Authors and Self-Publishing

[Point Point]

I went to cafepress and did some math. A 300 page book would cost 16 bucks if sold as a print on demand book. This means that the authors of a close to 300 page book like Professional Nolimit Holdem could make 14 bucks per 30 dollar copy.

My guess is that they probably make 3 bucks per copy being published by two plus two. My question is, why don't the poker authors just self-publish as print on demand on cafepress or lulu? Even if they sell less copies they make much more per copy.

[Bobo Fett]

My guess would be that they sell much more than 5x the number of books than they would if they self-published. MUCH more.

[Mason Malmuth]

All your numbers are wrong.

MM

[Point Point]

[ QUOTE ]
All your numbers are wrong.

MM

[/ QUOTE ]

According to cafepress, binding is 7 bucks and .03 cents per page. That's 16 dollars for an approx. 300 page book. If the authors sell it for 30 bucks that's 14 profit per book if self published at cafepress. Naturally, I can't guess their cut from two plus two. Nor can I guess their total number of copies sold.

[npc]

[ QUOTE ]
I went to cafepress and did some math. A 300 page book would cost 16 bucks if sold as a print on demand book. This means that the authors of a close to 300 page book like Professional Nolimit Holdem could make 14 bucks per 30 dollar copy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't checked your numbers, but I'm willing to stipulate to them for the sake of argument.

[ QUOTE ]

My guess is that they probably make 3 bucks per copy being published by two plus two. My question is, why don't the poker authors just self-publish as print on demand on cafepress or lulu? Even if they sell less copies they make much more per copy.

[/ QUOTE ]

My understanding is that 2+2 authors get more than 10% of the gross sales price of each book. I don't have the numbers, but Mason has been quite proud of how much his authors get per book sale. A $3/copy royalty rate for a $30 book isn't a horrible estimate for many publishers, though.

The other issue is, of course, that a publisher does much more for an author than just take a Word document and create bound books. Here are some of the services a publisher provides:

Marketing
Connections to distributors who get the books to book stores
Copy editing (for self-published books you can either do this yourself, which I don't recommend, or pay someone to do this for you.)
Professional layout work
Provide cover art
Provide internal art

Also, good publishing companies, such as the Pearson imprints or O'Reilly for technical books, or 2+2 or ConJelCo in the poker world, can enhance sales because of the reputation of the publisher.

If you self-publish a book, you have to worry about a lot of things that a publisher takes care of for you. These things take time, which could be used writing a next book.

If you're a well-known poker name, then you can probably sell a self-published book. If you're not a known name, it's difficult to jump-start sales, even if your book is very good. Having a publisher can really help get initial market penetration.

For most big-name poker players who write poker books, I'm guessing the income from the book as a function of the time spent on the project is low on the list of reasons to write the book in the first place, so spending additional time on issues that a publisher can take care of in order to earn extra money at the potential cost of breadth of distribution probably does not seem beneficial.

Whether one self-publishes or not, very few people in the poker world make the majority of their income as a poker book author. I suspect that for most poker authors the books they write are a means more than an end. For these people, optimizing income from each book is secondary.

As a book reviewer, I have to say that the vast majority of self-published gambling books are crap. (A prominent exception to this are Bob Ciaffone's books, which are generally excellent.) Most of these are self-published because no sane publisher would put them out. The reputation self-published books hurts their sales over and above distribution problems. Authors with sufficiently good reputations can mitigate this, again, I'd hold up Ciaffone as an example.

Hope this provides some indication as to why most poker authors prefer to work with a publisher rather than self-publish books.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Nick:

Given the way we print, the cost for 1 and only 1 copy of a 300 page book would be about $10,000. That's because the set up charges for the press are expensive. But if you're going to print a bunch of books, the unit price is a lot lower.

Also, the op doesn't understand that he would have a lot of trouble selling a $30 retail book at wholesale price if he paid $16.00 a copy.

As for our royaltis, I can't get specific because it would give away an authors income, and I think that's private. But our royalty rate ranges from 10 percent of the retail price up to over 25 percent. However, to earn a royalty at the upper end, we need good reason to believe the book will be a great seller.

Best wishes,
Mason

[JackCase]

[ QUOTE ]
I went to cafepress and did some math. A 300 page book would cost 16 bucks if sold as a print on demand book. This means that the authors of a close to 300 page book like Professional Nolimit Holdem could make 14 bucks per 30 dollar copy.



[/ QUOTE ]

They could make $14 gross profit if they sold them on a street corner in LV. If they sold them from their own web site, they would have expenses such as overhead, mailing, etc. Sales either way would not be fantastic. None of the above factor in their time.

If they wanted to sell in book stores, they would have to sell to a wholesaler who would then sell to retailers. No major retailer would buy directly from a self-publisher. A wholesaler would not buy without a wholesale discount, normally around 40-50% off of the cover price. But a wholesaler would not likely buy from an unknown self-publisher either, so the authors would have to use a distributor specializing in self-publishers, who would sell to a wholesaler, who would sell to retailers. The distributor would normally want a 55-60% discount off of the cover price.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Jack:

You got this just about perfect. Spending $16.00 to produce a 30.00 retail book just doesn't work.

Best wishes,
Mason

[MRBAA]

As the author of two poker books published by major firms, I believe publishers provide only one truly essential service: Distribution.

I could find editors and printers myself, and although my printing cost might be higher than a publisher is able to negotiate (since I'd only be printing one book, not hundreds), it would still be low enough to permit me a very generous per book royalty. However my publishers were able to get my books into virtually every major bookstore chain nationwide, which I would have no way of doing on my own. Without that, there's no way my books would have sold anywhere close to the number of copies that they have. Unless you can generate tremendous publicity, you're not going to be able to get bookstores to carry your book on your own, nor are you going to be able to drive large numbers of people to find and purchase your book online.

[Cactus Jack]

There's a reason it's called "vanity press."