Two years ago, when I started out on my thesis project, I didn’t really expect it to go anywhere. I’ve always known that I wanted to create a book. If it goes well, I might even sell it among my friends. But I didn’t expect all the enthusiasm that comes with the project, with the book. My lecturers where the ones who chose the topic: slow fashion. I think they didn’t really know what it was yet and were interested to find out more. Thankfully, as you may know, if you’ve been here a while, this is a topic I’m very familiar with.
After I finished the project, I didn’t get on with having it published straight away. I felt there was so much to be done and I was exhausted. I put it off for a good part of a year and, after consulting some of my friends, I decided to publish it myself. Looking back, it was a crazy idea—it still is, really—but I was determined, so I made it happen. Of course, I didn’t really do it all by myself—there was support from all sorts of people that I can never thank enough. In the end, I learnt a lot from the experience. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share some of the lessons with you all.
Write Your Book
This may sound obvious, but you’ll be surprised by how many people are so eager to publish their work, they don’t even know what they want to write. Well, to publish a book, the book’s got to be written first. So do that! Start with finding out what you want to write first—and why—then get cracking. And that’s the easy part. You will soon learn that you will have to write several drafts before your book will be remotely ready to print.
Of course, depending on the kind of book you want to publish, you might need to do more than just write. For instance, my book was partially illustrated, so to get it ready I had to also prepare the illustrations. A lot of this I did by myself, but I also solicited help from others—and you can opt to do the same! If you don’t feel like you can write everything by yourself, you can always ask for the help of contributors—or even ghost writers, if you want. There’s a lot of bad press going on about using ghost writers, but it’s actually a pretty common thing in the publishing industry. Also, I’d recommend having your own editor—be this an actual pro or a friend of yours—to give you feedbacks on your drafts. It’ll help you get fresh eyes to objectively judge your work.
Know What You Want
When it comes to self-publishing, there are various kinds of criteria to determine. Publishing by yourself can often mean several things for different people, depending on what you are looking for. How much control do you want to have on the production, administration and marketing of the book? Do you want your book to have ISBN? Do you want to determine for yourself where your book will be sold later on? If you want to control the printing of the book, do you know how? Are you willing to market the book entirely by yourself? How well do you think your book will sell if you choose this route?
After answering all these questions, you might not want to go with the self-publishing route and try your luck at pitching to commercial publishers. Before I started my own process, I discussed the issue with a friend, who suggested this route for me. My consideration was I could have total control of the production, marketing and sales process—which allows me full transparency. And, it turns out, even through this route my book could still have ISBN—which is most important to me. So find out what is most important to you in this process before deciding to go down this road.
Consider the Pros & Cons
If there is one thing from this whole list I wish you’d take away, it’s this one. It definitely falls into the “things I wish people told me before I self-published my own book” category. I get how, in the flurry of the moment, you might get way too excited to publish your book to think things through. But there are just so many things you cannot take back or back away from once you’re already in too deep in the process, so be wary. Let me help you by listing some of the pros and cons that I had considered in the past.
The pros: You can have full control of the entire publishing process of your book. You will have 100% of the revenue from selling the book—could be less if you sell in consignment stores. You don’t have to go through the painful process of pitching and (possibly) getting your manuscript rejected by publishers. You will have the final say on everything regarding your book. Your book will still be a legit book, complete with ISBN and everything.
The cons: You will have to oversee the whole process every step of the way. You will have to come up with the money to cover the initial costs yourself—either from your own pocket or by fundraising. Your marketing reach may not be as wide as you wish to get, which could cause your sales to flop. People may not take you or your book as seriously.
Be Ready to Go Solo
While you can solicit help from other people, self-publishing often means having no team to back you up. This might also lead to you having to oversee everything that leads to your book’s publication. Starting from the very first step of writing the book, deciding on the design and even later on when it goes to print, its marketing efforts and distribution channels—these are most likely all the things you need to handle on your own. Although you can ask for help from people, they often will not have the same sense of ownership of the project as you do, so it’s all in your hands.
Don’t get me wrong—you can always delegate. Get someone to take the load off your shoulders. Someone who could oversee the printing. Someone who understands marketing. Someone who can contact stores to take in your book. That’s possible, of course, but it is often the case that you’d need to pay them. Personally, it wasn’t within my budget to do so—so I didn’t. And that’s why I’m telling you to be ready to go solo. Because that’s how it was for me, all down to quality control, packaging each book and sending them off—it was mostly handled by myself.
Seek Support If You Can
Okay, I think I’ve painted enough picture of this being a solitary journey—which is why support is more crucial than ever. I’ve mentioned above time and time again about asking for help, sure, but support here can mean more than just taking some tasks off your hands.
First and foremost, I believe, is moral support. It will be direly needed to get you through to the other side. It can come in the form of cheering you on in your struggles, giving you feedbacks free-of-charge, showing excitement for your project and, even, spreading the word on your book. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had mental breakdown during the process of my book—and how the moral support helped a lot.
On the more business side, there is also material or financial support. This can come in numerous different ways, i.e. crowdfunding and sponsorship. A lot of people like to use Kickstarter to support their self-published book projects—and I’ve backed some of them. Too bad, it isn’t really widely used in Indonesia. However, if your book can be beneficial to certain brands, you can probably pitch for a sponsorship with them—or maybe more like a collaborative project? I’ve never personally done it myself, but it could be a viable option for you.
• • •
One of the reasons that I decided to write this post is because, in the wake of publishing my book, people started clamouring to me and asking me how I managed it. Publishing a book has also been a dream of mine forever. There was also a time I considered self-publishing but brushed it off, because I thought it would lack quality. After learning about book printing for a little bit and got a whole lot better on my design skills, it was finally time to turn my dream into a reality.
Out of my own personal experience, I think I would give you only two pieces of advice: ask the market and do it for the passion, not for the money. Ultimately, the reason my book did rather well was owed to the market research that I did. Through some simple questions and observations, I could easily find out people’s interest in the topic that I explored. It was very assuring to know it for sure. Also, however, that this process will take up a lot of money—more money than you can earn back quickly—so you shouldn’t stress yourself out over it. Remember why, deep down, you feel the need to publish your book—and hold on tight to that.
Last but not least, to all of you out there who are maybe interested in publishing your own book—whether by yourself or with a publishing house—please just keep writing it. It may not be a lot, but you’ll see how big of a step forward that is. Don’t give up!
Two years ago, when I started out on my thesis project, I didn’t really expect it to go anywhere. I’ve always known that I wanted to create a book. If it goes well, I might even sell it among my friends. But I didn’t expect all the enthusiasm that comes with the project, with the book. My lecturers where the ones who chose the topic: slow fashion. I think they didn’t really know what it was yet and were interested to find out more. Thankfully, as you may know, if you’ve been here a while, this is a topic I’m very familiar with.
After I finished the project, I didn’t get on with having it published straight away. I felt there was so much to be done and I was exhausted. I put it off for a good part of a year and, after consulting some of my friends, I decided to publish it myself. Looking back, it was a crazy idea—it still is, really—but I was determined, so I made it happen. Of course, I didn’t really do it all by myself—there was support from all sorts of people that I can never thank enough. In the end, I learnt a lot from the experience. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share some of the lessons with you all.
Write Your Book
This may sound obvious, but you’ll be surprised by how many people are so eager to publish their work, they don’t even know what they want to write. Well, to publish a book, the book’s got to be written first. So do that! Start with finding out what you want to write first—and why—then get cracking. And that’s the easy part. You will soon learn that you will have to write several drafts before your book will be remotely ready to print.
Of course, depending on the kind of book you want to publish, you might need to do more than just write. For instance, my book was partially illustrated, so to get it ready I had to also prepare the illustrations. A lot of this I did by myself, but I also solicited help from others—and you can opt to do the same! If you don’t feel like you can write everything by yourself, you can always ask for the help of contributors—or even ghost writers, if you want. There’s a lot of bad press going on about using ghost writers, but it’s actually a pretty common thing in the publishing industry. Also, I’d recommend having your own editor—be this an actual pro or a friend of yours—to give you feedbacks on your drafts. It’ll help you get fresh eyes to objectively judge your work.
Know What You Want
When it comes to self-publishing, there are various kinds of criteria to determine. Publishing by yourself can often mean several things for different people, depending on what you are looking for. How much control do you want to have on the production, administration and marketing of the book? Do you want your book to have ISBN? Do you want to determine for yourself where your book will be sold later on? If you want to control the printing of the book, do you know how? Are you willing to market the book entirely by yourself? How well do you think your book will sell if you choose this route?
After answering all these questions, you might not want to go with the self-publishing route and try your luck at pitching to commercial publishers. Before I started my own process, I discussed the issue with a friend, who suggested this route for me. My consideration was I could have total control of the production, marketing and sales process—which allows me full transparency. And, it turns out, even through this route my book could still have ISBN—which is most important to me. So find out what is most important to you in this process before deciding to go down this road.
Consider the Pros & Cons
If there is one thing from this whole list I wish you’d take away, it’s this one. It definitely falls into the “things I wish people told me before I self-published my own book” category. I get how, in the flurry of the moment, you might get way too excited to publish your book to think things through. But there are just so many things you cannot take back or back away from once you’re already in too deep in the process, so be wary. Let me help you by listing some of the pros and cons that I had considered in the past.
The pros: You can have full control of the entire publishing process of your book. You will have 100% of the revenue from selling the book—could be less if you sell in consignment stores. You don’t have to go through the painful process of pitching and (possibly) getting your manuscript rejected by publishers. You will have the final say on everything regarding your book. Your book will still be a legit book, complete with ISBN and everything.
The cons: You will have to oversee the whole process every step of the way. You will have to come up with the money to cover the initial costs yourself—either from your own pocket or by fundraising. Your marketing reach may not be as wide as you wish to get, which could cause your sales to flop. People may not take you or your book as seriously.
Be Ready to Go Solo
While you can solicit help from other people, self-publishing often means having no team to back you up. This might also lead to you having to oversee everything that leads to your book’s publication. Starting from the very first step of writing the book, deciding on the design and even later on when it goes to print, its marketing efforts and distribution channels—these are most likely all the things you need to handle on your own. Although you can ask for help from people, they often will not have the same sense of ownership of the project as you do, so it’s all in your hands.
Don’t get me wrong—you can always delegate. Get someone to take the load off your shoulders. Someone who could oversee the printing. Someone who understands marketing. Someone who can contact stores to take in your book. That’s possible, of course, but it is often the case that you’d need to pay them. Personally, it wasn’t within my budget to do so—so I didn’t. And that’s why I’m telling you to be ready to go solo. Because that’s how it was for me, all down to quality control, packaging each book and sending them off—it was mostly handled by myself.
Seek Support If You Can
Okay, I think I’ve painted enough picture of this being a solitary journey—which is why support is more crucial than ever. I’ve mentioned above time and time again about asking for help, sure, but support here can mean more than just taking some tasks off your hands.
First and foremost, I believe, is moral support. It will be direly needed to get you through to the other side. It can come in the form of cheering you on in your struggles, giving you feedbacks free-of-charge, showing excitement for your project and, even, spreading the word on your book. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had mental breakdown during the process of my book—and how the moral support helped a lot.
On the more business side, there is also material or financial support. This can come in numerous different ways, i.e. crowdfunding and sponsorship. A lot of people like to use Kickstarter to support their self-published book projects—and I’ve backed some of them. Too bad, it isn’t really widely used in Indonesia. However, if your book can be beneficial to certain brands, you can probably pitch for a sponsorship with them—or maybe more like a collaborative project? I’ve never personally done it myself, but it could be a viable option for you.
• • •
One of the reasons that I decided to write this post is because, in the wake of publishing my book, people started clamouring to me and asking me how I managed it. Publishing a book has also been a dream of mine forever. There was also a time I considered self-publishing but brushed it off, because I thought it would lack quality. After learning about book printing for a little bit and got a whole lot better on my design skills, it was finally time to turn my dream into a reality.
Out of my own personal experience, I think I would give you only two pieces of advice: ask the market and do it for the passion, not for the money. Ultimately, the reason my book did rather well was owed to the market research that I did. Through some simple questions and observations, I could easily find out people’s interest in the topic that I explored. It was very assuring to know it for sure. Also, however, that this process will take up a lot of money—more money than you can earn back quickly—so you shouldn’t stress yourself out over it. Remember why, deep down, you feel the need to publish your book—and hold on tight to that.
Last but not least, to all of you out there who are maybe interested in publishing your own book—whether by yourself or with a publishing house—please just keep writing it. It may not be a lot, but you’ll see how big of a step forward that is. Don’t give up!