David Maister’s Passion, People and Principles

post # 422 — Thursday, August 23, 2007 8:45pm — a Strategy and the Fat Smoker post

Self-Publishing: Becoming a Publisher

Last week, Adam J Fein commented in one of my self-publishing blogposts. He asked:

Are you using your primary company as the "publisher" or are you setting up a separate publishing company?  (Actually, I don’t know your corporate structure, but I have heard that LS only works with “publishers” not individual authors.)

Did you hire people to perform the services normally provided by a publisher, such as an editor, designer, or publicist?  If so, any tips on finding these professionals?  If not, why did you decide to go it alone?

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Adam, you’re right that Lightening source only deals with “publishers”, but I found out that all it takes to become a publisher is to purchase some ISBN (International Standard Book Numbers) from www.bowker.com  It cost me about $450 to get 10 numbers (just in case I want to publish books other than my own.)

I also had to get a certificate from my City Hall (Boston,MA) to let them know I would be trading as “The Spangle Press” (a sole proprietership.) It was bureaucratic, but not very time consuming. I just needed a form notarized. But it keeps the costs and income from the books separate from the consulting business, which I wanted just for clarity.

I have the best support team in the world: www.stresslimitdesign.com  They found me a great person to design the book, and I plan to split my publicity between two people – an online person to promote to bloggers (Julien Smith at http://inoveryourhead.net ) and a “real world” PR person to promote to traditional media. Mark Fortier, Fortier Public Relations (www.fortierpr.com) has been highly recommended to me – which is the ONLY way to find any professional provider, right?

Note that I would have had to hire the publicity folks anyway – publishers don’t spend money on marketing.  So, the incremental costs have been the design and editing, but I expect to earn a much higher percentage of the book’s cover price by self-publishing. I expect to “earn back” the fixed costs of setting it all up within the first month!