If you publish your book yourself, you have sole control over it - but you have to foot the bill alone, writes Rosita Boland
Everyone has a book in them. That's the hoary old truism which every publisher must dread hearing. The truth is more like: everyone might well have a book in them, but in the majority of cases, that's where those books are better left.
The thing is, not all publishers get it right when deciding what they will and won't publish. Roddy Doyle famously self-published The Commitments when he failed to get anyone interested in it. There are large numbers of people out there taking creative writing classes, and publishing companies still receive big postbags of unsolicited manuscripts every week. Given all this, it's unsurprising that some people turn to other methods of publishing when they have no success with mainstream publishers.
There are two types of non-commercial publishing. One is vanity publishing, which tends to be heavily advertised in certain British weekend papers.
Primarily aimed at poets, vanity publishers ask you for large sums of money and deliver in return books that are usually shoddily produced, unedited, and badly proof-read. Also, you have to do the publicity and distribution yourself: it's an unenviable task for a genre such as poetry which is already a very crowded market.
Getting a reputable media organisation to review a vanity-published book is virtually impossible, when there are such huge numbers of books published by mainstream publishers that are also trying to get reviewed.
Thankfully, vanity publishing has probably had its day. With increasing numbers of people becoming computer literate, it's relatively easy to produce small numbers of professional-looking publications that you can distribute among family and friends. It's also much cheaper.
The other option people are exploring now is self-publishing. This gives the author sole control of how the book is produced and distributed. You pay the printers, of course - the bill can be hefty and the profit margins tiny.
The maxim in publishing is that the more copies you print, the cheaper the price per copy. Of course, you then have to sell almost all those books to break even - and all of them to make even a small profit. Is it worth it?
Children's books
Husband and wife John Gallagher and Eithne Diamond both have day jobs; Gallagher is a communications consultant and Diamond works in the health service. In September, they published eight illustrated children's books based on the history of names, which they wrote themselves. The titles were: Aoife, Conor, Sarah, Katie, James, Chloe, Jack and Adam, and they sold for €6.99 each.
"We tried selling the idea to Irish publishers, but they only wanted one or two books," explains Gallagher. "Children's publishing is very weak in Ireland anyway, apart from O'Brien. We felt that one or two books would get lost and that we needed to create a series to make an impact. We actually wanted to do 16, and had chosen the names and written the stories but we lost our nerve, and we regret that a bit now."
Because they went to a printers with eight books, they got a good deal, ordering 2,500 copies of each title. Distributors Easons and Argosy took the books. With Gallagher's background in communications, they got a lot of publicity. They went on Rattlebag, and were featured on Sunday papers, and the Farmers Journal. About half the books have sold so far, with titles Aoife, Conor and Katie proving most popular. "They're done quite well," Gallagher reports. "People are buying them for birthdays and as baby-gifts. Easons tell us they are selling consistently. Lots of books have only three months in them and then they're gone."
Financially, was it worth it? "If we sell them all, we will have made a small profit," Gallagher says. "But it was so much work, far more work that we ever thought when we had the idea first. We're a lot wiser now. We need to think very carefully about whether it is worth it or not to do more titles. We're in the process of assessing that now."
The novelist
William Rocke's novel, All To Play For, has a golfing setting, and is located in Kerry, where the Ryder Cup is under way. He self-published it last September, under the name Rocphil Publishing (Phyllis is his wife's name). It was Rocke's third book, and the second he had self-published. Rocke worked as a journalist for many years for the Press group of newspapers, so he was already writing for a living and thus was much more clued into the world of publishing than someone unfamiliar with the trade.
"I'm a commercial writer. I've seen my byline lots of times; I didn't publish the novel because I wanted to see my name on the cover," he stresses.
Rocke's first novel, Operation Birdie, also set in the golf world, was published in 1993 by Oak Tree Press, now defunct. It sold about 2,500 copies. In 2001, Rocke co-authored a novel with the six members of the creative writing group he ran. Each person in the group wrote one chapter of Last Tango in Ibiza. When it was turned down by "all the publishers in town" they decided to self-publish 1,000 copies. They put up the money themselves, and were helped out with some local grants, which covered two-thirds of the printing cost.
They got onto The Late Late Show, the book went to a third printing, and each author made about €600 apiece. They sold it locally in their church - where they made the entire cover price back - and through Easons. The process had been so successful that Rocke decided to self-publish his own novel, All To Play For, last autumn. He paid €3,500 for 1,000 copies, which have a cover price of €10 and are distributed by Easons. How has that gone?
"I've only shifted 500 copies. The rest are still sitting in my garage. It definitely wasn't as successful as Last Tango In Ibiza," he admits. "It hasn't got the publicity. No matter how good the product is, if you don't get publicity, it won't sell." Would he do it again? "No doubt whatsoever. I'm tossing around another idea, another golf novel. The Ryder Cup will be here next year, and there surely has to be a market for golfing books then?"
Local history
Possibly the most commonly self-published books in Ireland are local histories, which are consistently popular and often sell extremely well in the area. In general, they are not attractive to a mainstream publisher as their market is limited, since the subject matter is local.
Siobhán Lynam listened to her father's stories of his early life in Mullingar for years. She decided that she wanted to help him record them. Tom Lynam (now 86) would tell her stories about his rural childhood and later life in Dublin while she taped him and then transcribed the material. She gathered stories about footing turf and butter-making, selling milk door-to-door, funerals, local customs and traditions, and then about his adulthood in Dublin.
"We did think about going to a publisher, but I thought it would be months before they came back to us. And also, I was trying to keep his storytelling style and I thought a publisher would want to make changes."
Lynam typed up and printed 12 copies of The Country Boy on her own computer and she and her father gave them as surprise Christmas gifts to the immediate family, who loved them. Friends came to hear of the project, and asked for copies.
Initially, Lynam looked into publishing 200 copies for friends and family and realised it was almost as cheap to print more. "There were about 85 pages of photographs, so that made it expensive, too."
In the end, she went ahead with printing 2,000 copies, with a cover price of €15. "It was a big jump from thinking about 200. But I really wanted to do this. Some people spend money on cars or holidays; I wanted to do this for my father, and for the family. I thought it was well worth the money."
Lynam sent a book to the Marian Finucane show and had a huge response. "There's a lot of people out there who want to tell their stories." The Country Boy has now almost sold out, and Lynam has broken even with her investment, as well as giving her father what she describes as "a new lease in life".
Non-fiction
James Morrissey's day job is director of Fleishman-Hilliard Saunders, a PR company. Prior to this, he was a founder director of the Sunday Business Post, and had also worked as a journalist with Independent newspapers. In December, Morrissey self-published A History of the Fastnet Lighthouse; the third book he has published himself, under the name Crannóg Books. "I named it after a small little place in the heart of Connemara that's the happiest place for me in Ireland."
His first book was Inishbofin, in 1987. "When I was researching and writing the book on Inishbofin, there was little or no interest from publishers. So I decided to do it myself."
The Fastnet book, which is hardback and has photographs by Michael MacSweeney, sold out before Christmas. Morrissey had published 2,500 copies, at €28, and the printing bill was €25,000. "It'll yield a small profit, but for me the pleasure is the profit," Morrissey explains. "But I would endeavour to ensure no project I undertook lost money."
He's thinking about reprinting in a smaller, paperback format. A background in journalism and PR means that Morrissey had a thorough grasp on the mechanics of publishing his own book.
"I was a journalist for 20 years, so I know how to go about researching something. I had access to all the skills I needed - a brilliant designer, and a photographer. And if I don't know how to promote something, then I shouldn't be in my current job!"
Morrissey went on the Marian Finucane radio show and the book sold out the same day. "Marian Finucane is the queen of book shifters in this country."
He was confident to self-publish because he understood the industry thoroughly. "I wouldn't recommend self-publishing to anyone. I would recommend that most people with a book should go and talk to a publisher. If they really want to do it themselves, they should talk to someone first who has already self-published. The biggest problem people have who want to publish a book themselves is that they think their book will change the world."
