Self-Publishing WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE: A Writer's Odyssey

Self-Publishing Welcome to the Madhouse: Chapter Ten: Editing and Editing . . .

Chapter Ten: Editing and Editing and Editing . . .

The best laid plans crumbled to parchment dust. I had envisioned writing a weekly blog about the publishing experience of Welcome to the Madhouse with Friesen Press. Unfortunately,

I learned a lot of lessons very quickly.

One needs sleep!

If one has to work to make a living, one has to show up not looking and acting like a zombie due to LACK OF SLEEP. It is not appreciated by anyone!

Self-publishing your own book is A LOT OF WORK!

BUT it is also fun. However, the time available for blogging, when one has to get the editing and re-editing, and final editing done, becomes pretty scarce.

I do not know how many times I rewrote Welcome to the Madhouse. I do not know how many times I re-edited Welcome to the Madhouse. I believe I was almost reciting parts in my sleep. I was definitely dreaming parts of the book.

Message: If you still like your book, after the multitude of times you go over it, looking for every last typo and errant comma, it must be a damn good book! If it is not, I doubt you will get through the seemingly endless re-reading and re-editing.

OR: You can pay someone else to do it . . . if you have the funds. This is highly recommended by everyone in the business. (My quote was $2,000.00 which I could not afford). If you can find a crazy soul who will do a good job for you for free - Well! - treat them with kindness and respect, because it is a lot of work.

The price of your book depends on how many pages the book is. The more pages, the higher the cost it is to print the book and therefore the higher the MSRP - the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. With the original design of Welcome to the Madhouse, the MSRPs for both the softcover and the hardcover were too high. The paperback price was going to be around $25 and the hard cover book was going to be around $38. I was not happy with this. Who would want to pay that kind of money for a first-time, unknown author?

The solution was to decrease the font size of the print and try and design the book so there were fewer pages in the long run. The outcome was a book with 226 pages. The softcover price, given in US dollars was $14.99 and the hardcover price was $27.99 US. Friesen Press does its pricing in US dollars. Because the Canadian dollar has plummeted to an almost all-time low, the price of the book in Canadian dollars was still very high. If the Canadian dollar was par with the US dollar, as it was not long ago, the price of the book in Canadian dollars would match the US price. Just my luck that the Canadian dollar would fall to 75 cents US!

Any cuts to the selling price of the book would mean a cut to the author's percentage in royalties. It would not affect the amount that Friesen Press keeps. In order to keep the price of the book at a price that I felt was possibly acceptable to the reading public, the selling prices were brought down. For the paperback, the suggested MSRP was $16.49 US but Friesen Press would sell it in their bookstore at $13.99 US which turned out to be $18.99 CAN. Similarly, the MSRP for the hardcover was $32.99 US which Friesen Press dropped to $26.99 US for their bookstore and in Canadian dollars, that price became $35.99.

Conclusion: The Friesen Press Agreement looks good on paper and the books they produce are beautiful books. They have a great team to help you create the book you want. However, the books are expensive. In the Wholesale Online Sales Program, the author's maximum royalty is 40% and in the Direct Print Sales the author's maximum royalty is 55%. However, if the price of the book is so high, no one will pay those prices, then 40% of zero is still zero and 55% of nothing is still nothing. In order to bring the price of the book into an affordable range, the author can drop the price significantly but the only one who loses money is the author. Friesen Press still makes the same money. The author collects a lower - or much lower - royalty, depending on what price the author ultimately sets.

The books have been on sale in the Friesen Press Bookstore. No hardcovers or paperbacks have sold.

I, on the other hand, have ordered my own books at the author's discount and have been selling on my own. This is the path I would recommend to other authors. Sell off your own website or go to book fairs or conventions and sell your books there. Talk to your local bookstore and see if they will carry your books for you.

Ultimately, like most self-publishing companies, Friesen Press is in business to make money off of authors. The author pays the company money to help make the author's book and the author then buys the copies to sell to their audience. Although Friesen Press does have a Book Promotion Specialist to help YOU sell your books, they do nothing for the author in terms of promoting your book. YOU must do all of that on your own.

I am very happy with the finished product. Friesen Press has produced lovely copies of Welcome to the Madhouse, both softcover and hardcover.

But my work has just begun.