[FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Sat Jul 4 14:34:45 EDT 2020

Tom, 

This information is so interesting.  Thanks for providing it.  Apparently the industry has really changed since my books were published.  Publisher’s contracts are awful and even then I had to markup the contracts they sent me extensively before I could sign them.  When I went to publish our textbook with my own father’s company, the provisions of the contract they sent me implied that if the pressman dropped a wrench on his foot during the run of my book, I was liable.  They cheerfully accepted all my contract changes, but I had to hire a lawyer to read the damned thing, and it was  thorough=going pain in the ass.   I wonder if publishers have not out=lived their usefulness. 

Your note seems to imply that you have been quietly publishing tome after tome all the time I have known you.  Ask your publicist to send me a list.  (};-)].

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 12:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Jochen:

The deal being offered strikes me as a bad deal.

Background:  I have been practicing and teaching about "Be Your Own Publisher" for nearly 15 years.  There are, in my opinion, some major problems with all publishers today.  It starts with control of the copyright.  I think YOU should want to maintain control of the copyright to your work.  It will depend on the contract, but many or most publishers will try to lock down the copyright in their favor for all -- ALL -- forms of your work in perpetuity and throughout the universe.  Sometimes quite literally.

Second, you should assume -- especially with a small publisher and you, not being as well known  as Stephen King or Daniel Steele  -- the publisher will do little if anything to promote your book beyond a mention in its catalog and, maybe, some promotional links on Amazon.  Given that, a 5 percent royalty should be seen as a con.

Third, given your computing experience, you should find it easy to format and produce the book yourself.  I have used Lulu.com <http://Lulu.com>  for years.  It is especially good if you want to have both hardback, paperback and PDF editions.  Again the advantages: you keep the copyright, you can set (and change) the prices and to a degree the royalties.  Also, Lulu and Amazon handle all the backend financial arrangements and administration and pay directly and quickly.  I also use a very good, high quality digital printer in Albuquerque for paperback editions.  It is Lithexcel <https://lithexcel.com/services/print.html> .  It handles all the printing (one copy to any number) quickly, along with all the fulfillment and accounting. The folks there will also, for only $25, set up your book in the Amazon inventory search engine.  Finally, there is Amazon's self-publishing arm <https://www.bookbaby.com/free-publishing-guides?utm_campaign=GOOSL31&utm_source=SITELINK&utm_medium=cpc&mkwid=sNzCXe5z8_dc|pcrid|238281756657|pmt|e|pkw|amazon%20book%20publishing|slid|cWU1oXIv|targetids|kwd-362938383597|groupid|48812614458|&pgrid=48812614458&ptaid=kwd-362938383597&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0YD4BRD2ARIsAHwmKVnFci42apQ6vWUruvHuYX-FOum9VCF7bx83c_tSMHGoby8yylL_RTMaAjOEEALw_wcB> .  While Amazon might take a bigger slice, the control over all aspects is in your hands.

Here's the problem/challenge with all of these.  YOU have to do the marketing/publicity/promotion.  But so what?  If you today sign with any publisher of any size you will have to do the same thing.

Hope this helps.  Feel free to contact me with questions.  Also you might want to see https://bit.ly/2ZvihKc 

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> 
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
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On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:29 AM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net <mailto:jofr at cas-group.net> > wrote:

At one end of the spectrum there are the 5 big commercial publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. They only publish stuff their agents select to make a lot of money. There are also the big academic publishers like OUP, CUP, HUP and MIT Press, which preferably publish strictly peer-reviewed content from professors at Ivy League universities who made their PhD at the age of 20.

At the other end of the spectrum there are "predatory publishers" who publish anything you submit as long as you pay enough money for it. Open access books can also be very expensive. Publishing an "open access book" at De Gruyter for example costs up to 8000 $. You pay for it so that other people read it. It is basically some kind of advertising of your own work.

For my own new book I finally have an offer from a small publisher in Washington D.C. who is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. They are really small and offer 5% royalties. Should I accept this offer or wait for a better one? It is the only one from more than 25 publishers I have asked, and the publishers at the moment are flooded with submissions. :-/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/mar/26/novel-writing-during-coronavirus-crisis-outbreak

-J.

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