Why You Should Become Your Own Publisher

By Corina Koch MacLeod
@CKmacleodwriter

Are you a traditionally published author who wants to self-publish?

Carla and I have been working with a small independent publisher for 12 years, and recently we've made the decision to self-publish our educational resources. To do so, we need to become publishers.

New Series

This post is the first in a series about the steps we're taking to set up our publishing company, Don't Panic Books. These won't be "we've got it all figured out" posts, but rather, "this is what we're trying" posts. So, if you're on the fence about self-publishing, do stick around and watch our trials and triumphs.

Why Self-publish?

Why did we decide to strike out on our own? There are many reasons. Here are a few of them:

• According to The Guardian, traditional publishing is no longer sustainable.
• It's time to move from print to digital. Print costs and shipping costs have skyrocketed. We can offer teachers (our audience) our resources at a lower cost if we can provide digital resources and resources they can print on an as-needs basis. 
• Removing shipping and printing from the equation means we may be able to automate the selling process. Because we're also busy editors (hands-on time), we need to figure out where we can be hands-off. 
• Teachers are looking for ways to incorporate tech literacy into their teaching. Our interactive resources will make it easy for them to do so. There are many good reasons why going digital can help students learn. 
• There is a move in self-publishing toward "going direct"—selling from your website instead of relying solely on a publisher or distributor, such as Amazon. This is especially true if you have an established audience. Now is a great time to give that a try. 
• Author royalties for traditional publishing are typically low (8–15%), compared with self-publishing royalties (35–80%). Having said that... 
• We don't have much to lose. These resources have been successful for 12 years. We've had a good run with them, and they owe us nothing.

Check Your Rights

We were able to stop the presses, so to speak, because we hold all rights to our books. We've realized that this arrangement with our traditional publisher has been rather atypical.

Many authors would like to take back their books from their publishers but can't because the publishers hold the rights. Check your publishing contract. Some authors can get their rights back after a period of time. You may be one of them.

First Steps

In The $100 Start Up, author Chris Gillebeau writes:

"To start a business, you need three things: a product or service, a group of people willing to pay for it, and a way to get paid. Everything else is completely optional."

We have our product—Don't Panic Interactive: On-the Go Practice for the OSSLT—so we started our publishing company by devising a way to showcase it. In our next post, I’ll share the first step we took, and I’ll clarify a few things so you don’t run into the snags that we did.

Authors have been moving from print to digital and from tradpub to selfpub in waves since 2010. Are you a traditionally published author who is thinking about making the leap to self-publishing? What is the first step you’ll take to set up your publishing company?

Image by Bernard Goldbach