost-sharing in the marketing and promotion area) plus they employ or have contractual relationships with all the required book production experts.

The flip side of being granted the above advantages is a very high barrier to entry. In order to protect their investment, traditional publishers tread very carefully when it comes to selecting the authors they want to work with.

Having said that, there are shortcuts available. For example, if you’ve already developed a large group of followers over the years in your business or practice, say, through blogging, the barriers to entry can be lowered significantly.

How? For example by proving to the publisher that you’ve built up a large highly engaged email list that you’ve been nurturing for years. We’re talking no less than 10-15 thousand subscribers.

If 40% of those people are eager to buy your book (because they know you, like you and trust you), that’s between 4,000 and 6,000 sales generated just from your email list.

If you then add word of mouth into the equation plus other more traditional promotion methods, now you have a serious business case to mitigate risk for the publisher.

If your total demand ends up doubling your initial sales to say 12,000 copies at an average of $14.99 for the paperback and hardcover editions, now you’re talking about publisher gross revenues in the $180,000 range.

In summary, traditional book publishing is all about financial risk mitigation. The more evidence you can produce that clearly demonstrates your ability to mitigate this risk, the higher your chances of being signed by the publisher.

Anatomy of a Traditionally Published Author

As an author pursuing the traditional publishing route, you’re not looking for large profits, at least not initially.

Only famous authors command large advances on royalties; everyone else gets an amount in line with their historical sales – if your previous sales have been modest, so will be your advances.

This will remain the case until your book sales increase. Publishers are business people and as such they are strictly driven by data. The more promising the sales data the larger the eventual payouts.

Also, you may not have the patience or the inclination to deal with the minutiae of book production (you rather leave all of that to your publisher), but you have to be very comfortable with all aspects of book promotion.

So, you have to be comfortable in front of the cameras, microphones and live audiences. You have to be comfortable in a studio, on a stage and as part of a panel discussion.

You have to enjoy public speaking and know how to act in an interview – always actively listening to the reporter and speaking in sound bites that are easy for audiences to digest.

Traditional Publishing Pros

• All up-front costs are covered by the publisher (e.g. editing, book and cover design, project management, print runs, etc.)
• The publisher pays the author an advance on royalties on signing
• It’s much easier to get your book reviewed by reputable organizations (the vast majority of high-profile reviewing agencies are known to only review traditionally-published books)
• It’s easier to get media attention (e.g. publishers spend years developing relationships with media producers and journalists)
• Traditional publishers handle all the legal and technical complexities surrounding intellectual property rights and licensing (e.g. foreign rights, translation rights, distribution rights, media rights, etc.)

Traditional Publishing Cons

• Very high barriers to entry for new authors (unless they bring a built-in audience to the table)
• Much lower royalties (in exchange for taking on all the risk)
• You have to grant publishers all rights to your work for an extended period of time, usually many years after publication (again, in exchange for taking on all the financial risks)
• All final creative decisions regarding your book are made by the publisher (e.g. book title, cover design, book design, book content)
• Lengthy publishing process (your book is placed in a queue of multiple book projects, all being time-shared by the same staff)

Traditional Publishing Summary

Traditional publishing is not meant for those who like being in control. It requires handing over most functions outside of writing and book promotion to other people.

It is meant, however, for those who do not want to involve themselves in the minutiae of book production, negotiations of rights and distribution contracts, and all the idiosyncrasies of having to operate a business.

However, it has high barriers to entry for new authors, although this can be mitigated by bringing to the table a built-in audience developed through other activities (such as blogging, social media outreach and even prior self-published books that were successful in the marketplace).

In Conclusion

In my opinion, traditional publishing and self-publishing are no longer competing avenues, but complementary ones. Each one is meant for a specific type of author personality, and although both have pros and cons, they’re equally viable routes for nonfiction authors.

The age of the stigma of being self-published and the elitism of traditional publishers is over in my view. Each path demands different pre-requisites and both are equally rooted on a solid foundation.

In fact, they’re now as intertwined as they’ve ever been, with many successful self-published authors transitioning to the traditional publishing world once the economies of scale demand that this transition take place.

I hope this article gives you a clear picture of where to go next with your book project.

Best of luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

As a nonfiction author, you need to be aware of all self-publishing pros and cons before you choose your path to publication. You want to make sure that whichever path you choose best aligns with your interests and abilities.

Self-publishing offers many rewards, but they come at the expense of a higher commitment of personal resources. This article will detail what it is that you’ll gain as well as what it is that you’ll have to give up in order to pursue this publishing route.

Why Self Publish Nonfiction?

In the not too distant past, self-publishing was considered to be a synonym for “amateurish” by the book trade. The reason for this perception was the proliferation of millions of sub-standard books published over the years through free self-publishing sites.

The vast majority of these books were published with no professional help: no editors, no book designers, no cover designers and certainly no marketing help in coming up with compelling titles.

For these reasons, self-published books had a hard time penetrating brick-and-mortar bookstores, limiting their potential discovery by readers.

Everything changed when Amazon disrupted the publishing world with their technology-centric approach to book buying.

In a relatively short amount of time, they managed to develop a new user behavior that revolutionized the industry: online book searches.

As Amazon managed to become the largest dedicated book search engine in the world, readers were for the first time given the opportunity to search a bookstore not based on book titles or the names of their authors, but based on searches that reflected their actual needs.

This key change of behavior forever redefined how books are discovered.

Savvy nonfiction self-published authors who understand how Amazon ranks books in searches, and who’ve taken the time to hire professionals to edit and design their books, are for the first time able to have their titles appear side-by-side with traditionally-published ones with much bigger budgets.

So, now that you understand how Amazon levelled the field for nonfiction self-published authors, let’s discuss below the pros and cons of self-publishing.

(Note: to become a “savvy” author, follow the tips in this article: “14 Self-Publishing Tips to Turbo Charge your Nonfiction Book Sales”).

Self-Publishing Pros:

• You control 100% of your book’s rights. This means that you get to sell your book in any market you choose to without any restrictions. You also get to sell your translation rights to foreign markets and to publish your book in as many formats as you want (e.g. paperback, hardcover, audio book, etc.)
• You have 100% control of all design decisions. Nobody will ever tell you what you can and cannot include in your book. You have total freedom to choose how your book will be designed, including picking the color of your cover, the number of pages in your book, its trim size, etc.
• You have 100% control over the title of your book. Nobody will change your title to something else you don’t agree with (which is not uncommon in the traditional publishing world since the publisher is betting their own money on each title they publish).
• You have 100% control over the publication date of your book. You get to choose when your book will be published, which isn’t always the case in traditional publishing circles where this date is set according to the priorities of the publisher.
• You have 100% control over your book pricing. Nobody will impose a list price you don’t agree with; you have total freedom of choice over this important financial decision.
• You own your book’s ISBN. Your ISBN will be associated with your own publishing imprint, over which you exercise total control. In the traditional publishing world your publisher, not you, owns your book’s ISBN.
• Your profits are the highest possible of all publishing variants (self-publishing, traditional publishing and hybrid publishing). Since there’s no middleman in the self-publishing book distribution process, you always get the maximum possible amount of royalties – namely, the list price of your book minus the distribution fee minus the discount to bookstores minus the print cost.
• The timeline to publication is the shortest of all publishing variants. In the traditional publishing world your book will be placed in a queue of upcoming titles and you won’t have much say in when your book will come out (unless, of course, you are a highly influential bestselling author).

Self-Publishing Cons

• Self-publishing requires a significant financial commitment. In order to produce a book that’ll successfully compete with traditionally published titles, you’ll have to hire editors and book designers. These are all upfront costs that are absorbed by traditional publishers. To get an idea of your potential self-publishing costs, read my companion article: “How Much Does it Cost to Self-Publish a Nonfiction Book?”.
• You must do 100% of your book marketing and promotion. In the self-publishing world, you’re in charge of all marketing activities. Now, to increase your chances of success you can hire a book marketing professional to help you in this critical task, but that requires an additional financial commitment on your part.
• You must set up 100% of your book distribution. You need to take charge of setting up all the required distribution channels, including setup of accounts, file uploads, creation of metadata, creation of marketing blurbs, etc.
• You’re not mentored by a literary agent. Since you’re charting your own path, you don’t get the hindsight and mentorship from an experienced literary agent that can guide you through the sometimes-murky waters of the publishing world.
• You must interview, screen, select and hire a multiplicity of professional contractors. As a self-published author you must take charge of sourcing and hiring a competent publishing team comprised of editors, book designers and book marketing experts.
• You must be a skilled entrepreneur, knowing how to set up and run a business. Self-publishing is at its core a business that requires a number of skills, such as multi-tasking, strategic planning, and healthy doses of discipline and focus so that you don’t end up spinning your wheels on unnecessary tasks that waste precious resources.

In Conclusion

Self-publishing nonfiction has a great upside for authors, but you have to be ready and capable to take on the challenge. Now, chances are that if you’re publishing a nonfiction title to support your professional activities you’re already in business for yourself.

The self-publishing path is certainly best suited for authors who are already entrepreneurs and who are used to troubleshooting and problem-solving business issues.

If this is who you are, you’ll be able to take on this project with minimal friction. But if running a business is not your thing, you’ll probably find this publishing path frustrating and expensive.

Choose the path that aligns closest with who you are. To learn more about the different publishing avenues that are available to nonfiction authors, read my companion article “How to Find The Best Publishing Company For Your Nonfiction Book.”

All the best on your publishing journey!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

The following 14 self-publishing tips contain the best industry practices to help nonfiction authors like you maximize the chances for success in the book business.

Long gone are the days when self-published books were stigmatized with the “amateur” label. Today, your success is no longer handicapped by the path you’ve chosen to publish your book

Self-Publishing Has Gone Mainstream

Self-publishing has now come of age as technology has made global distribution channels for online as well as brick-and-mortar bookstores easily accessible to all.

This new distribution landscape has leveled the playing field with traditionally published books to the point that, if you play your cards right using the tips below, your nonfiction book will come up side-by-side with popular titles on Amazon searches.

14 Self-Publishing Tips

Below you’ll find 14 self-publishing tips that’ll generate thousands more book sales while saving you thousands of dollars in printing costs.

Tip 1: Hire a Nonfiction Book Editor

The first tip is by far the most important on your self-publishing journey.

For the most part, today’s readers don’t know or care if the imprint of your book is owned by a large publishing house or is something you made up two months ago.

All they care about is that nonfiction books meet the same high bar for quality, regardless of origin.

This is where hiring a professional editor comes into the picture. Your book has to be as well written as the traditionally published books you’ll be competing with, simply because they all use professional editors.

To play in the same field you have to use the same players, so you’ll have to budget to make strategic investments where needed. After all, your book will be an outward representation of your expertise and your reputation.

This isn’t something that you can afford to leave in the hands of amateurs, as well intended as they may be, or to do using the DIY approach. Your nonfiction book will be your legacy and much more.

For starters, your book will become a powerful calling card to get new leads and land new business. It’ll also pave the way for a profitable public speaking career. More importantly, it’ll establish you as an expert in the eyes of the world.

A top-notch nonfiction book that’s globally distributed will also open new international markets for your business or your professional services in ways you never before imagined possible.

As you can see, your return on investment from a professional nonfiction editor is worth several times the expense.

Tip 2: Hire a Book Layout Professional

Tip 2 is an extension of Tip 1. In the same way that your book has to compete when it comes to writing quality, it must also compete when it comes to book design.

The best writing in the world will be dismissed if its packaging is sub-standard. Nonfiction books have to meet a high bar for internal layout because these books need to combine many design elements in addition to the text.

For example, if you have graphs and charts that support your message, they have to be professionally produced; otherwise readers won’t trust your information.

If you pick up a nonfiction book and the charts in it look pixelated or poorly cropped, you’ll immediate think that if the author couldn’t get that right, there must be other things that are wrong with the book as well.

When it comes to book genres like nonfiction, which establish authors as experts, attention to detail becomes absolutely essential because experts are expected to have it. Inattention to detail engenders mistrust and turns readers off.

So, don’t attempt to lay out your book on your own, even if someone tells you that there are excellent free templates out there. Those templates will only be excellent in the hands of professionals, so you might as well hire one.

Also, don’t farm this job out to a friend or a relative, unless they happen to be professional book designers. If they aren’t, they won’t know which of the thousands of available fonts will be best suited for your audience, or how to spatially balance images with text for optimal visual impact.

Tip 3: Hire a Professional Book Cover Designer

Like it or not a book is judged by its cover, so your book cover must also meet the high bar demanded by the nonfiction market.

When your book comes up side-by-side with a professionally produced book on an online bookstore search, it’ll be immediately obvious if you didn’t hire a cover designer.

This is another requirement for leveling the playing field with the pros – you’ll have to hire a pro yourself. Now, there are some excellent book-cover making tools out there, but again they’re only excellent in the hands of professionals.

Book cover designers have a combination of many important skills: they’re visual artists with a keen eye for color and placement, but they’re also visual marketers – they understand the impact of images, fonts and colors on the psyche.

There are many examples of books in the publishing world whose fortunes were turned around simply by swapping an uninspiring cover for a well-produced one.

A professional book-cover designer will be able to capture the essence of your title, your message, your audience and your niche to produce a cover that is visually compelling for your target readers.

Once again, don’t attempt to do this yourself or farm it out to friends and relatives who aren’t experts, anything but a professionally designed cover will look amateurish in eyes of the book trade, even if it looks okay to you.

Tip 4: Create an Author Website

Next, it’s time to develop an online presence outside of social media.

Social platforms can certainly become very useful as promotional tools and you’ll take advantage of them in Tip 9, however their terms and conditions are outside of your control and they often update them in ways that don’t always benefit you.

Your own author website, on the other hand is and will always be 100% under your control. This website will become your author’s hub for information. In it you will host:

• A blog
• Your bio
• Your calendar of events
• A list of past and future media appearances
• Your past and future public speaking engagements
• Photos and videos relevant to your audience
• A contact form where people can reach you
• Information about your book (or books), where to find it and links to Amazon so they can purchase it

Nowadays, you can create websites very easily without having to hire an entire IT team.

My recommendation is to use wordpress.org (not wordpress.com!) as your website-creation platform since it’s open-sourced, cost-effective and very stable – in fact, over 40% of all websites currently in operation globally are built around WordPress.

Tip 5: Write a Blog

Frequent blogging is a good way to build an audience for any product or service, but it’s absolutely essential for nonfiction authors.

Before you can create a following, your target audience has to first know you, then like you and finally trust you, and the most effective way to achieve this powerful trifecta is through frequent blogging.

A well thought-out blog that consistently publishes articles that provide value to an audience creates devoted fans over time.

These are the type of fans that will buy your books as soon as they come out. Depending on the size of your email list, you may be able to sell hundreds if not thousands of copies via email alone.

They’ll also hire your professional or business services and become a volunteer army of goodwill ambassadors that’ll spread the word about you and your message.

Now, creating a blog will require a quite a bit of effort on your part because first you’ll need to research the type of things your target audience usually searches for in your niche and then you’ll have to write articles to address those searches.

But over time your content will begin to rank on Google and eventually reach the first page of search results (you’ll need to learn some SEO techniques to get you there) and that’ll make your blog even more visible to your audience.

As far as your actual blog content, you’ll find many ways to re-purpose your book’s content in a way that minimizes your writing time – you don’t always have to write entire articles from scratch.

And the best part is, once you become good at it you’ll begin to rank high on Google and your posts will deliver traffic to your website continually and at minimal cost (just your website hosting fee).

Many authors report still getting new business from posts that were published years ago. In other words, a blog is almost like a perpetual machine that keeps on working for your business.

Tip 6: Hire a Book Marketing Professional

Amazon is your most important ally in book promotion since the platform hosts not only the largest online bookstore in the world but also the largest dedicated book search engine as well.

Most of the 330 million Amazon customers use the platform to look for books that can solve their problems or answer their questions, and Amazon provides authors with the tools that are required to be discovered.

Specifically, there are three tools that will make the difference between your book ranking high in the Amazon algorithm and even making it into a bestseller list, or being relegated to the bottom of the search results.

These tools are:

• Search Keywords (Tip 11)
• Your book description (Tip 12)
• Amazon’s categories (Tip 13)

I’ll cover the details of these important tools in the above tips, but suffice it to say that they can be quite complex to set up correctly.

Your job as an author is to outcompete other books in your niche, and in order to do that you’ll need to hire a book-marketing professional to help you set up these important tools for success.

These specialists are well versed in the psychology of nonfiction readers and they know the right words and hooks to use for influence and persuasion.

Sometimes the choice of a single word in your marketing messaging can trigger a dramatic increase in conversions, but it takes an expert with many years of experience to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

With the right help, you’ll be able to take your book sales to the next level. Without help, you’ll be outgunned by savvy competitors.

Tip 7: Set up an Advance Book Review Group

Amazon’s algorithm makes use of user reviews as one the most important product ranking signals.

If you get a high number of positive book reviews in the first 30 days from the time your book becomes available on Amazon, you’ll be priming the algorithm to rank your book high from the very beginning.

If you fail to garner a high rate of reviews in those crucial first 30 days of machine learning, then it’ll be very difficult for your book to break through the noise since there are so many titles being published every day.

In order to achieve this important goal, you’ll have to set up a large advance book review group made out of members of your target audience that will be given copies of your book ahead of publication so that they can read it and write a review.

Now, these reviews have to be honest and cannot be faked, because Amazon uses artificial intelligence software that can detect fraud (e.g. using overly flattering language) and will automatically delete offending reviews.

There’s only one way set this up in compliance with their terms and conditions, and I’ve written the companion article “How to Get Reviews on Amazon For Your Nonfiction Book” to guide you through the different steps you’ll need to follow.

Tip 8: Get Your Own ISBN

Many self-publishing platforms will provide you with an ISBN, or unique book identification number, at no cost in order to stake their claim as a “free” service.

In my opinion, it’s a mistake to take them on their free offer. ISBNs bind books to publishers, and as a self-publisher you should always be in control of your destiny.

If you let Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) use their own ISBN for your book, then Amazon will be listed as the publisher, not you. While this may appear to have a “cool” factor on the surface, it doesn’t.

The reason is that by using Amazon’s free ISBN, you’ll no longer control the distribution rights for your book.

For example, if you want to add IngramSpark as a new book distribution channel for brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries, Amazon won’t allow it under their supplied ISBN – they don’t want their ISBN to be monetized by a competitor.

To undo this web, you’ll be forced at unpublish your book from KDP, purchase your own ISBN and then republish it again with the new ISBN. Now you’ll lose all the Amazon ranking history associated with your original edition.

Note that having the same book (same edition, same title, same publication date, etc.) with different ISBNs on different channels is a very bad idea. Now, booksellers looking for your book in databases will be confused when they see multiple versions of your book not knowing why or which one to order.

So, make sure that you control all variables in the publishing process of your book and buy our own ISBN at https://www.isbn.org. The cost for a single number is $125 and a block of 10 costs $295. This will be money well spent.

Tip 9: Post in Key Social Media Platforms (but not all)

A social media presence offers many promotional benefits, but it also requires a significant investment of your time and effort. The social sharing features offered by these platforms can be very tempting for authors.

Having said that, posting for the sake of self-promotion is not conducive to good results, and neither is posting “everywhere.” For social media platforms to become useful partners you’ll need to be much more strategic.

How do you become strategic in your social media outreach? By doing the following two things:

• Only post content that has a high perceived value in the eyes of your target audience (self-promotion doesn’t, because it’s about you and not about them)
• Only post on social media platforms that are frequented by your target audience (e.g. if they don’t frequent Instagram due to demographic reasons then don’t post on Instagram)

Also, keep in mind that the true value of social media for you is to turn it into a traffic source for your author website, where you can control conversions from prospects to leads to customers.

Therefore, make sure that you use social media platforms that allow you to link posts back to your website. If they don’t allow external linking, then don’t invest too much time with them (even if they’re frequented by your target audience).

Tip 10: Distribute with Both Kindle Direct Distribution (KDP) and IngramSpark

With Amazon being the book distribution giant that it is, it’s easy to be tempted to put all you eggs in that basket at the exclusion of all others. However, Amazon has a pretty big downside.

Brick-and-mortar bookstores don’t like to order from them because they offer a sub-standard wholesale discount that makes purchasing your book unprofitable.

Instead of the standard 40% discount extended to bookstores in the book trade, Amazon’s KDP only offers them a 25% discount.

What’s the solution? Distribute your books through both Amazon’s KDP and IngramSpark.

IngramSpark is a subsidiary of Ingram, the largest book distributor in the world. They’ve been around since the 70s, and over time have become entrenched in brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries the world over.

By using this approach you’ll have the best of both worlds: near-instant availability online through Amazon and near-instant availability offline through Ingram world distribution.

Why do I say near-instant? Because they both operate networks of high-speed digital print-on-demand facilities located around the world that allow your book to be printed in near-real time and shipped domestically to customers without the need to hold books in inventory.

This is a tremendous advantage that truly levels the worldwide book-distribution playing field for self-publishing authors.

Tip 11: Research Your KDP keywords Carefully

Amazon operates the largest dedicated book search engine in the world. In other words, they’re the “Google” for books, and like Google, they require that you provide them with keywords that closely match user search-phrases.

These keywords are then used by Amazon’s algorithm to present your nonfiction book in search results when users are looking for topics that relate to the subject matter of your book.

Now, a well-chosen keyword set will ensure that your book consistently appears on the first page of search results, and a poorly-chosen keyword set will ensure that it never does.

So, it’s of critical importance that you conduct thorough keyword research in order to identify the keywords that will best match the majority of user searches in your book’s niche.

The sales of your book or lack thereof will depend on this work, therefore, this is something that you shouldn’t attempt to do on your own unless you happen to make a living as a digital marketing expert.

My recommendation is to enlist the help of a book marketing professional to create the 7 keywords that KDP allow you to enter into the setup of your book.

This investment will be repaid many times in book sales over time as people find it easier to discover your title while searching on Amazon.

Tip 12: Write a Winning Book Description in KDP

Your book description is the first significant opportunity you have to sell your book on Amazon.

When readers so a search and your book comes up in the results, aside from your book title and cover, readers will make their purchase determination based on the marketing copy of your description.

A weakly-worded description will invite a hard pass on your book as readers quickly move on to the next one down the list of results, and you’ll only get a few seconds to command their attention.

Now, given that Amazon has over 330 million customers who regularly use their internal search engine for products, a strong description will make the difference between healthy and poor sales.

For this reason, it’s imperative that you hire the services of a book-marketing professional to help you craft this critical piece of advertising copywriting.

If you want to win at this game, then your Amazon book description must beat the text of your competitors and drive the attention of users to your title.

Don’t attempt to do this creative work on your own, unless you make a living as a marketing expert. Keep in mind that the book-marketing specialist that you hire will be helping you in a number of areas that are critical for book sales.

For example, they’ll also help you identify the best keywords for your book (Tip11) as well as the best categories for your book (see below).

Tip 13: Select KDP’s Categories Carefully

The final marketing element that you need to master in the KDP setup to get a significant leg up on competitors, is the selection of book categories.

Amazon lists over 3,000 nonfiction categories and sub-categories. This means that they keep tabs on over 3,000 nonfiction bestseller lists. Your job is to get on one or many of these.

How do you do that? By carefully planning how you select your categories during your book’s KDP setup. But wait a minute, you may think: I thought you make it into a bestseller list only when you sell lots and lots of books…

Well, not necessarily. Each category and subcategory has different criteria for the number of sales that’s required to make into its bestseller list.

If your book is in a highly competitive category surrounded by books that move a lot of copies, then it’ll take a much higher number of sales in order to gain access to that list.

But if you place you book in a sub-category or sometimes a sub-sub-category and even a sub-sub-sub-category that is populated by books that don’t move that much volume, then there’s a good chance that you can make into the list.

How? By moving more copies than your competitors on that list. Now, keep in mind that your book has to be in a category that makes sense for your subject matter. However, you aren’t required to list your book in the highly-competitive parent category.

Child categories offer much better chances of ranking inside a bestseller list if a) you know what to look for and b) you know how to calculate the number of books competitors are selling on that list.

Now this process is a bit complex and, once again, you’ll need to enlist the help of an experienced book-marketing professional to assist you in identifying the best categories for your book.

To get a taste of the research required, I’ve written a companion article that covers this topic: “How to Promote Your Nonfiction Book to Rank High on Amazon.”

Tip 14: Buy Your Author Copies from IngramSpark Not from KDP

Last but not least, this is a great tip that’ll save you a lot of money in the long term.

When you begin to run events in order to promote your book, from seminars and workshops to author signings to public speaking engagements with back-of-the-room sales, you’ll want to bring along a quantity of author copies to sell to the audience in attendance.

And the key for those sales is your cost per unit: you want to be able to print these books for the least possible unit cost so that you can maximize your profit.

Now, both Amazon’s KDP and IngramSpark offer authors the ability to purchase stock at print cost. However, out of the two only IngramSpark offers volume discounts. And they can become quite substantial when the volume gets into the hundreds of copies.

For example, if you have a number of promotional events lined up over the next several months and you estimate that you’ll need a total of 1,000 copies of your book, IngramSpark will sell you those books at a steep 40% discount from the unit print cost while KDP will offer you no discount whatsoever.

So if, say, your print cost is $3.69 for a single copy of a 200-page black and white paperback book at both distributors, you’ll pay $3,690 at KDP for 1,000 copies but only $2,214 at IngramSpark.

That’s a savings of $1,476!

In Conclusion

By following the above tips you’ll be ahead than the vast majority of self-published authors. Yes, these tips take additional effort and a higher financial commitment on your part, but the results will far outweigh your costs.

Keep in mind that your book will become your professional legacy, will be a proxy for your reputation and will establish you as an expert in your field.

Therefore, your self-published nonfiction book must be of the highest possible quality in order to complete effectively with books written by other experts in your niche. These tips will ensure that it does.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

In order to self-publish with success a work of nonfiction, you can follow a clear path that has been charted and refined over the years by many successful authors.

Nonfiction is a well-developed genre with a number of best practices that facilitate the connection between authors and readers in a way that produces tangible results.

In this article I’ll show you the key best practices that you’ll need to implement throughout the writing and editing stages of your manuscript.

Writing Stage

For your book to work in the nonfiction market, you’ll need to be able to target it like a laser beam. Before you write a single line of text you have to know exactly who will get the most value from your content, why, and also how you’ll get them to buy into your ideas.

Best Practice 1: Know Your Audience

If you’re writing your book to expand the reach of your business or your professional practice, your target audience will most likely resemble your current clients.

Since you’ll be connecting with them through the written word, though, you won’t be able to rely on body language to facilitate communication.

So to make up for this deficit you’ll need to get to know them much more intimately than when you deal with them in person.

You’ll have to learn not only who they are in terms of demographics, but you’ll also have to know about their hopes and dreams and what keeps them up at night (which your book will naturally help them take care of!).

The more you know about your audience, the better you’ll be able to connect with them through your writing. Your goal is to make them feel like you’re a friend who understands them and wants to help them improve their lives.

Best Practice 2: Solve Their Problem

This leads us to the main goal of your nonfiction book. For your book to find success, not only do you have to know your audience intimately, but you need to solve a big problem for them.

You need to know what their biggest challenge is that overlaps with your area of expertise and then you need to come up with a unique solution that’ll solve that problem once and for all.

Now, the key for success is to help them deal with a problem that creates a high level of psychological pain. If your audience’s pain is only mild, their motivation to seek out your book will be diminished.

If you were to measure their pain from a scale of 1 to 10, you want to be able to address a problem in the 8-10 range. That way, your unique solution will become much more valuable in your audience’s eyes.

Best Practice 3: Outline Your Book

Once you found the key problem to solve and clearly defined your unique solution, it’s time to put pen to paper – but don’t starting writing your book yet!

First, you need to create an outline to map out how your book is going to be structured, and the information that’ll fill out this outline isn’t something that needs to come out of thin air.

All this information is already stored in your brain, accumulated through years of skill development and experience practicing in your field.

Now, this information is not yet in “book form,” so you’ll need to use a technique called “mind mapping” to download it from your head onto a diagram that can then be turned into a book outline.

Once your outline is fully fleshed out, you’ll be able to begin writing in earnest by simply expanding on each of its sections until your manuscript is complete.

To learn how to mind map your book, read the following article: How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business? To turn your mind map into your book outline, read the following article: How to Create a Book Outline Step-By-Step: A Guide for Nonfiction Writers.

Editing Stage

Now that you’ve completed your manuscript, it’s time to begin the process of polishing it in order to turn it into a proper nonfiction book.

However, this isn’t something that you can do on your own. You’ll need to enlist the help of professional editors to turn your book from a diamond in the rough into a beautiful jewel.

Even the most successful and accomplished authors need editors to help them with their books. As the author you’re just too close to your work and you’ll need a pair of trained eyes to look at it subjectively.

Editing is quite a complex process, requiring different editors that specialize in different aspects of the craft. Below, you’ll learn the best editing practices that the pros use to produce great book after great book.

Best Practice 4: Developmental Editing

This is the first editing stage for successful nonfiction books. A developmental editor will take care of the overall structure of your manuscript – the 30,000-foot view.

Their job is to show you at a high level which aspects of your book will work for your target audience and which aspects will fail to connect with them. Then they’ll make the necessary recommendations so that you can fix those problems.

Perhaps your chapters are fine in and of themselves but they’re not in the right order to achieve an optimal flow of ideas. Or perhaps some of your reasoning has logical flaws that need to be corrected.

This is the area of expertise of developmental editors. They’ll help you right the ship before any time is committed to lower-level editing tasks.

Best Practice 5: Content Editing

The job of the content editor is to take over from the developmental editor by shifting the focus from overall book structure to readability and style.

They’ll make suggestions to improve your clarity such as shortening unnecessarily long paragraphs and splitting up run-on sentences.

Also, they’ll make sure that all graphical elements, such as images, tables, charts, diagrams, etcetera are correctly placed to support your text so that they don’t end up confusing your reader.

Best Practice 6: Copyediting and Proofreading

The final two editing stages used by the pros are copyediting and proofreading. The copyeditor will take the reins from where the content editor left off and shift the focus once again, this time to linguistic and factual accuracy.

They’ll correct spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. They’ll also take care of syntax, capitalization and hyphenation errors. They’ll check for proper use of language, identify any anomalies and check for inconsistencies.

Finally, they’ll flag any potential legal issues with your content, such as statements that could be interpreted as libelous, unintended infringement to other people’s copyrights and trademarks, and so on.

Next Steps:

Now that you’ve produced top-notch content for your target audience through your manuscript, you’ll need to package it into a book that looks and feels as professional as its content.

Your goal now will be to meet the expectations of the nonfiction market when it comes to your book layout and your book cover design. To this end, you’ll need to hire professional book designers to help you nail these two critical tasks.

To steer you in the right direction, I’ve created a couple of companion articles that will help you understand the key requirements of book design so you can make a good hiring decision: 10 Nonfiction Book Layout Tips That Will Glue Your Audience to the Page and 5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover.

Good luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

To put together meaningful self-publishing quotes for your nonfiction book, you have to take into consideration the cost of editing your manuscript, the cost of creating the book layout and cover design, and the cost to distribute the finished product.

Since your nonfiction book will establish your status as an expert and will project your reputation into the world, you need to ensure that both your writing and your book production are top quality.

So it’s imperative that you hire professionals to do the editing, layout and cover design of your book and not do this work yourself or farm it out to a friend or a relative.

The financial and reputational benefits of creating a top-notch product will be many and long lasting.

For example, your nonfiction book will become your calling card for new clients, it’ll open new doors for lucrative contracts, it’ll attract the attention of the media and it’ll give you access to paid public speaking.

Should You Write Your Book Yourself?

It depends. If you’re a strong writer and you have the time, I would advise that you write your own book. This exercise will help you get a new level of clarity for your business and it’ll help you sort out your ideas and discover new ones.

But it you don’t feel confident in your writing skills or don’t have the time to invest in your book project, then it definitely pays to hire a ghostwriter. If you’d like to find out more about this, read my companion article: How To Hire A Ghostwriter To Write Nonfiction That Tips The Scales.

Editing Costs

In order to create a top-notch product, you’ll have to engage professionals in the following four editing stages.

Developmental Editing:

This stage defines the optimal structure of your book to ensure your message is delivered to your audience in the most effective way.

As the author, you’re too close to your writing to be able to see what will work for your audience and what won’t work with 100% clarity – this is true for new authors as well as for seasoned ones.

Your developmental editor will help you gain perspective so that you can find a way to connect and engage with your target audience with a compelling message and a clear voice.

Experienced developmental editors charge between 8 and 12 cents per word depending on the complexity of the subject matter. Some may charge per page of text instead, ranging between $20-$30.

Content Editing:

Content editors focus on writing style, how your ideas are presented, their logical flow, the relevance of secondary ideas and the strength of your manuscript.

For them, readability is key. They’ll rewrite paragraphs to improve clarity, shorten sentences when required and even suggest that some chapters or sections within chapters be rearranged.

Experienced content editors charge between $40 and $50 per 1,000 words for standard text and between $50 and $70 per 1,000 words for highly technical or scientific text.

Copyediting:

Copy editors work at a lower level that’s much closer to your text. Once the book structure is set and the flow of ideas established, they’ll focus on grammar, spelling, punctuation errors, syntax, capitalization, and so on.

In addition, they’ll also check for overall accuracy of the text such as misattributed quotes and they’ll check for general inconsistencies that can reflect poorly on the writing, like mixing single and double quotes.

Copy editors will also flag potential legal issues such as libelous statements, copyright or trademark infringement. Their charges range between $30 and $40 per 1,000 words for standard text and between $40 and $60 per 1,000 words for highly technical or scientific text.

Proofreading:

A proofreader will come in after your manuscript is “locked” and no more changes are planned. In essence, it’s the final quality check before going to print.

This is the line-by-line final pass that will look for formatting inconsistencies, typos that were missed, referencing errors and general fact-checking to make sure that your book is error free.

Experienced proofreaders charge between $25 and $35 per 1,000 words for standard text and between $35 and $45 per 1,000 words for highly technical or scientific text.

Production Costs

Once your manuscript is “print-ready” it’s time to engage the services of a professional book designer and a cover designer.

The book designer will take care of laying out your text so that your book meets the high standards of the nonfiction book trade. Your nonfiction book will establish your status as an expert, which demands that you produce a quality product.

The cost of a good book designer ranges between $350 and $500 depending of the complexity of your layout. For example, books that are more technical in nature will cost more to produce than text-based books.

Cover designers create the most visible aspect of your book, and therefore the most consequential to attract the attention of browsers.

They’ll create the balance between color and placement of text and graphical elements that results in high visual appeal to enhance the compelling message contained in your title and sub-title.

An experienced cover designer charges between $400 and $600.

Your book designer and cover designer will also produce the print-ready files that will be submitted to the distribution channels below.

Distribution Costs

Before you upload your files to be turned into print-on-demand books that will be distributed around the world, you first need to acquire your ISBN, or unique identifier for your book.

You’ll need a separate ISBN for each format of your book (e.g. one for your paperback edition and one for your hardcover edition). The cost for a single ISBN is $125 and for a block of ten the cost goes up to $295.

Once you have your ISBNs, it’s time to set up your book title with the following two channels of distribution:

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP):

KDP will make your book available for ordering through a number of Amazon bookselling properties around the world (U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia/New Zealand). KDP doesn’t charge for their setup or book submissions and simply charges a percentage of your book sales.

IngramSpark:

IngramSpark will make your book available through their parent company Ingram, the largest book distributor in the world. Although they’ll distribute to online stores, their forte is brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries.

Ingram charges $49 per format submission (e.g. separate charges for paperback and hardcover editions – note that Amazon’s KDP can only make your book available in paperback).

If you want to hire a service to set up your accounts on the above two distribution channels, there are a number of author services companies will do this work on your behalf, for between $100 and $200.

Next Steps:

Now you have a good idea of the costs required for self-publishing a quality nonfiction book. When you begin your search for book professionals, make sure you get multiple quotes and that you check their references thoroughly.

Best of luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.