DIY Publishing Lessons

Well, we either learn "in time" or "for next time" - in this case, the latter.
Ready to copyright your book? Have a name for your publishing company?
Before you do those things,
Buy the domain names!
Plenty of folks out there are ready to profit from obtaining your name then selling it to you.
Maybe you want to pay them, maybe you'd rather not.
So start by reserving those names. Once your entity name and book title are public records, you're too late - the sharks swim fast!

OK, so you have your domain name(s) - publishing company name, or book, or both. (I call mine Fool Court Press, home to all the titles I publish)

Copyright your book quickly and easily at http://www.copyright.gov/ where the site walks you through the steps in uploading your manuscript and registering your work electronically.

Buy an ISBN for your book if no one else is providing it. Smashwords for example, will provide one for my ebook edition, but I need a separate one for the print version. If you even remotely imagine you'll publish more than one title, buy a lot of ten: one costs $125, ten cost $250. Go to Bowker.com to do this. Do you need to buy a barcode too? Check with your cover designer, who may have the software to set this up.

It's a good idea to create an entity to track your expenses & income for publishing your book.
You can use your own name, but you should consider setting up a separate entity. I chose an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) because I can be the sole owner, and it's cheaper and less complicated than a full-blown or Chapter S corporation.
Start your registration at the state level, because the IRS needs to know where you're established. If you choose a state other than where you reside, you'll need an agent with an address there - an intermediary you'll have to pay.
So I set up my LLC in Colorado, where I reside. That cost me $50.

OK, ready to obtain an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS?
First I made the mistake of googling "IRS LLC". I got the usual gazillion results, the first multiple pages of which were NOT the IRS but private companies which will happily take your money to do for you what you can do yourself free of charge.
So just type IRS.gov in your browser window, or click here which will take you to the proper page. Less than 15 minutes later, your entity legally exists.

Now keep good records. Establish a bank account for your entity, so you can easily identify your expenses & income - this is not only cleaner than running everything through your personal account, it's also more professional. Be prepared to show the bank your IRS & state registration numbers. Once the account is set up, any expenses related to publishing and selling your work should go in here - registration costs, printing, website expenses, book tour, marketing... Until you start selling books, the money's just going out, but if you keep at it, you may break even!

Taking the Plunge!

For some time I've been weighing the pros & cons of self-publishing.
On the pro side:
Authorial autonomy
Potentially higher return per book sold
Immediate release

On the con side:
"Vanity publishing" - for some this remains a stigma.
No newspaper book reviews (at a panel I attended, the reviewers said they never review self-published books).

But let's look at the industry:
As publishing houses buy one another and limit their risk-taking with unknown authors, opportunities for a book contract are diminishing.
The agent - publishing house - bookstore model is fast becoming obsolete.
Unless sales are strong immediately, a book is only in a bookstore a matter of weeks before that shelf space is given to other titles.
In this climate, if the agent or publisher doesn't like some aspect of the book, what can a little-known author do but capitulate? I omit mention of editors suggesting changes, because editors have become an endangered species.
The percentage paid to the author is small.
And authors (unless named Nora Roberts, J.K. Rowling or Tom Clancy) have to do the heavy lifting of publicizing their work. (I'd always thought the whole point of having a publisher was for introvert writers to be freed from the extrovert task of selling their work - silly me!)

My work is offbeat - not in a recognized genre, nor quite "literary fiction".
I've spent years writing and revising my work with rewrites small and major, then sent queries to every agent and small press who seemed even remotely likely to have an interest in my work.
The result is a rejection letter file.
I've pitched to agents at book conferences. Nada.

I am weary of the rejection cycle, and my work is too! Karmafornia wants to be read!

So I've decided to e-publish through Smashwords.com, supplemented by a Print-On-Demand edition, and do a book tour in late summer for publicity purposes.

If you've had experience with Smashwords, I'd love to hear about it. Their website presents them as a very straightforward author-friendly business, and they charge nothing to receive a properly-formatted manuscript (they provide a free detailed formatting guide), assign it an ISBN, and distribute it in e-book catalogs, available at a price the author determines, in virtually every e-book format. They retain a modest percentage of sales income (15 - 18.5 %), with the author receiving most (up to 85%). The author retains copyright and all ancillary rights. Smashwords provides a book marketing manual but the PR burden lies with the author - which it does anyway, regardless of how the book is emerging into the world.
And at the worst, authors have the option to "unpublish" from their site.

I know authors who have self-published. Once they've had decent sales, publishers have (surprise!) shown an interest, and picked them up as clients.
What can I lose, besides my frustration?