The Many Benefits of Self-Publishing

There are many good reasons why you might want to publish a book. Perhaps you would like to enhance your reputation in order to boost your career or to grow your business interests. Maybe you have corporate research to publish or you want to circulate your company’s annual report. Or perhaps you just want to supplement income. All of these goals are noble, but it could be an uphill battle for you to find a mainstream publisher willing to take a chance with your work.

Traditional publishing houses are swamped with publication requests, and unless you are a “big name” author, for most of us, the chances of being signed up by one of them are likely to be low. And even if you do get signed with a traditional publishing house, the chances of receiving any financial gain from the sale of your publication is close to zero. With the advent of the internet and eBooks, and the rise of publishing services like Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Amazon’s Print (formerly CreateSpace) and IngramSpark, self-publishing may well therefore be the best bet (and a good one at that) for you and your company to get your book out there.

Many articles on self-publishing can be found on the internet. Here are some of our favorites:

• “Academic Self Publishing”
• “Self publish better books. Reach more readers”
• “Writing an Academic Book” 
• “How to Publish a Book in 2022: A Step-By-Step Guide”

You may also be interested in reading “Choose the Best Self-Publishing Services: ALLi’s Guide to Assembling Your Tools and Your Team”. In this contribution, we aim to highlight the many benefits of self-publishing for academics, and to provide a template for getting an academic-book project published following the self-publishing route.

 

The Benefits of Self-Publishing

Self-publishing involves the publication of media (typically books) by an author without using a traditional publishing house. The self-publishing process embraces the use of eBooks and print-on-demand (POD) technology for physical-copy sales. While still in its infancy, self-publication is a fast-growing option for individuals and businesses alike that is predicted to become mainstream in the coming decades. Established authors are even turning down traditional publishers to self-publish their work. Why?

• Your have complete control over your book;
• You get to keep all the rights to your book;
• Your costs are typically low;
• For the vast majority of authors, it’s significantly more profitable than using a traditional publisher;
• Self-publishing offers a timely and relatively easy route to publication.

 

You Remain in Control of Your Book’s Content

One of the biggest positives about self-publishing is that you remain in control of your book’s content and layout, its cover design, its format, how it is distributed and the price point used to sell it. The self-publishing route therefore offers authors maximum flexibility on all aspects of the writing and publication process. By electing to self-publish you get to decide, for instance, on the length of your book. Most traditional publishers will not consider publishing a manuscript unless it features at least 35,000 words, and preferably 50,000. Yet, most businesses need far fewer words to do so. In many cases, by insisting on using a traditional publisher, a company may significantly increase their workload, because they need to add unnecessary content that does not enhance the quality of the end-product. In the worst-case scenario, it could even detract from the overall quality of the book.

As a self-publisher, you have two main ways to distribute your book. You can set up an account with an online bookseller (such as Amazon KDP, IngramSparks, Barnes and Noble Press, Kobo, Apple Books, Self-Publishing School, Reedsy or Lulu), which will generally give you the most flexibility to control your pricing and promotion when doing it yourself. Alternatively, you can go through an “aggregator”, a service that distributes your eBook for a fee or percentage of your income. One of the oldest and most reliable aggregators available is SmashWords. While many platforms allow you to publish your work as an eBook, you can also use Amazon’s KDP Print service to sell POD paperback and hardback versions of your work. While it is useful to keep your selling options open, one plus, formatting-wise, for publishing your work as an eBook is that you can use its back-matter pages (so where you’d typically put the author’s note and acknowledgements) to post hyperlinks that promote your other books, your website and your social media accounts. 

A self-publishing author has all the formatting bases covered. But what about the price point? Well, in this respect you have a big advantage over those selling academic books through a traditional publisher. This is because you can set a lower price for your book than the traditional publishers can afford to set to become profitable. Amazon KDP has a select program which gives authors a promotional option for giving away their books for free on occasion. A self-publishing author selling their eBook through Amazon can list it as free to customers for five days per quarter, during which you can get the word out through social media channels for customers to take a no-risk chance on their book. As the Alliance of Independent Authors (2021) says, “the biggest problem today’s author faces is obscurity and [should] welcome any tool that help[s] readers find their way to their book” (Section 5, Copyright for Authors: Your Questions Answered).

Perhaps one of the most important advantages of self-publishing for academics is that some platforms, such as Amazon KDP, allow an author to re-edit a book without limits. This option provides you with an easy and quick way to remove typos, add footnotes or update figures, references or the text in a paragraph, or even a whole chapter, and as many times as you like. In the fast changing world of academic research, it is a significant plus for an author to be able to remain at the cutting edge of his or her field of study by using a “real-time” editing service like this; something that is impossible to do with a book published using a traditional publishing house.

 

The Costs Associated With Self-Publishing are Usually low

Many self-publishing platforms charge fees to publish a book. But it can, for instance, only cost you $110 to upload an eBook and purchase its ISBN through IngramSpark and as little as ~$4 to print and ship a single copy to a customer. With Kindle KDP, which is the world's largest self-publishing platform, the deal is even sweeter since it has no upfront fees for publishing in all formats. Kindle even provides your book’s ISBN free of charge. No matter which eBook/POD platform you choose, the costs associated with their using services stack up well against the cost of publishing the same book via the traditional route (and typically by as much as $XXXX).

One of the most important steps you can take when writing a book is to hire a professional editor. There are few things more damaging to book sales than negative reviews highlighting typos, grammatical errors and formatting issues that you missed before publication. Editing services relevant to book authors include line-editing, which focuses on ensuring your ideas smoothly transition from one section to the next, aren’t repetitive, and convey your general argument as effectively as possible; copyediting, which focuses on sentence-level issues related to grammar, punctuation, style, tone, and flow; typesetting, which is required to format a book prior to its submission to the publisher or self-publisher, and proofreading, which involves the final edit of a book manuscript to ensure that it is devoid of typos. All of these editing stages can be managed for you by a professional developmental editor, which is a great investment for any author since they can also help with the design and branding of your book. The cost of a developmental editor can vary dramatically based on the length of the book and the number of rounds of revisions you’d like to make before publishing.

 

Own All the Rights to Your Book

By self-publishing, you own the copyright to your book. While you must always be on the lookout for unscrupulous publishers, generally speaking, no reputable self-publishing platform will ask you to transfer your book’s copyright to them. Contrast that with traditional publishing houses, where you may be expected to transfer those rights as part of the agreement you struck with them to publish your book. In this situation, a traditional publisher would own the printing rights, and if they lose interest in your book you cannot print it unless you purchase those rights back; there is no guarantee that a traditional publisher will return those rights to you.

Books made on doctoral research often have niche audiences. However, those audiences tend to be passionate about the topic and likely to find any and all material surrounding it. While a traditional publisher might see the potential of only selling 500 to 1000 books as not worth the time and effort of continuing to print and market the book. A self-published book that sells 1000 copies can generate a substantial revenue stream for the author. It’s always good to remain in control of your content and your ideas.

 

Self-Publishing Can be Highly Profitable (Relatively Speaking)

On a book-by-book basis, self-publishing is a clear winner when it comes to author income. This is because the author receives a greater royalty share for a self-published book than they would have gotten from a traditional publisher. That income also comes every month and not only every six months, as it usually does from traditional publishing houses. If you are self-published you also don’t have to pay 15% of your income to an agent.

If you are lucky, a traditional publisher might finance your book project, but will typically only offer you 5% to 25% royalty in return. Traditional publishers do not want to pay to market your book, but they will still take their cut from each book sold. The Amazon KDP platform, by contrast, sets eBook royalties at up to 70% of the retail price for authors selling books in the United States, Canada, the U.K., India, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and more. Amazon KDP offers a 60% royalty rate of the list price on paperbacks sold on their marketplaces (minus printing costs). Yes, academic books are very niche-audience oriented. By publishing one you are not going to become a New York Times best seller. That doesn't mean you will not be able to find a strong audience, though. It just means that the audience will buy thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of copies rather than ten times that amount. Profit is, of course, usually not the primary goal of publishing an academic book, but being paid handsomely for every one of those tens of thousands of copies sold is still a noteworthy reward.

 

Self-Publication: A Timely and Easy Route for Publishing

“Speed and ease” are two words that readily come to mind when extolling the virtues of self-publishing. It is, for instance, a major advantage that the self-publishing route allows an academic to get his or her ideas out there relatively quickly and on their own timeline. It can take as little as five minutes to publish a book on Amazon KDP and that book will appear on Kindle stores worldwide in just three days. Traditional publishing takes a lot longer - typically ~9 to 18 months, and as a result, research can often become stale by the time it reaches the printer. There's no time like the present! Strike while the iron is hot! Put another way, you cannot be at the cutting edge of your field of research if your book doesn't come out until a year (or two) after you finish writing it. In short, if you self-publish, your book comes out when you think it is ready, and when you need it to be out there. 

Similarly, when you self-publish, you don’t have to go through as many hoops as you do with traditional publishing. Traditional publishers won’t read your manuscript to decide whether or not they want to publish it. You must first develop a proposal, or sometimes you have to hire an agent and must develop a proposal for the agent first and then another proposal for the publisher, that the agent will submit on.

your behalf. Even after you have done all that, the publisher may still demand that you make substantial revisions to your book before it goes to press. In short, when you self-publish it is up to you to decide whether or not the book is worthy of publication and/or ready for publication. With traditional publishers, there are many gatekeepers who must be appeased before your book can be printed.

 

A Brief Guide to Self-Publishing for Academics

Self-published books will reach different audiences to those that a conventional scientific journal article will reach. People googling around for information or searching on Amazon.com are not also necessarily the same people searching university library catalogs. We usually recommend that the maximum-benefit approach is to publish a "snippet" of your research in a journal article, but then cite your self-published book as one of your sources. You get the clout and credibility of peer review for the article, but you haven't given away the "whole story" for free. The article then serves as an advertisement for the book as well, hopefully driving sales that actually pay you for your ideas. We urge our clients to prepare both simultaneously so that an article release happens very shortly on the heels of a book publication.

 

Choose Your Book Topic

When planning the content of a book, a first-time academic author often wants to make it about anything and everything they know. This is a mistake, and it negatively impacts book sales. A good rule of thumb is that if you can’t summarize your book in a few words, you are probably trying to cover too much.

 

Write Your Book or Get Someone to Do it for you!

Do you have great research but simply don’t have the time to convert it into something more readable? Dissertations are written to demonstrate to a group of four or five professors that the author of the dissertation is deserving of the title, “Doctor.” Dissertations are NOT written as compelling media for conveying cutting-edge research to an interested audience. For that, you need to turn your dissertation into a book. If you have the time, you should absolutely consider doing this yourself. Being intimately involved in the re-writing of the research can be a joyful experience for many. 

Most recent graduates, however, simply don’t have the time or the motivation to go back through that material again. Getting through the doctoral journey can be taxing and leaves many a grad student burned out at the end of the process. Don’t let that prevent your research from seeing the light of day!!! In the fast-paced world we live in, your research will likely be relevant for the next 3 to 7 years, and the clock has already started. You want to capitalize on the relevance of your research by getting it out into the world as quickly as possible. So if you can’t write your book, find someone (like PhD Advantage) who can!

 

Hire a Great Editor!

A professional editor is invaluable to a self-publisher. They can be used to provide an independent check for the flow, clarity, and overall coherence of your book, and they can make sure that your book is well written and free of errors. A developmental editor can coach you through the process of organizing your ideas and assist you in developing your outline as you plan out the book. Editors are valuable at every stage of the process. Even if you hire someone (like PhD Advantage) to convert your dissertation into a book for you, it will be necessary to get a separate editor as well so that you can be sure your manuscript flows well and is devoid of error. All of our dissertation-to-book conversion services include editing by a second editor from our team, since it is impossible to edit your own writing. It is also useful to get feedback on your book from colleagues and friends before you publish your work. 

 

Typesetting and Cover Design

Typesetting and cover design are an important part of the publication process. This is one of the few things a traditional publisher does for you (in exchange for a lion’s share of the royalties). As a result, if you are going to self-publish, you need to find someone (like PhD Advantage) that can take care of the typesetting and cover design process as well. There are also a variety of self-publishers out there who do this work as part of their package of services.

While the adage “never judge a book by its cover” remains true, that adage exists because that is precisely what most people do. Most people in the bookstore decide whether or not they are going to pick up a book up by what the cover looks like and then they decide whether or not they are going to open it based on what’s on the back cover. A compelling synopsis, celebrity endorsements (if you can get them) and/or a catchy author bio can all be important components of a book’s back cover; it’s often the first thing a potential buyer will actually read. Getting professional help in developing the cover is an absolute must for any self-published author.

 

Graphic Design

If your book contains photographs, illustrations, maps, tables and/or figures then these need to be drafted professionally. As with editing, typesetting and cover design, it’s also important to hire a professional (like PhD Advantage) that can ensure that your book’s graphics are both eye-catching and formatted consistently.

 

How to Distribute Your Book

As a self-publisher, you have two main ways to distribute your book. You can set up an account with an online bookseller (such as Amazon KDP, IngramSparks, Barnes and Noble Press, Kobo, Apple Books, Self-Publishing School, Reedsy or Lulu), which will generally give you the most flexibility to control your pricing and promotion when doing it yourself. Alternatively, you can go through an “aggregator”, a service that distributes your eBook for a fee or percentage of your income. One of the oldest, and most reliable, aggregators available is SmashWords. Amazon KDP offers a much higher royalty rate, if you publish with them exclusively under their KDP Select service. The question therefore becomes whether or not you think you’d sell substantially more copies by listing your book in multiple places, or if you’d sell around the same amount if you only sold them through Amazon. Every author approaches that question differently; we’ve found the majority of self-published authors opt, however, for exclusive distribution through Amazon.

 

Marketing and Price Point

How do you price your book? At PhD|Advantage we pride ourselves in turning dense academic prose into engaging and compelling writing. We do not specialize in Marketing. There are many firms out there that do, and we’d be happy to refer you to them. If you’re planning on going it alone, we’d recommend you at least do a little online research on how best to “launch” your book, as you only get to launch it once. We’d also recommend that you look at the other books for sale that are most closely related to yours. That can be a good starting point for setting your price.