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Doing it Yourself: The Latest Developments in eBooks and Self-Publishing | |
Speakers: Harold Henke and Jim Colt
Harold Henke created his first eBook in 1984, and subsequently led IBM's global
effort to make eBooks available worldwide to customers and employees.
Jim Colt founded Colt Reproduction Center, a pioneer in the electronic printing
business and the 87th largest quick printer in North America.
Offset printing requires a printing plate, where the image offsets from plate
to blanket and from blanket to paper. Most printing today is still offset printing
on presses of various shapes and sizes. Presses have essentially not changed
in modern times but plates have changed dramatically. Traditional negative-to-plate
costs $50 apiece (metal). Paper plates are made electrostatically. Quality control
is variable due to operator, materials, and lighting conditions. A typical minimum
run is 500 copies.
Major prepress advance is CTP: computer-to-plate (plastic plate, $10 apiece).
Lifespan is about equal to metal; 30-40,000 vs 50,000 for metal. Metal used
now only for highest end work due to dimensional stability for very tight registration.
1985 Xerox introduced Docutech; black only. Color copies now rival printing
for quality, especially for covers, except cover stock requires laminating to
protect image from scratching. Xerox and Canon own the color copy market. Recent
improvement in color copying: approaching 1200dpi, a threshhold for high quality;
scanning goes faster. Good news: cost per copy has NOT increased. Output is
reliable; jam recovery never misses or duplicates pages as may occur with the
machine collating required to assemble signatures. Copier ink is actually plastic
powder and looks better than offset printing due to density and consistency.
Docutech converts each page to a file, and color files are internally converted
to CMYK tiff files. Utterly consistent output.
Docutechs run letter, legal, and tabloid size sheets. Best sizes: half letter, letter, half legal, or 7x9...9x14 is a new sheet size available to printers. The Docutech can automatically print multiple-up; leave the setup to Colt.
Perfect Binding is the least expensive binding method, but requires 3-5 books to set up. This is a non-issue for a run of 100 or more but can virtually double the cost of a run of 5-10.
Can save $1/book by preprinting color covers for inventory since large cover runs are typically offset.
New Docutech binding option: heat tape, which is 8.5 x 11 only and intrinsic to the Docutech system. Imaged books emerge already tape-bound. Good for up to 160 pages.
Normal sheet for electronic printing is 20# bond with a harder finish than the 60# book with toothier finish typical of offset printing.Colt translates postscript files to high resolution PDF, which images very quickly. Acrobat version cutoff is 5 or higher for high quality. Some programs (Word, Word Perfect) re-image a file each time it's opened depending upon the default print driver for the machine on which it's opening. Best bet: load a Docutech or Acrobat print driver on your own machine.
Colt accepts native files but adds a small service cost for preflighting to ensure sucessful printing...but prefers receiving compressed (Zipped or Stuffed) postscript or PDF files.
Benefits of short run or on-demand electronic printing - no economic need to print and warehouse large quantities - fast turnaround - no printer costs associated with making edits - files are archived; reorders are processed simply by pulling up the file
Authors should get their own ISBN number; whoever owns that owns the book.
Cost is about $200; www.isbn.org. Printers can buy batches of ISBN numbers but
they will own them. More on this from Harold Henke below.
Costs: 2.5 cents/page (Docutech) $1/cover $1/binding 50 cents/lamination (cover)
free proofs thus, a 100 page book is approx. $5 each
Sample Approximate Cost/Run length scale if 100 books cost $8/each: - 250/$7
each - 500/$6 each - 1000/$5 each.
Printing is sold plus/minus 10% quantity (one could order 10% less than one
needs; one could order 'exact count' but that typically costs 5% more; otherwise
expect to receive and pay for 10% more than your order quantity)
Turnaround proof: 4 hours run: 1-3 days depending upon quantity
Paper Stock Use a 20# bond highly calendared sheet with a smooth surface; these
are referred to as Opaques.
Self Publishing is not vanity or subsidiary publishing (vanity = some company
publishes book for you and markets it to some degree; subsidiary = you pay some
company to publish for you but they do not market). Self publishing means the
author also undertakes all the tasks required to sell and distribute a book.
The overhead to become a publisher has dropped to a point that anyone can bear
it.
Once a real book has been self-published that means there's an ISBN number and copyright established; thus a traditional publisher may republish/market the book (many will not acccept unsolicited manuscripts but will accept unsolicited fiinished books) (Note: they don't offer better royalties regardless).
You can serve a niche market that's far too small for traditional manufacturing and distribution - author control over content - control over the marketing, etc.; most of us will never see a large NY publishing house; the smaller publishing houses likely will not be as motivated to market your book as you are; if your book is not in a publisher's catalog it will not sell.
Can serve as a defacto proof of publishability - potential to make more money than via royalties.
You become a publisher with all the attendant work - you must market
ISBN number (must register as a pubisher) - Library of Congress information for front matter - send to Libary of Congress for copyright protection - these ensure the book can make it into a public library and onto the Books in Print list
Traditional publisher advances are loans against royalties; the advance check is almost always the only money an author will see unless a book is very successfu. The publisher prints book, then sells to a wholesaler; wholesaler sells to retailers (including Amazon as well as bookstores); retailers can return books to publisher if they don't sell. Returns count against author royalties. - authors can buy back unsold books at some negotiated discounted rate - when a publisher declares a book out of print legal rights revert to an author; this may occur after 2-3 years, occasionally sooner.
Typical book sells for $35; author contract may be 10% of retail price; sometimes
it's only 10% of wholesale price; typical wholesale discount is 55%.
Sample self publish project printed at Lightning Source (an online print on
demand printer)
Determine what kind of relationship the company has with retailers.
Self Publishing Manual, Dan Poynter
Complete Guide to Self Publishing, Dan and Marilyn Ross
Colorado Independent Publishers Association web site
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