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It’s always a very heartening experience for me to hear or
meet self-published authors gathered in one place at a particular time, whether
that space is face to face, or listening to the experiences of so many Irish
self-published authors on Tuesday afternoon on Joe Duffy’s national Liveline
programme on RTE. You can find the podcast of the full programme here. It’s not
too often that a national broadcast station will hand a whole 75 minutes over
to the subject of self-publishing and books. I think we are pretty lucky here
in Ireland. We have a vast amount of local and community radio stations, a
vibrant culture very open and aware of all fields of the arts. There are a vast
variety of subjects highlighted at local and provincial level regularly permeating
all the way through all national levels of the broadcasting airwaves.
I said last week – in previewing Joe Duffy’s programme on
self-publishing – that this was the second run up to Christmas where he has
chosen to do this feature, but I was reminded by someone today that it is in
fact the third year. I should also point out Tuesday’s Liveline programme, which
goes out 5 days a week between 1.45pm and 3pm in Ireland on RTE Radio 1, was
just one day this week when Duffy will do a great deal for all authors and
publishers throughout the Irish publishing and bookselling industries, as well
as many areas in the world of arts.
For now, I want to concentrate on Tuesday’s programme. It
was nice to hear a few familiar voices and names getting some attention on the
airwaves – for them – they deserve it with a creative product of sometimes many
months and years.
I’m not going to name check the 20 or so authors who got on
air with Joe Duffy and shared their wonderful experiences of writing a
self-publishing, because to comment or single out a few would be unfair on the
many others authors who didn’t manage to get any airtime on a very packed
schedule. I have listed all the authors who submitted their books for inclusion
on the Liveline programme at the end of this piece.
For a few authors, their self-published book may be the only
one they will ever publish, and they will be content with that. For many,
writing and publishing books is not just a casual passion, and I was actually
surprised how many said in the programme that they were on their second, third
and fourth self-published books. The self-publishers I worked with when I first
started out a few years ago as a publishing consultant is very different to the
self-publishers of today. While today’s self-publisher may still have a lot to
learn about the publishing industry as a whole, what remains important to them
is how to express their story and share it with readers. It is admirable they
should hold that core and heartfelt philosophy (I wish more publishing houses
understood it), but ultimately, self-publishing is a part of the greater
industry, and you must understand the core ways the business wheels turn.
In light of that, I was heartened to hear on Liveline that
self-published authors – certainly in Ireland and the UK – are becoming a much
more discerning community. It’s something I have steadily found over the past
year to eighteen months. There was a time when I had to ask authors to think long
and hard about self-publishing – and consider all the reasons why they were
doing it – but now, I’ve authors contacting me saying that they have decided
not to self-publish a printed book. Instead, self-published authors are
entering self-publishing via digital publishing through platforms like Kindle
and Smashwords. Two years ago I was cautioning authors that ‘perhaps’ Kindle
was the wisest and safest way to dip their feet in the publishing waters. In
simple terms, I still believe Kindle publishing is one step back from true or
print self-publishing. It’s an area right now where too many lines of
distinction are blurred. True self-publishing and using a POD service, as well
as digital and print publishing, should only make an author nervous or unsure
if they do not understand the critical differences between those paths. None of
those paths should be confused because they are all distinct paths in their own
right. This article is not the one to tackle those great differences. I’ve
spoken at great length here about what true self-publishing is, as well as
warning authors not to confuse digital publishing with self-publishing. Many
large publishing houses utilise the technology of digital publishing – it is
not a sole facet or path exercised by self-publishers, though sometimes you could
be forgiven for believing that.
I want to focus on the 79 authors who submitted their
self-published books to Joe Duffy’s Liveline programme. Sadly, but
understandably, Joe only got to speak on air to less than a quarter of the
authors who submitted books in to his researchers. For that reason I spent a
little time taking a look at all the self-published submissions over the past
couple of evenings with the purpose of understanding a little of what path
those authors took to seeing their books published, and crucially, I wanted to
see if it tallied with my own experience of authors I have worked with as a
consultant from many places and circumstances. I also wanted to understand the
Irish experience in a wider context globally. I don’t proffer anything below as
definitive statistics on self-publishing everywhere, but I do believe it offers
a valuable and general insight into how self-published authors think, right now,
as 2011 draws to a close, and perhaps the philosophy and attitude of
self-published authors well into 2012.
If there was one single thing that struck me about the 79
authors featured from the Liveline 2011 feature, it was how many of the authors
fell under the commercial radar. The most important thing a self-published
author needs is to have their book featured, listed, stocked in as many venues
and platforms as possible. I won’t pretend I wasn’t a little disappointed in
this respect when I checked out a lot of the books. Of the 79 books, all of
them were ‘eventually’ found somewhere, online with a search of retailers, listed
on a POD publisher’s bookshop, or tucked away in a provincial paper, and quite
a few were resigned to just the author’s site. Three of the 79 books I found in
two local bookstores. Not bad for self-published books! However, 31 of those 79
books showed as ‘unknown’ publisher and had no representation on almost all of
the online retail sites – major as well as independents. That means the author
did not really consider online sales, and instead, most likely chose a local
printer and concentrated on family, friends and their local community. And that’s okay if that was their aspiration
for their book. In fact, one of the authors interviewed was one of those
authors. Yet, the author sold (according to his words – and some national and
local coverage verifies this) that almost 15,000 books have been sold. This was
one of the two books I found in my local bookshop. This is the critical area of
self-publishing that is difficult to monitor – a local book with massive sales.
It’s an area a large publisher’s marketing department struggles with. Those 31
are unknown, simply because they didn’t show up in any sales database I looked
in, didn’t choose to go with a large POD company like AuthorHouse, or any ASI
company. The author didn’t publish with any of the big or small POD services,
but instead choose to use localised printers and take all of the marketing on
themselves.
Over the past ten years, I’ve heard a lot of figures thrown
out about how self-published books, on average, and at best, sell between 50 –
200 copies. I’m not disputing those figures. My second and third self-published
books fell within those figures after the first print run in the 1990’s. But
those figures and estimates are based on analysis now on services like
CreateSpace, Lulu, Wordclay, Café Press, and other such companies, but
self-published books don’t dance to the industry tune of sales monitoring
because sales are generated at local level, sometimes with books without ISBN’s
and POS barcodes, outside of the print on demand system, sold in independent
shops not monitored by publishing’s big brother. There is a false perception
that every shop in every part of the world is run like Target or WalMart in New
York, or Eason in Ireland. Most authors live in places like Clonmelon, Como
Springs, Chudovo and Chang Jiang. They don’t do WalMart or anything like it,
and getting books people want moves them toward an online source. A word search
placed online – when used in the right place - is more efficient sometimes than
a journey or a phone call.
Let’s take a look at some figures:
SUMMARY
|
TOTAL
|
Unknown
|
31
|
Self-Imprint
|
21
|
Original
Writing
|
7
|
CreateSpace
|
4
|
Lulu
|
4
|
BookLocker.com
|
2
|
ePrint
|
2
|
The
Varsity Press
|
2
|
Booksurge
|
1
|
iUniverse
|
1
|
Matador
|
1
|
Paragon
Publishing
|
1
|
Pen
Press Uk
|
1
|
The
Poet's Press
|
1
|
79
|
As you can see, 31 went direct to a printer and did not used
a recognised POD publisher or assisted/vanity publisher, choosing a more ‘true-self-publishing’
option. A number of the books I checked of this group did not have an ISBN
number, suggesting any sales would have been much localised. What is clear to
me is that what we perceived as old-style ‘vanity publishers’ have long gone –
joined the POD subsidy group, or reverted back to what they always were –
printers! The second group of 21 are our authors who went the full self-publish
route – creating an imprint of their own, their company or organisation and
using marketing strategies of their own using what skills were available to
them, or employing professional book market and PR services.
The next group is interesting – Original Writing, a
self-publishing service based in Smithfield, Dublin. Ireland over the past few
years has developed a number of self-publishing services, North and South. I’d
say we now have about six serious contenders, but Original Writing has grown
and developed to clearly become the service company of choice by Irish authors.
I reviewed them about 2 – 3 years ago and it looks like about time I revisited
that review. Clearly, authors feel they are doing a lot of things right when it
comes to their books.
The DIY self-publishing option with companies like
CreateSpace and Lulu also provides a strong option for many authors, and both
of those companies are reflected in the Self-Publishing Index rankings. ePrint
is another Irish printer and self-publishing service.
The Varsity Press is a company I need to look at more
closely, and again, even in a small country like Ireland, high calibre
companies like BookLocker, Matador and Pen Press register. But the most interesting
showing on the above chart is iUniverse – one of the older stalwarts of
self-publishing services bought up by self-publishing commercial giant, AuthorSolutions
Services. It’s interesting that one of
the older brands should outshine services like AuthorHouse and Xlibris. I’m not
sure whether that says more about iUniverse and what is offered or branding
within the self-publishing community.
What would be even more enlightening is a snapshot such as
the above in the UK and USA to validate my general findings, but I’d suggest we
would need at least 1000 UK authors and 10,000 USA authors to reach the same
conclusions. I’d proffer that UK authors might use POD/assisted services a
little more than Irish authors, but that such services would be used a lot more
in the USA – simply because there is a lot more diversity of choice than this
side of the pond.
For now – the roll call of Ireland’s self-published authors
who took part in Joe Duffy’s Liveline show on Tuesday:
| TITLE AND AUTHOR | SOURCE |
| Recession busters' business bible By Rory & Gerry Carron | Unknown |
| The Season by Mike Geoghegan | Original Writing |
| Home City by Nuala Lyons | BookLocker.com |
| A very different county by Robert Mulhern | Self-Imprint-Imprint |
| The Red carpet by Fran O'Brien | Unknown |
| Revive the spirit 'Poetry & Art of our time' by Michael McDonald | Unknown |
| Bankrupted by Brian O'Sullivan | Unknown |
| Negligent behaviour by Josepha Madigan | CreateSpace |
| Under the Avalanche by Anne McCabe | The Varsity Press |
| The dirty islanders by Dee Throwaway | Original Writing |
| A deadly greed by Adeline Bolton | BookLocker.com |
| The best laid schemes by Eugene Owens | Self-Imprint |
| The Heron's Flood by Evelyn Walsh | CreateSpace |
| Poppy's birthday Tea Party by Jillian Stout | Unknown |
| March away my brothers by Brendan MacQuale | Unknown |
| Murder in a sleepy town by Anne Crosse | Lulu |
| Xceptionalize: Success secrets for students by Kevin Kelly | Self-Imprint |
| The James Connolly story By Sean Farrell | Unknown |
| Natural health through wiser living by Mary T. Keane | Unknown |
| Earth angels are everywhere are you one? By Dolores Keaveney | Self-Imprint |
| The Rattler Mickey Byrne by Michael Dundon and The Byrne family | Unknown |
| Sabrehilt by Maxwell McCann | CreateSpace |
| Cranium Kid (The boy of the head) by David Byrne & Natalie McGlynn | Self-Imprint |
| Under Connemara skies Towards light by Martina Goggin | Unknown |
| Let's read a story by Jerry Mulvihill | Original Writing |
| The Baron & Rosa by Baroness Rosa Kende | Original Writing |
| A Cat's Soliloquy learning Japanese through poetry by Mitsue Jimi | Original Writing |
| It wasn't me The story of Pollux and Castor by Jill Ferreira | Unknown |
| England is perfectly still by Trevor Carolan | Pen Press UK |
| Free Spirits Irish travellers and Irish Traditional Music by Tommy Fegan & Oliver O'Connell | Self-Imprint |
| Wise & Witty Words of Wonder by Don Kelly | Unknown |
| Fat and Fed up No More! 7 steps to permanent Natural weight loss by Catherine Hassett | Self-Imprint |
| Open to love by Norah Clifford Kelly | Unknown |
| Northside 117 Views of The Liffey Bridges, paintings By artist Tom Byrne | Unknown |
| Eggshells & Broken Dreams by J.P Rodgers | Self-Imprint |
| Daisy thinks Big by Audrey Fitzgerald | Unknown |
| Psychosilly by Alan Murphy | Self-Imprint |
| Tales of old Ireland and Australia by Ned Egan | Unknown |
| Oh! Pére Lachaise The Trials and Tribulations of Oscar Wilde by Jim Yates | Unknown |
| Shh! 'Don't Tell;' A true story of survival by Miriam Moriarty Owens | Lulu |
| Karena the Fairy trilogy by Mary McShane | iUniverse |
| No Love Here A priest's journey by Martin Gordon | Self-Imprint |
| Take it easy by Michael MacDonald | Self-Imprint |
| Singing the Blues The long walk back to happiness on Hill 16 by Paul Huggard | Unknown |
| Fifty Years behind the Counter by Kevin duffy | Self-Imprint |
| Take your Ease & Rest awhile enjoy some poetry from Renvyle by Daniel Sammon | Unknown |
| Coda Journey of a freeborn clone by G.M. Ellerbeck | Unknown |
| Sacred Messages from Sacred Ireland by Jane Donald | Self-Imprint |
| Adam's amazing adventures by Benji Bennett | Self-Imprint |
| Spirits of Wood Quay by Geraldine O'Connell Cusack | Booksurge |
| My great sporting memories from local Club to Olympic Games by Lorcan O'Rourke | Unknown |
| Kembali Return of the mystic by Jan Taki | Self-Imprint |
| The Adventures of Pippy & Dippy The Outside World by Jim Bartley | Self-Imprint |
| The flight of a magpie by Billy Costine | Unknown |
| Your health and welcome to it by Cathy Breslin & Dr. Garvan Browne | Original Writing |
| A harvest of memories Rural Ireland from the 30's to present times by Dick Jeffers | Unknown |
| Jack's fantastic Journey by Emmet Boyle | Lulu |
| Love to change? Then Change to love by Marian Egan | Self-Imprint |
| Collected short stories by John M. Byrne | ePrint |
| Dandelion by Audrey Shanahan | CreateSpace |
| Twisters: Short stories with a twist in the tale by David Jones | Unknown |
| Under an Irish Sky, A John Morgan novel by Darren Darker | ePrint |
| Sometimes it just happens by Carol Fitzgerald | The Varsity Press |
| The Nymph's cookbook by Adrian Boland | Self-Imprint |
| I have travelled this country, songs of Cathal McConnell compiled by Gerry O'Connor | Unknown |
| Gold Rays by Kathleen Maddy | The Poet's Press |
| Crumlin Cookies by Nancy Looney | Unknown |
| W.B. Yeats Seanad Eireann speeches 1922 28 by Michael Manning | Lulu |
| Soccer History Westport United 1911 editor Pádraig Burns | Unknown |
| Sleep with Buteyko by Patrick McKeown | Self-Imprint |
| String and Rindabytes Tales and poems on life, love and lunacy by Niall Herriott | Paragon publishing |
| Looking towards the past Topical Talks of the 60's by Myles O'Farrell compiled by Ursula O'Farrell | Unknown |
| Show me the prisoner and I'll show you a young man, a memoir by Patricia Farren | Matador |
| Snowstorm of doubt and grace by Ken & Caitriona Hume | Original Writing |
| Hy-Tuirtre Trials and Tribulations in a Ulster Kingdom by Patrick J Flynn | Unknown |
| The Ancestors within a search for soul purpose by Tom Hyde | Unknown |
| God's little Errand Boys Christian clergymen who helped the jews come home by Yanky Fachler | Unknown |
| David Norris Trial by media by Joe Jackson | Self-Imprint |
| The Lobby Bar Music Through the Windows of Union Quay, Cork by Monica McNamara | Self-Imprint |
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