The Answer

People who write books and then publish them independently of the corporate publishing industry believe they are at a disadvantage. I have been thinking about this long and hard and gathering information, and I have come to the conclusion that this is true, but only in part and in only one area of the industry. Let me en numerate what I have concluded.

First let me quote a very smart man who says that the first mistake people make when thinking about indie books is confusing content with delivery. Content is not really the problem, except when we make it one. Indie books don't look any different from corporate books. Their content runs the gamut from good to bad.. but so do books from the mainstream. There is in essence nothing to tell you whether a book was published by a corporate publisher or the guy next door through a POD.

So what is the problem with delivery? Two things:

1. Libraries and bookstores get their books through distributors who buy books in great quantities at a discount.
2. Distributors offer bookstores a buy back policy.

That is the only difference between a POD book and one from a traditional publishing model. It's a big barrier, but once we understand these two issues, perhaps we can come up with solutions. Keep reading.

It is not true, as many indie authors believe, that indie authors are at a disadvantage compared to authors on contract to corporate publishers when it comes to marketing their books. Only a tiny fraction of those authors get any help with marketing their books beyond inclusion in a catalog. Only the blockbusters get anything special. The rest of the authors have to figure out how to tell the world about their books same as do we indie authors.

Another advantage they do have is one that we can acquire for ourselves, and that is know how when it comes to getting galleys out to Library Journal and other important reviewers before the book goes to final printing. That's where a group like the Independent Authors Guild comes in and provides the ultimate guide to publishing one's book. The POD won't do it.. mine didn't. You can't trust them to act much more like a publisher than a printer, so the profession has to take this on.

Speaking of PODs... don't forget you can just get your book printed in whatever quantity you need and can afford. There's something to said for this. The advantage of of a Print On Demand company is that your initial investment can be relatively small. The disadvantage is that if you need lots and lots of books, you will pay more than you might if you have a print run done.

This brings us back to the two delivery issues cited above. In order to get into a distribution company's catalog and author will need to be prepared to cough up a lot of copies. And the author may need to be willing to buy back books that don't sell.

A couple more things. I had a revelation recently about library purchases of self-published books. I fell into the trap of assuming librarians know about indie books. Oddly, they don't. In the recent case, I discovered that the librarian turning down my book for their collection had never heard of indie or alternative publishing. The only books that authors had handed her were genuinely not suitable for their collection. Some were poorly produced, others were an individual's idea of what the world needs to read, and none of them were what I would describe as perfectly good, wide appeal books that just did not make it into print in the traditional way. Once I gave her a list of the hundreds of books that won Independent Publishing Book Awards and she saw the depth and breadth of the titles, her whole perspective changed.

We indie authors spend too much time assuming people will reject us and our books because we are not Jackie Collins or Tom Clancy. Very few authors are either one of those two or one of the ilk. But those less blockbuster books still get into libraries and bookstores. Why? Again because they have tapped into distribution. That is the only thing we need to worry about, the only real problem we need to overcome.

The good news is that while libraries remain important, bookstores are losing in the competition with Internet booksellers, not just the Aamzons and Barnes and Nobles but the little specialized ebook sellers too. And that's where we are at no disadvantage compared with the bulk of the mainstream published books. One product page on Aamazon is the same as any other. There is no shelf.

I said I had the answer.. I did not say I know how to put this answer to the test. But the group I helped set up last week, the group to analyze all the opportunities out there to market our books, is in existence specifically to batter down those walls. We will find out what it will take to breach the wall, then we will give you cover as you storm the breaches. Join us... but be ready to work.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiebookmarketing/

No amount of hand-wringing will solve this problem. We have to get down to the basic issues and find ways to make those tools and resources our own. Cracking this nut now will be much to our advantage. The corporate publishing world may well be on its last leg. It is so expensive to produce books in the quantities they need that they are publishing fewer and fewer and relying on more and more lowest common denominator models through the golden gateways. It will not be long before it will be what might be called cottage industry books, books with the tight following of genre fiction and producible in modest quantities, will be the bulk of what is produced. Het started building the best bandwagon we can so that when it's some of the only transportation in town, we'll know jumping on it is safe and effective.

So go for it.. click on comments below and tell me what you think.