What is Self Publishing? Spoiler Alert: It's A Game-Changer
In a few words, self publishing is all about empowering indie authors like you with creative control. Not only that, but you'll make more money with self publishing and enjoy near-instant gratification with the time it takes to see your book come to life. We're talking about a few months instead of a few years with a traditional publisher.
Once upon a time, you'd need a old-fashioned publishing company to create and distribute your book. Thankfully, technology has leveled the playing field. Gatekeepers like literary agencies, editorial boards, publicists, and marketing executives needn't be satisfied. It's all you. And Raab & Co. is here to help you make magic happen.
So if calling the shots and having a book that's authentic to you and your brand is important, consider this your self publishing masterclass.
Let's start at the beginning.
In the Beginning, There Was One Publishing Option
When book printing first became possible, all publishing was self publishing. If you had tons of money you could pay someone who owned a printer to print whatever you wanted. Soon, people who owned the printers started printing books they liked “for free” in exchange for royalties. And so became the modern publishing industry—gatekeepers between your work and the world.
That’s why over the past decades, aspiring authors like you had to go the traditional publishing route if you had any hopes of seeing your book on the shelves or any bestseller list.
But let's be fair. The traditional publishing method gave birth to some of the most celebrated authors of our time. It opened the doorway for us to dream about prestigious awards, celebrity book signings, and more.
But it also became more exclusive than it needed to be. Books from Random House and Penguin might seem more reputable, but it doesn’t mean they are more worthy of primetime than yours.
The publishing industry is burdened by complex processes, high costs, and lengthy timelines. Until recently, anyone looking to break in needed an agent. But first, they had to find an agent.
More time was spent figuring out how to break in than doing what writers do best: write
Fortunately, we live in a world where technology and the internet has put the power back into the writer's hands and finger tips. Let's take a few minutes to explore self publishing and see how it can accelerate your career as an author and business owner.
Self-Publishing: A Definition.
The Mirriam-Webster dictionary defines self publishing as a verb: to publish a book using the author's own resources.
That sounds a little foreboding because what author has the time, design experience, formatting capabilities, editing chops, and distribution capabilities needed to launch a successful book?
Guess what? You don't need any of those "resources." You've got our team as your own.
How Self Publishing Works: An Overview
As we've mentioned, self publishing is a way to publish your work without relying on traditional publishers. Instead of waiting for a publisher to accept your work and put it out on the market with a retail price, cover design, and even a story ending they decide on, you take control of the whole process!
But how exactly do you take control? You do need a team with the experience to make things happen. Sometimes referred to as a vanity publisher, a team such as Raab & Co. is here to help you from ideation through execution and book publication.
And while the idea of being a vanity publisher might sound, well, vain, we can assure you that the quality of your book and your satisfaction with the process is our top priority. If you’ve got a huge online following, or an incredibly amazing story, we might even be interested in being a hybrid publisher—meaning we’ll work at a reduced rate in exchange for royalties.
To begin, all it takes is a click to schedule your free 45-minute creative jam session. We'll show you how easy and effective our approach is.
If you're a business looking to promote your CEO as a thought leader, we've got your back. If you've dreamed of seeing your paperback book available on the shelves of your favorite store, we can help there too. Got a speaking engagement or live event coming up? We'll get your print book ready for distribution, signings, and more. Our founder got his start at one of the biggest names in the business. And he knows a thing or two about deadlines, pressure, and following through.
Aside from retail stores or special events, you can also publish your work online for digital readers or have your book available for print on demand. If you're going the online route, we can help you prepare your book for platforms like Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, Ingramspark, or Lulu.com to make your work available to readers.
The appeal with self publishing is your ability to reach a worldwide audience. This is a great way to build your brand, your following as an author, and generate awareness and leads if you're a business.
Is it all wins, or is there a downside to self publishing?
The Downside of Self Publishing
Some believe that when you self-publish, you're responsible for everything. You choose the title, write your book, format your book, design your cover, print, distribute, and market your book.
There are loads of horror stories out there from authors who try to go it alone. There's danger at every turn. All the self publishing warnings usually come from inexperience, mistakes, and bad choice of contractors.
What we're trying to say is—like most things— there's only a downside if you let there be one.
Teaming up with Raab & Co. is one of the best things you can do to assure the success of your book. There's a reason why the best expect and get the best from our team—our contractors have worked for the likes of Oprah, Garth Brooks, and other huge names.
Starting Your Self-Publishing Journey
You've already made the best first step. You're here and we're thrilled to show you what a white-glove publishing process is all about.
After your initial consultation, your project manager will oversee all aspects of production. They'll keep you informed every step of the way and you'll have a very clear picture of key milestones along the way.
This might sound silly, but we personalize the publishing process. This is important because many of the larger outfits claim to be the "biggest" or "the best." And yet, an undisclosed secret that goes along with enterprise-level publishing companies is a templated process with templated creative. Not only that, their bottom line is top of mind, and the creation of your book is usually off-shored.
To ensure quality, our in-house team handles everything and you'll always have a person to call, email, and text throughout the publishing process.
Now, about that. Let's dig in to how your book comes together.
Step 1: Writing and Editing Your Book
Your discovery call plays a big part in all this. Maybe you've got a half-written manuscript. Maybe you've got a collection of quotes, graphs, or data. Maybe you've got a cryptic idea written on a napkin while you were out the other night.
No matter how you present your idea to us, our team of ghostwriters, proofreaders, and editors will make sure that your story sings. You'll be given drafts to read as promised and on time, unlike traditional publishing houses that might butcher whatever it is you've entrusted them with.
You might be wondering, what's the difference between a proofreader and an editor? Essentially, your proofreader worries about the “mechanicals”. They'll make sure your manuscript is free of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes while adhering to appropriate style guides. They’ll also make sure your page cross references are accurate, your citations are correct, and that there is no internal contradictions in your writing.
Your professional editor, on the other hand, oversees all of those granular details on top of making recommendations about what elements need to be expanded on, revised, moved around, or deleted. We do our best to take as much weight off your back as possible. That means we’ll write and fill-in as needed to the best of our abilities and only ask you to do work if your industry expertise is necessary.
Once the entire team, including you, is ready to bring your story to your readers, we begin the next step in creating a memorable self-published book.
Step 2: Most Mistakes Happen Here. Formatting Your Book
If you're connected to other writers or have been doing research about self-publishing for some time then you've likely heard about issues where KDP books will arrive in an excited reader's hands, only to have chopped paragraphs, skewed alignment, and other critical issues.
This is another aspect of the publishing process that we take great pride in. We're familiar with all the distribution channels from Kobo to Amazon and beyond. We know what their systems require. And you can count on us to format and creatively design your manuscript to meet their printing standards.
Step 3: Book Cover Design At Its Best
When it comes to self-publishing, designing a book cover is one of the most important steps. After all, it’s the first thing that potential readers will see when they come across your book whether they're scrolling across title thumbnails or hurriedly passing through shelves with similar content.
Not only does your book cover design need to be eye-catching and memorable, it should convey the themes or concepts of your book. It should be designed around your target reader's psychology and grab their interest.
Fortunately, Andrew Bell, our chief graphic designer, knows how to turn every book cover into a masterpiece.
His process is unique. Your book cover is thought of as a piece of art. It's not uncommon to see Andrew working on paper (see below) before he sits down to his multi-monitor setup.
If a design can’t be achieved using our normal process, we’ll leverage our network of artists to make custom art for your book. Like the cover of this book we produced. From there, colors, characters, themes, settings, and concepts all come together with your title as the anchor.
We’ll often make tons of scattered examples up front. Once you choose a few you like, we refind again and you choose more. Then we refine refine refine till it’s something that makes your heart sing.
Step 4: A Word on Self Publishing & Distribution
Raab & Co. is here to ensure you have a successful book launch no matter what your preferred distribution channel is. We'll get your work ready for all appropriate retail chains, ebook channels (like Apple Books and Kindle), print-on-demand (POD), or hard copies for you to distribute at an event.
A word of caution.
There are many ebook distributors out there that promise higher royalty rates and low-cost (to no cost) production. If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is. Outfits like Smashwords promise easy sales, global marketing services, and other benefits. If you read the fine print and do some digging, you'll see that accounts can be suspended for no reason and royalties withheld without notice.
If you're interested in learning more about ways we save you major hassles, just book a call with one of our self publishing consultants.
Making the Magic Happen: Self Publishing With Raab & Co.
We've talked a little about how the publishing process works. But you're probably wondering about the costs.
This is one of the key distinctions between self publishing vs. traditional publishing.
In a traditional publishing scenario, writers are given an advance on forecasted sales. And while that sounds amazing, that advance is paid back to the publishing house before the writer can start to see any profit. And when they do, it's about 10% of the retail price. And then what about all those gatekeepers we mentioned earlier? Agents have to be paid. What about publicists? What about book tour costs? Traditional publishing will keep you in the red for a long long time—unless your name is Dan Brown.
When you decide to get your book published on your own, the biggest hurdle that many writers have to get over is the expense of production. There’s no two ways about it: there are cheaper self publishing alternatives to Raab & Co. You can do it yourself—juggling budget, contractors, project management, timelines, and myriad file specifications, or you can hire a self publishing house to do it for you. You can certainly choose someone like 90 Minute Books to make a book for you on the cheap. But you get what you pay for—tons of our clients came to us after being horribly displeased with what budget self publishers produced for them. Horribly edited books ridden with typos and plagued with bad design and typesetting.
Raab & Co. is for the busy executive, entreprenuer, or influencer who wants the best and to trust that everything is going according to plan. We take all the weight off your back—all we need from you is your attention at key points in the project.
Self Publishing FAQs
While you've spent a hot minute with us reviewing the ins and outs of self-publishing there's plenty more to talk about. That's why we've put together this handy FAQ section to streamline your research.
What is BISAC?
BISAC stands for Book Industry Standards and Communications. It's a universally accepted system whereby books are categorized. While not the most glamorous topic of discussion, your BISAC code helps your book get classified by online data aggregators. For instance, your book about business will start with a main category class, then get broken down further by specialty or niche e.g. Personal Finance/Investment-Tips/Beginners. To learn more, click here.
What Does Self Publishing Aggregators Mean?
Great question. This strange word sounds like it belongs in the realm of big data. Let us demystify. With respect to digital publishing, aggregators refer to any platform that distributes your book to a retailer. For instance, Smashwords is an aggregator that distributes your book to retailers like Amazon, Apple Books, & more. Not all aggregators are created equal. Ask us which platforms we prefer.
How Much Does It Cost To Self-Publish A Book?
There are a lot of conflicting opinions out there about how much it costs (or should cost) to self publish a book. some places will tell you that it costs pennies to the dollar. Other places will indicate that only a few hundred bucks will get the job done. Other places will tell you that self publishing can cost anywhere from free to a few thousand dollars. The reality is, you get what you pay for. If the overall quality and success of your book matter, then you can expect to pay anywhere from $2,500 with budget producers to $25,000+ with producers like Raab & Co. If you want ghostwriters, fact checking, custom illustrations—the whole nine yeards— you’re looking at $55,000+.
