Will I be able to get my book on Oprah? -Yes, it’s possible but there are five conditions First, you have to catch a weasel when it’s asleep.

• Second, you have to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.
• Third, you must extract sunbeams from cucumbers.
• Fourth, Elvis Presley must receive a posthumous best actor award for his portrayal of Jess Wade in Charro.
• And fifth, Mongolia must become the 51st state.

The point: stay realistic. (From Publishing Basics – A Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self Publisher)

Staying realistic, while at the same time remaining confident is the point I am going to focus on today. The one characteristic that seems to be common to all would be authors is confidence. Confidence is a great characteristic to have but confidence unmixed with a good dose of realism and knowledge can be dangerous. In publishing, this dangerous mix is what allows authors to be taken advantage of by Vanity Presses.

There are two basic, distinctly different, marketing philosophies companies adopt when it comes to working with self publishers. The first is summed up by “There’s a sucker born every minute” or “Ignorance is bliss”. This marketing philosophy is most commonly associated with the vanity and Subsidy Presses. Companies in this group generally play on the author’s inexperience and vanity to make the sale. The more naive the better. Reality has no place in this form of marketing. If you don’t deal well with reality, the Vanity Press way is perfect for you.

The other marketing philosophy can be summed up with the saying, “Knowledge is Power”. By the mere fact that you are reading this article, my guess is that you fall within this group. I teach a publishing class for grade school children where I start each class with the line “Writing is a love, publishing is a business”. It’s true. The moment you decide to self publish, whether you realize it or not, you have decided to open a business. Like any other business, to be successful, you need to learn about the business. This is an ongoing process. No one book or seminar is going to give you all the information you need to be successful. They are all parts of a whole. Even with 35 years in the business, I am learning new things every day. The more you learn, the more “realistic” you become. The more realistic you become the better chance you have of succeeding.

I find, in working with new publishers, that the first dose of “reality” usually revolves around the quantity of books to print. It doesn’t take long for the new publisher to realize that the more books you print, the lower the unit cost. The temptation is always there to buy more rather then less but this is where “reality” needs to step in. The mission is to sell books, not fill your garage with them. There is always time to reprint. I tell all my customers that “You will never be able to sell books faster than I can print them” and I have printed a lot of books. I also tell them that my most successful publisher was not the one who bought 2 million books but the one who reprinted their title 15 times. Be realistic.

The second dose of reality usually revolves around schedules. Most authors have worked months if not years finishing their manuscript. Yet once finished, many new publishers go into a panic mode if the rest of the process, the editing, design and printing do not happen overnight. This is a rookie mistake that must be avoided if you want to have any chance of succeeding. “Rome wasn’t built in a day” or “haste makes waste” or any other saying that says “Take your time”. It’s true. Most mistakes are made because something was rushed or some part of the process was bypassed. It’s too late to make changes once you have books. You can’t take the ink off the paper. This is not to say that you have to drive yourself crazy in some sort of quest for “Perfection”, but you do need to take your time and give others the time to do their job correctly. Also remember, calling your editor, designer or printer 20 times a day is not going to make things move any quicker. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect. Be realistic.

Another dose of reality sometimes comes with having the false notion that printing is a perfect process. It’s not. There are little imperfections in every printed product. It doesn’t matter if you are Ron’s Books or Random House, there is no such thing as the perfect printing job. This is not to say that you should expect books with the pages upside down or the covers falling off but the printing industry has quality tolerances and you have to live with them. Did you ever think of why you allow 1/8” bleed on your cover? It’s because that is the industry tolerance. If the trimming of your book falls within that tolerance, the book is considered acceptable. Today, with all the new technologies most printed products fall well within these tolerances so trimming is rarely an issue.

If you consider yourself a perfectionist, you should probably not be thinking of self-publishing. Chances are, you’ll never be happy. Particular types of perfectionists who have an especially hard time trying to adjust to the imperfect world of commercial book printing are artists and fine art photographers. I had an instance this past week where an artist tried to reject a printing job because you could see a spec of dust in the printing, visible only to Superman or with the aid of the Hubbell telescope. Needless to say, the book was not rejectable and this person probably does not belong in the publishing business unless perhaps his physician has recommended the need for additional stress in his life. Be realistic. A good rainy day activity for the novice publisher is a trip to the local bookstore just to look for printing imperfections. You’ll be surprised what you find.

Obviously a final place where realty must prevail is with the publicity and marketing of your book. Chances are Oprah is not going to look at your book but it doesn’t matter. There are no guarantees and very few “instant” successes. A bad book will not sell, even with the best publicity. But if you have a good book and have made the personal commitment and, have confidence to do what it takes to make it successful, it probably will be. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s a process. Stay realistic.

Need a cover designed or complete book layout? Try www.BudgetBookDesign.com . - Only $250 for original cover design. Complete text layout from $250.

If you have a question pertaining to the publishing production process, please feel free to contact me at ron@rjcom.com.

Last 5 posts by Ron Pramschufer

• What do you think about Amazon’s announcement that small publishers need to print with their printer in order to be listed on Amazon? - April 17th, 2008
• What are the steps are involved in Self-Publishing a book? - March 24th, 2008
• Do you know any good book printers? - February 11th, 2008
• What do you think of Facebook as a marketing tool for self-published books? - December 5th, 2007
• Did you change your mind about authors buying a single ISBN? - October 22nd, 2007