Do you think that self publishing is much of a gamble?

Great question! Self-Publishing is very much like going to the race track. You can do your research, come up with a great strategy… and end up a winner or loser at the end of the day.

August, to New York horseplayers means Saratoga… the Spa, one of the finest racetracks and best horse racing in the country. To a gambler, it doesn’t matter if you are betting the million dollars’ Travers Stake or a cheap claiming race; a win is a win and a loss is a loss. “Missed by a nose” may make a great story for the guys at the bar but it’s still a loss. Self-Publishing is very much like going to the racetrack.

The old saying goes, “Bet with your head, not over it”. Unfortunately most people involved with both horse racing and self-publishing do not believe that statement. They put ATM machines at the racetracks now so you can empty your bank account in pursuit of a winner, and many of the firms who deal with self-publishers go very light on education and heavy on sales to extract every nickel they can from unwary self -publishers. In the end it’s entirely up to you to set a limit based solely on how much you can afford to lose. Let’s have a little fun and compare a typical self-published book with a day at the races.

Unless you are a complete degenerate gambler, you start the day at the races with a fixed amount of money you are willing to wager. This is much like the fixed amount of money you have set aside for your self-publishing project in your budget. For most people, the object of a day at the races is to come home with some money in your pocket. This is also the goal of the majority of those who self- publish. Knowing that this is not always possible, a secondary goal is to make it through the day and still have a shot at winning going into the last race of the day. And always, the more realistic goal is to have fun at the track, to the point that you are ready to do it again. For comparison purposes let’s use yesterday’s Saratoga nine race program as our example.

There are several ways to pick horses. You can study the racing form for hours and make your picks based on your conclusions. You can go with “hunches”. You can pick up the local newspaper and play the horses that the “pros” pick. You can play all the favorites. You can play all the long shots or you can play some combination of the above. This is not unlike the choices you face with self-publishing. Remember, though, that the real gamble in horses and self-publishing is that all of your research is based on “past performance”. What worked yesterday may or may not work today. That is where the “Gamble” comes in.

On yesterday’s racing card, I would have more than likely bet a hunch horse in the first and second race and won the daily double as well as win, place, show bets on the winners. I try to allot about 25% of my budget for the day to the first two races so there is the possibility of making higher than budgeted bets in some of the later races if I win. This is not unlike how you should be thinking about how much to wager on your first and second races, IE: editing and cover design and book layout. Do-it-yourself text and cover design and using your tenth grade English teacher as your editor, might work but it’s a real long shot and long shots rarely win in horse racing or self-publishing. If your budget is extremely limited or you do not see your potential market extending beyond your circle of friends, it’s Ok but you are really limiting the probability of commercial success. No matter how tight your budget you should at least invest in an editorial analysis. It’s less than two hundred dollars and you get that money back if you go forward with additional editorial services. This analysis will give you an unbiased second opinion as to the potential marketability of your book. (For additional info on editorial analysis( click here). Your investment in a professionally designed book cover and text layout is also very reasonable; in most cases only $500(Click here for details). The self-publisher equivalent of winning the Daily Double is to not overpay for either your editing or cover design and text layout. A $3000 cover design is not ten times better then a $300 one nor is 10 cents per word editing ten times better than a 1 cent per word. Anyone who says anything to the contrary is pulling your leg. Do your homework. Buy smart.

The next two races, I would have probably bet, and lost on a long shot in the third and bet and won a couple dollars on a hunch horse in the 4th. I would have also been out of the money in the first leg of the Pick 6 but still alive to win the consolation with 5 out of 6. With the way I bet, this part of the day is usually played pretty conservatively so I have at least half my money left for the final four or five races and a live ticket for the Pick 6. Betting two year old untested horses, like the third and fourth races yesterday, is usually not the key to a successful day. To the self-publisher, this is the printing portion of the race day. You should probably only spend about 25% of your budget on actual books. This might sound strange, coming from a printer, but my goal is not to fill your closet with books, like many printers, but to get you to the point where you are reprinting your book. It is rare that I recommend anyone print more than 1,000 copies on a first printing. At 1,000 copies, you are off the digital (some of you know it as POD) press and onto a “grownup” offset press. Your unit cost is not as good as 3,000 or 5,000 copies but workable with most trade book selling discount plans. If you are even the slightest bit confident in the sales potential of your book, 1,000 copies should not be too many to start with, provided you spent the money on editing and cover design. This leaves 50% of your budget for the “Feature Races” or the marketing part of your project.

This is where it’s important to mix it up a bit. You have half your money left, some good races ahead and all sorts of exotic bets available to be played or not played, depending on how lucky you feel. It is almost never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, in horse racing or self-publishing. You can have a centerpiece program/horse if you find something you really think is going to work, and build upon it. In racing it would be as if you REALLY liked a horse in a race and played it to win and betting all the horses to finish second (Exacta or Quinella) so the one-two bet would pay more than the winner alone. There can be a problem with this, though. If there are too many horses in the race or the odds on your horse are low, you can end up winning the bet but lose money overall. You have to constantly be aware of the odds. A perfect example of a center piece program for the self-publisher is a good website. A website alone is not going to produce much of a return by itself, but when combined with other programs, can be a winner. Always keep in mind, if there was the “perfect” marketing program for the self-publisher to sell books, we would all already know about it. There is none. Virtually all of the programs on the market amount to little more than exotic wagers at the racetrack with few, if any, guarantee. At the end of the day, a combination of bets would have had me ahead for the day. I missed the “big ones”, including the Pick-6, but had a good time and finished with almost the same amount of money in my pocket as when I started. I am ready to go back to the track again tomorrow. The self-publishing equivalent of my day at the races would be that you published your book, sold some copies and had the confidence to either write a second book or get even more serious about marketing the current title.

Had I bet everything in my pocket on the favorite in the first race, I would have lost. Had I gone to the ATM machine after that, withdrew all the money in my account and bet on the favorite in the second race, I would have been a big loser. Remember, whether self-publishing or going to the track, there are no “sure things”. Bet with your head, not over it….And I mean it!

Final Note: Beware of the Tout – If I give ten different people, ten different “winners” in a 10 horse race, I am guaranteed to have made one of them a winner. Giving out winners in that fashion does not make me a great handicapper. The self-publishing world is full of “Touts”, especially on the marketing end of the process. Watch out for them.

Thinking of publishing with one of those online Print on Demand publishers? Get an insiders look at the POD, Vanity and Subsidy Press industry by listening to my new PodCast show on Publishing Basics Radio where weekly I help you navigate the self publishing minefield. www.WBJBRadio.com

Thinking of publishing with one of those online Print on Demand publishers? Get an insiders look at the POD, Vanity and Subsidy Press industry by listening to my new PodCast show on Publishing Basics Radio where weekly I help you navigate the self publishing minefield. www.WBJBRadio.com

Last 5 posts by Ron Pramschufer

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• What are the steps are involved in Self-Publishing a book? - March 24th, 2008
• Do you know any good book printers? - February 11th, 2008
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