Difficulty of having a book published and distributed

Back? The future of books

Description:

Publishing a book the traditional way involves multiple players, mostly arranged through the publisher. Roughly, the publishing process can be split up into 7 steps:

1. Acceptance and negotiation
After the writer has written a book and found a publisher that is willing to publish his or her book, the publisher and writer will have to start negotiating on the copyright and royalty fees.
In some cases, the author and publisher will make agreements before or during the writing of the book. Often the writer will get an advance before the actual book is finished to cover costs made during the writing.
Royalties range around 10% of retail price. Advances are usually around a third of the first print run royalties. Obviously, these numbers vary greatly per writer.

2. Editorial, Design, Sales and Marketing stages
Editors will edit the book, designers will take care of layout and the marketing department will set up for the marketing and sales of the book.

3. Editorial stage
This step focuses on the improvement of the overall writing of the book. This can involve fact-checking, improving the quality of writing and structural changes in the story.

4. Design stage
Designers typically take care of the cover design and layout of the book. Also illustrations and typography are covered in this step of the process

5. Sales and Marketing stage
This is the part of the process in which the publisher will start making deals with foreign publishers for co-publishing deals. Also, deals are made with publishers and information is given to retailers so they can start advertising and possibly also give some feedback to the editors which can do final adjustments.

6. Prepress
The editorial stage is officially over at this stage and the book is prepared to be send to the printer. This will include making a digital copy (pdf) and getting proofreadings before final printing is started.

7. Printing
In the final step of publishing the book is printed and shipped to retailers. Before shipping, the book will be send to reviewers to further improve marketing for the book.


Private publishing
With more advanced printing techniques and lower prices of printing, the option to personally publish a book is getting more serious. Printers are starting the option to have a book printed on demand, so there are no more storage costs. Often they also offer the option to ship and or sell the book for the author for a fee. This means the writer can essentially write the book and give the printer the digital version of the book. From there on, the printer will sell the book through the internet and print the book as it is ordered.
Obviously, costs for this are a lot higher than having a book printed through the regular process (see above), but it is definitely a very good solution for books that will have low sales and would probably never be sold through a regular publisher.

ebook publishing
Ebook publishing is basically a simplified version of the process given for the publishing of a printed book. A number of steps can be left out or simplified. Obviously, with the extremely low costs for distributing ebooks, this is also a solution for private publishers. Everyone with a computer and an internet connection is able to write an ebook and publish it online for the whole world to read.

Enablers:

1. Increase in internet penetration
2. Easier to use computers/technology
3. Lower price of paper
4. Easier to publish ebooks
5. Easier to self-publish a book
6. Higher portability of mobile devices
7. Increasing technology for e-paper
8. Better battery technology for mobile devices

Inhibitors:

1. Harder to publish books through publisher
2. Different media need more money to be published to
3. Hard to select one medium to publish
4. Technological devices harder to recycle than paper

Web Resources:

http://www.foex.fi/default.asp?navigate=pix_paper_select.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishing