As you may or may not know my first book was published by Wiley in 2010. It’s called Attention! This Book Will Make You Money and I’m VERY proud of it. People who have read it constantly tell me how much it changed their fortunes and help them grow a strong business and brand off of creative ideas. It’s a great book.
I purposely wanted to work with a major “traditional” publisher like Wiley for my first book simply because I wanted a “real” book. You know, a “real” book is one that is hard bound and is published by a big publishing house. For me it was important because I got to have physically produced books that I could show off to friends, family and more importantly potential clients.
It worked. Attention! launched in August 2010 and I was able to immediately double my consulting fees and book more and more speaking gigs. There’s just something about having a “real” book. Or, at least there used to be. I’m afraid the stigma is almost gone.
Seth Godin knows it. So do many others. The publishing industry is changing. Once I saw how the publishing industry works from the inside, I was able to easily decide that it wasn’t for me, for a bunch of reasons.
First off, it’s too slow. My second book called “How To Catch Happy“, which I just self-published on the Kindle and eBook format (click here for Kindle book, just $.99 for now), was written, edited and published in less than a few weeks of my time, all by me. Wow. What power. This reminds me of why I got into blogging in 2001. It was because of the “instant” part of it. Sure, putting a book into a digital format and self-publishing isn’t that instant, but it’s darn close when you compare it to the traditional publishing format that can take almost a year.
Another reason I’ve decided to cut ties with my publisher and self-publish is frankly, I don’t need them. They slow me down and they don’t help me market. The only real thing they did for me was to cut me a check for writing it in advance, sort of help me edit it (my wife did most of it, true story) and print a bunch of copies and distribute it to some bookstores. I say “some” bookstores because B&N only bought a few copies of my book for about every other store as far as I could tell. Ok, sure, they did more than that (sort of) but at the end of the day I didn’t really see what I needed them for.
Anyway, I could go on and on about the past and what I’ve learned about the traditional publishing business. I won’t. I’ll just tell you that Wiley is full of good people and they helped me accomplish my goal. They still own the rights to Attention! But none of my future books, I’m a free agent again. Perhaps I’d go to the traditional publishing route in the future again if it fits my agenda. Never say never.
Think of this new world we live in now. It’s just like 2001 all over again with blogs. You can now easily create content and distribute it to millions and millions of people as a book! You can even use services like Infinity Publishing, Createspace or Lulu.com to have “real” copies made. It’s totally up to you! Isn’t this exciting?
My plan is to publish books at my own pace. I may push two up every month. Or one in three months. Some short and some long. I don’t know. The point is I can do it when I want, as often as I want.
That’s power. That’s the future.
Thanks for the kind words Jim. Best of luck with your future projects too!
Touche, Jim, touche! I've had two "real" books published by big print houses – McGraw-Hill for the first one and Wiley for the 2nd. (Bet I even had the same editor as you too.) I have to concur that having a "real" hard-copy, hard-cover, trade print book is a game changer. A friend of mine, Jane Genova, calls a book you "price of entry."
However, I also agree that the face of publishing is changing. And, when none other than Seth Godin, says so, that's worth paying attention to.
I won't say that, if I were to write a crime novel, for example, that going the traditional route wouldn't still be preferable. In our world, however, everything changes so fast. My latest book, which was published in Sept. 2009, is way out of date, at least in terms of the section of social media tools. And, I have no way to update it. None.
I'm going the self-publishing route and limited that exercise to Kindle and ebooks as well.
Publishing a book with a traditional publisher has never been one of my goals, but that's really cool that it was yours, that you've accomplished your goal, seen the process and ready to move on to self publishing.
I just finished writing "The Money Series" on my blog and just put that on a PDF and am selling it for $28 on clickbank. I remember getting the same feeling you are describing, just thinking how cool is it that I can write something that is important to me, share it on my own platform, adrianchilders.com, and keep every penny of the sale, except for what I want to share with affiliates that can help me sell the book!!
I'm so grateful for living in the 21st century!!!
good moves jim, best of luck.
2 books in one month, that's practically insane :) but that's actually the point, if you're successful in pushing yourself to go up with the challenge, then the results should be more interesting than the process that you've undertaken to finish it.
Jim:_
Thanks for confirming my recent experience with Wiley & Sons. I was thrilled to have the opportunity and experience of putting out that 'real' book… which was not a hardback, by the way. For every single reason you mention, I have thought about moving to self-publishing as well. The stigma of 'vanity press' has faded a bit with time and in today's world it is so much easier to build a brand and reputation for oneself… much more quickly than traditional publishing allows.
Thats a great idea Jim Hope is works for you. bloggingmansion.com