I wrote a book. Now what?
jonathanb
Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭✭✭
I wrote a book, sort of by accident. I thought I was writing something short that I could just post here. Then it was going to be a journal article. Now it's 100 pages. Oops! A book is what we've got.
This post isn't trying to sell the book. I'm not going to get into details beyond that it's about exonumia. I've decided to self-publish using kdp.amazon.com. Their instructions seem straightforward. Some time soon it will get turned on, and anyone who cares can buy a copy from Amazon just like they would do for anything else they buy at Amazon.
Given all of that... now what?
I'm clearly not expecting to make any money here. On the other hand, I put a lot of effort into making a book that I want to have on my own bookshelf. It would be nice if other people also knew it exists, at least for the limited number of people who care about the subject matter.
I know there are some authors on this board. I'm not sure if anyone has gone down the self-publishing route. If I was working with a real publisher, I could just let them do their thing., especially in terms of getting the word out. I probably don't mind doing stuff myself, if I knew what needed doing.
Does anyone have a checklist that they'd like to share, for "Things to do when publishing a new book"?
Comments
i would not complain and would approve of posting about the book and links to how to buy it with price and everything
numispublishers need encouragement
Amazon. Self-publish.
Also check with @MarRot or @CaptHenway
They both recently wrote books and may be able to guide you to success.
Also send an announcement to the E-Sylum. Getting the word out on new numismatic publications, especially niche ones, is right up their alley.
I actually just published a book with Amazon kdp. It's very straightforward. Marketing is the challenge, but you have coin forums for a coin book. You could also set up at coin shows, if it is of broad enough interest.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
There are marketing firms that can be hired for self-published books. I don't think it's necessary here, but it is an option.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Is that book for a shelf, or drawers? 😉
Why not both?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Your 41,000++ posts here on the forum don't count as publishing a book.
I am not the person to ask about self publishing. I know coins, not publishing. That is why I went with Whitman.
You could post on the BST (but be prepared for some to complain about links for selling outside the forum
).
KDP is great, particularly for niche subjects; I put out a book through them in 2023, and a pair of catalogs that would never have been attractive to a conventional publisher. As an added benefit, you can implement stealth revisions and they will be added near-immediately.
They could. All we need is a cover.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Can you narrow down the subject a little bit rather than just exonumia.. I'm interested in reading anything that has to do with Capitola Flour Tokens, Masonic pennies and tokens, any Georgia token and especially Open Mess Tokens from military bases around the world, particularly for NCO Clubs, Senior NCO Clubs and even Airman Clubs.
Good luck, I look forward to reading/getting a copy, whether it covers my favorites or not.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
Yes, I look forward to E-Sylum each week. I'll send a notice there. (If anyone isn't already a subscriber, you should fix that. It's free: https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum/)
Very little is of broad interest in the exonumia umbrella. I rarely travel to coin shows, in large part because they rarely have much exonumia to look at.
I don't expect to make money on an exonumia book. I don't want to throw money at a marketing firm when I'm not going to get that money back.
If someone insists, I suppose they could pay me directly. One of the reasons I went with KDP is because they handle the shipping and I don't have to keep inventory. I could have Amazon ship to me and then I'd ship to someone else. I'd have to charge twice for the two shipments. That seems like a bad result for everyone.
I saw that revisions are easy at KDP. That feels like a slippery slope. I probably couldn't resist if I needed to fix yet another silly typo. It could get very confusing if the content changes in any meaningful way in a stealth revision.
This book is almost entirely focused on 19th century issues. It sounds like there's going to be no overlap with what you're interested in. This is the big umbrella: exonumia is a huge subject!
A book about 19th Century Exonumia sounds interesting to me, I’m into that kind of stuff. As to the question “Now what?” I’d say tell us more about it, show some examples of whatever type of Exonumia the book is about. At least some people here will be interested and they might join in on the discussion. Some will be motivated to buy the book and/or seek out examples of the Exonumia the book talks about.
Mr_Spud
This wasn't supposed to be a promotional post, but since a couple people have asked, here's a tentative cover.
This is a coin forum and you wrote a coin/exonumia book. Tell us all about it. We all want to know and are supportive of what you’ve done. Congrats on (accidentally?) writing a book!
You could ask B&M coin stores to carry a few copies. Wouldn't hurt if they had a few to offer.
Student of numismatics and collector of Morgan dollars
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Great cover!
Rare-Change.com - Low listing fee
Contact places like Wizard or other supply and book sellers that attend shows.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Upfront costs would be significant.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I predict wonderful and glorious success to the OP.
Dozens will be sold, for sure!
How so? Wizard would probably want to stock about 5 of them, and they would pay about 1/2 of retail to carry it in inventory. They might even just (or also) piggyback onto the Amazon KDP ordering interface and collect a commission for books ordered through their site. Other show dealers of supplies and books that aren't Whitman would probably just want a couple on hand at a time.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Oh, you're expecting them to buy the books. I'm not sure how likely that is with a self-published book that has no built in marketing.
50% of cover may not be enough to cover costs depending on the list price. Color pictures are expensive. My underwear book has a printing cost of $5.90 per unit in paperback. At a 40% Amazon royalty and a list price of $11.99, i make a little over $1 on every book sold AT FULL RETAIL.
Now, of course, if i put a $25 price tag on it, it would work at 50%. But do those venues but self-published books that have no return possibilty?
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
As far as I can tell, the way to do this is via "author copies". KDP will sell copies to the author at cost, and I think there are no restrictions. So the author could place an order for a bunch of copies at their printing cost, give the reseller the 40% discount that otherwise would go to Amazon, and they'd still be able to make $1 per book. That might be right. I haven't actually tried it.
My costs are also reasonable. For a 100-page, full color, hardcover 6x9 book, I'll have to pay a bit over $12 in printing costs. I'm currently looking at a list price of $29.95, which would give me profit of a whopping $5 per book after the Amazon royalty. I haven't locked in the price since it isn't live yet. My gut feel is that it doesn't matter a whole lot, and I'm not going to scare anyone away for a few dollars.
FWIW, I already reached out to Wizard. I'm not sure it makes sense for them to carry my book, and I told them that. They do carry other exonumia books that are at least as niche as mine. I thought it was at least reasonable to ask what they thought. They didn't respond at all. :-(
In other news, I got my proof copy today. I see some things I want to change, but nothing that was actually "bad". To my eye, the picture quality is as good as in other books that I have, and the colors reproduced well. I was afraid that my pictures would be too small when printed. If anything, they feel a little too big. That's fine by me.
I went with a matte finish on the cover. Most of the other books on my shelf have a glossy cover. I like the feel of the matte cover and I'll probably stick with that.
Most of the other books on my shelf have glossy pages on the interior. I'd probably go with glossy pages if KDP offered that option, but it seems like they don't. I can live with the matte pages.
Post some pictures for us, please.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I'd contact Wayne Herndon directly and get his opinion. He's a straight shooter and will tell you what they can and can't do and give you some actual information on how they've worked with other self-publishing authors in the past.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
If you want pictures of the proof copy, here are some pictures. I think it looks like a book.
That "Not for Resale" bar on the cover is what KDP does for proof copies. It will go away.
(There are at least three minor details in these pictures that I'm already planning on changing in the final version.)
Nice information architecture in the catalog sections. I recommend adding running heads and/or running feet, for navigational purposes — to help your readers find their way around the book. For example, the running head verso (left-hand page) might be the book title, and recto (right-hand page) could be the chapter number and chapter title. Or verso could be chapter number and chapter title, and recto could be an encyclopedia-style heading describing that page’s contents (e.g., ARIZONA - ARKANSAS or 1792 - 1799).
Thanks. Yes, those are excellent suggestions. I couldn't figure out a good way to get them done.
One of the main features of this series is that the dies are paired in all sorts of different ways. The catalog section starts with all of the Washington medals because it had to start with something. But once I put all of the Washington medals together, I can't put all of the Lincoln medals together because some of the Lincoln medals are paired with Washington dies and some aren't.
For those who like numbers... I've listed 90+ different dies that are paired to create 160+ different medalets. That means that each die is used more than three times, on average. There are over 17 different Washington / Lincoln varieties alone.
I considered doing a website instead of a book. On a website, I could have views that group the same medals in various different ways. So I could have all of the Washington medals including the Washington / Lincoln medals, and then I could have another view that showed all of the Lincoln medals including the same Washington / Lincoln medals a second time. In a printed book that was super confusing and I abandoned the idea very quickly.
I could still do a website at some point. I'm focusing on the printed book right now. I like books.
I'll think about running heads / feet some more. I'm just not excited if I can't find something that's useful to the reader.
i like the second idea, chapter/description, if you can make it work
Good navigation is something that sets professionally produced books apart from most self-published efforts. Some things to consider: the table of contents; the information architecture (catalog elements presented logically, intuitively, and consistently); cross-references within the text (e.g., “see page 237”); the running heads and feet; and a good, detailed index. These navigational elements, crafted well, can help your readers use your book easily and efficiently. The better the readers’ experience is, the more they’ll enjoy the book.
Yup. I'm set with table of contents and index.
I also have a bibliography, and citations in text for important details. That's a pet peeve for me, especially since a lot of my work for this book was trying to decipher earlier works with information that I'm pretty sure was wrong but I don't have enough info to be sure. I decided to keep five questionable the listings but label them clearly. One of them is at the top left of the third picture above (nearest the scissors). The text isn't really readable in the picture, but it says in bold and call caps "CAUTION: MIGHT NOT EXIST", along with a discussion of why the listing is there in the first place and why it is now in doubt.
I'm also labeling proxy pictures clearly. Fortunately, I was able to get real pictures for almost all of the varieties, and there aren't many proxy pictures anyway.
I'm not a fan of cross-references in text. Clickable links on a website are great. I find it annoying to flip back and forth in a printed book. Instead, I've tried to keep the text as standalone as possible.
I'm not arguing about the running heads and feet. I'm just stuck on the "crafted well" part.
Keep in mind that this book is 100 pages long including everything. It's a legitimate book, not just a pamphlet. But it's not a big book.
Looks good. Thanks for the peek.
Did you have to go through and clear photos with Stacks and the like? That must have been a lot of effort.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I was watching a Facebook video the other day from a self-publishing author; they said something along the lines of "writing the book was only 10% of the effort; the rest was learning how to market the book yourself". Especially if, I'm assuming, you don't have a massive advertising budget to afford to buy ad space in the coin magazines and forums, or to afford to rent a table at coin shows to spruik your book from. I know one coin club friend who's managed to make enough money from their self-published coin books to start going down that road (they're at a coin show right now), but a one-book sales stand isn't going to attract many customers unless it's a really popular or niche-filling book.
Let's not forget, coin collectors are a conservative bunch overall and not everyone has or uses this Internet thing as much as we do around here. Got any brick-and-mortar coin shops in your area? Ask if they'd like to buy a copy or two. Got any coin clubs in your area? Make up a promotional flyer, either physical or email, to send them to distribute to their members at meetings.
One good thing about your book in particular is, you already know your target market: numismatists, and specifically exonumismatists. So go there, where they are, and don't be afraid to do some shameless self-promotion (such as has started happening in this thread) - especially if you're among friends. Just be aware: going onto another coin forum where you don't normally participate and spruiking your new book is not likely to be looked on favourably, no matter how good or interesting the book is - you'll likely either get yourself nuked for spamming or asked politely to purchase some advertising space.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.