Self-Publishing Primer: Part 9 – How do I set up a self-publishing company?
February 20, 2007 by Lillie
Table of contents for Self-Publishing Primer
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part I – Introduction
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 2 – What is traditional publishing?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 3 – What is vanity publishing?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 4 – What is subsidy publishing?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 5 – What is self-publishing?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 6 – What are the pros and cons of self-publishing?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 7 – Who should self-publish?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 8 – How do I write my book?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 9 – How do I set up a self-publishing company?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 10 – What do I need to know about copyrights and ISBNs?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 11 – How much does self-publishing cost?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 12 – What do I need to do and when do I need to do it?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 13 – Do I need a Web site … and should I make my book available as an e-book?
- Self-Publishing Primer: Part 14 – How can I market and distribute my books?
You will find links to the other posts in the series at Self-Publishing Primer.
You’ve written or are writing a book. Now you understand what self-publishing is and you’ve decided to self-publish your book.
Where do you start?
- Decide what type of business to establish: sole proprietorship, LLC, or corporation. Most self-publishers start as proprietorships, but you may want to look different ownership structures and discuss them with your legal and accounting advisors.
- Choose and register your company name. Although I don’t recommend you hide the fact that your book is self-published, I do recommend you choose a business name that sounds like a business, not the author’s name. You may choose a name that relates to the subject of your book, but remember you may write more books in the future – you may even decide to publish books for other writers – so you don’t want your business name to be too specific. The Small Business Administration’s Small Business Planner includes advice on choosing a name and business structure as well as how to set up different kinds of businesses.
- Decide on an address and get a business phone line. Although you are probably working from your home, you may want to use a mail box with the post office or with a company like Mailboxes, Etc. or the UPS Store. Not only will such an address protect the privacy of your home address, but it will also look more like a business. And you will need a separate phone line, especially if you are going to take phone orders.
- Set up a business checking account and a bookkeeping system and apply for a sales tax permit. Your system can be fairly simple – just be sure you have some way of easily keeping track of income and expenses and taxes. If you plan to sell to bookstores or distributors, you will have to have an accounts receivables system as you will be waiting 45 to 60 days (or more) for payment. Check with your state comptroller or the appropriate office in your state to find out the sales tax requirements.
- Determine how you will distribute your books and what types of payment you will accept. If you sell to bookstores or distributors, you will invoice them for the list price less their discount (usually 40% to 50%) and wait for a check. But if you sell books directly to customers – from a Web site or in personal appearances – you will need to be able to accept credit cards or you will miss out on a lot of sales.
- Learn about the business of publishing – things like ISBNs, bar codes, and copyrights in Dan Poynter’s The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book, 15th Edition
or from Tom and Marilyn Ross’s Complete Guide to Self Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote, and Sell Your Own Book (Self-Publishing 4th Edition)
.
For other views on how to set up your company, read the following articles:
- Setting up and Running Your Publishing Business by Dan Poynter
- Should I start my own publishing company? in the FAQs of Self-Publishing.com
- Basics of Self-Publishing by Moira Allen on Writing-World.com
The next post will cover copyrights and ISBNs.
[tags]publishing, self-publishing, writing[/tags]
Wanted to compliment on your site, it looks really good.
Hank
Great site! My first time to visit-lots of good information. Janie
Hank,
Sorry I missed your comment … glad you like the site and hope you are coming back regularly!
Janie,
Glad you’re here and that you’re finding useful information. Hope you come back often.
I invite both of you to subscribe to the feed if you don’t want to miss anything.
[...] you’ll probably work from home. Although you won’t need to do many of the items in setting up a self-publishing company, you may want to review the list for things that apply, such as getting a business checking [...]
Very informative Lillie great!
Self publishing is a good option but many fall down when it comes to marketing their books and getting them to the readers. Like any online business they need to be promoted to those who buy the books. There are some good ways to go about this and writing more books is one of the best ones. Books are the products and having a variety is a good idea. This always gets readers who like your book and who come looking for more to read a feeling of satisfaction. Of course books aren’t written overnight but stopping writing because your first book hasn’t sold much is not the write way to go either. Be determined to keep writing.
peter,
Good advice. One of my clients recently released his second book and has seen significantly increased sales of his first book as well.
Sounds great that you have provided all the useful link we need.Thanks a lot for sharing!
.-= agnes@small business resources´s last blog ..Nov 1, Small Business Grants – Federal and State Government grants =-.
agnes,
I hope anyone considering self-publishing can find the information they need here.
Self-publishing is a great way for those to get their message out without having to deal with an outside editor. I think it would be a great benefit to many to head down a self-publishing route.
Daniel,
I have a little different perspective on self-publishing. As you will see if you read the entire series or other posts on this blog, I believe every book should be well-edited. Although I think it’s best to use a professional editor, if that’s not feasible, at least have someone who is good with spelling and grammar look at it. None of us can catch all of our own mistakes, and if you want your self-published book to be successful, it must be as good technically as the story and character development are (if fiction) or as the information is (if nonfiction). In fact, self-published books probably need to be better than traditionally published books to be accepted. There are so many really bad books self-published by authors who didn’t want to listen to anyone else that the really good self-published books are lumped in with the bad one in many people’s minds.
I have checked your links and have found them very useful.Thanks a lot and I hope many would benefit from this article like me.
.-= jean@small business bookkeeping´s last blog ..Jan 7, Becoming a Bookkeeper =-.
jean,
I’m glad you found this helpful. Hope you benefited from the entire series.
very cool, very similar to starting a music publishing company. a lot of the same steps are required. Its not an easy process but the rewards can be monumental!
.-= Jake@Instrumental Beats´s last blog ..Stereo Panning: Widen Your Vocals and Instruments =-.
Jake,
The steps are similar for any type of small business. The music publishing and book publishing have in common that the business owners tend to be creative types who aren’t really interested in the business end of things. However, to be successful, they have to become as good at running the business as they are at creating products.
When I travelled 20 years ago I made a diary and some tapes. Is there a service somewhere that will convert these into a book?
John,
Your best bet is probably to hire a typist to transcribe the tapes and use the transcript for your book. I don’t know of any service that converts tapes to books, though it’s possible there is one I don’t know about.
I am working on a project now where the client dictated his autobiography into audiotapes. I suggested he hire a typist to transcribe the tapes at a much lower rate than I would charge. However, he preferred that I do the entire job, so I transcribed the tapes and edited the document. Now I’m preparing to lay out the interior of the book, create the cover, and help him get it printed.
Useful guide for self publishers. I agree with Lillie, this process can also be applied to self-published songwriters needing to create their own music publishing business.
As an indie music publisher myself, I follow the steps below to create my own publishing:
1.) Registering business and its legal name with government offices.
2.) Protecting represented works in US copyright.
3.) Promoting the business under my publisher name.
One slight difference is that music publishers does not need a physical store (like a bookstore) to market music; a website or a small office will do just fine for self-published musicians.
Emerson,
Self-published book authors don’t need retail locations, either. They can sell from their Web site, at events such as craft fairs and holiday festivals, and from online stores such as Amazon.com. Most self-publishing authors do not have their books in brick and mortar bookstores.
Oh I see, I forgot, lots of books are sold nowadays in online like Amazon. Those online stores , and there are also some kindle ones.
Emerson,
Few self-published authors sell books through retail stores, as brick-and-mortar bookstores generally don’t carry independently published books. Sometimes a few local stores will carry an author’s books, but it’s almost impossible to get a book into the large chain stores. So self-publishing authors generally rely on their own Web sites and online stores, and many self-publishers make their books available in e-books such as the Kindle, either exclusively or along with print.
I have seen sites that allow you to publish a book at no charge and you get a commission from the sales. I can’t seem to find a site now though.
Jim,
There are a number of sites like that. Among the most popular ones are Amazon.com’s CreateSpace and Lulu.com. You can find a list of print on demand printers and publishers at http://www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.htm. Some of these offer free services; others charge a setup fee. These are ones I cover in Parts 3 and 4 of this series. Although they are often called self-publishing companies, many of these are actually what I call subsidy or vanity publishers because the author does not have complete control. That isn’t necessariy bad; read Parts 6 and 7 of this series to evaluate which type of publishing is best for you.
Lilly, I agree with your statement that every book should be well-edited.
And it is not difficult or expensive.
I have hired top quality editors at places like Elance and Odesk to edit some of my articles. Sometimes the caliber of people you can get there simply amazes me.
Chris,
I’m not a huge fan of the bidding sites, but if good freelancers are willing to work for cheap rates they can certainly find work there. I prefer to get my clients from word of mouth referrals.
Now that Amazon has enabled self publishing of books, doesn’t that seem like a better solution? The royalty scale is between 35% and 75% with little or no start up money. Seems like a pretty attractive option.
Jesse,
I compared the different forms of publishing in earlier installments in this series. What is best depends on a variety of factors, especially the author’s goals. If you want to sell books to a few family and friends in small quantities, a POD company such as CreateSpace is excellent. In fact, I wrote a case study in a series of posts here recently about an individual who wanted to publish his autobiography for family and friends, and we used CreateSpace. For other authors—for example, a speaker who sells books at the back of the room—a print run with an offset printer is a better solution. Each author needs to evaluate the options and decide what is best for them. There is not one best way that is appropriate for everyone.
I guess I need to spend more time on your site then. It looks like you have did some exhaustive research and documented it well. The reason I found your site on Google was because my sister is currently working on her first book. Thanks for your time and research!
Jesse,
If your sister is considering self-publishing, she needs to read the entire Self-Publishing Primer. All the installments in this series are compiled into a PDF file available for free. Look for Self-Publishing Primer under the Books tab above. Also review the categories about writing and publishing as well as the list of series and related posts on related topics. Your sister will find lots of information about writing and publishing here.
Seems like I have online book. Tons of information I find very useful here.I believe intensive research was made to complete this.
Jean,
This series of posts is actually compiled into a PDF you can download to your computer.
This is great publishing info for the next step, however I want to write some books, but not sure where to start, the structure, how much detail to go into etc. I guess I don’t really know where to start..
jane,
You start by defining what kind of book you want to write, who you want to write it for, and what you expect to accomplish.
I’m doing my best to learn about the business of publishing, I’m just trying to find the time. I have been really digging around online, and I’m glad I found this site. Thanks!
aretha,
Good luck in your research and in putting what you learn to good use.
This is a good article. It also has alot of resouces articles. Thank you.
Ron & Joann,
I tried to include a lot of resources in each installment of the self-publishing series. That way I could keep the posts relatively brief but make lots of additional information available for readers who want to dig deeper.
This is great information on self-publishing. I definitely learned a lot!
Rachel,
I’m glad you found the information useful.
patrickd,
Thanks for your comment. I’m especially pleased to get this response from a representative of a print on demand company who works with self-publishing authors.