GREEN HILL SELF PUBLISHING LOGOTYPE

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GREEN HILL SELF PUBLISHING LOGOTYPE
Naming your book.

Naming your book.

What’s in a book name?

People judge a book by its cover and that includes the book’s title. A good name will be highly influential in helping your book succeed.

Its easy to compare a book cover to advertising. It certainly is critical to your book’s success. If the cover (including the book title) isn’t right then readership will suffer.

Advertising headlines anre a little like book titles.A book title is a little like an advertisement headline, or a sign.

What’s wrong  with this sign? Is the word “Koala” a proper noun/brand name or a common noun? The rendering in all-capitals makes it even more confusing. No wonder the Mexican Shop has gone out of business. Not only aren’t there many Mexicans in Australia but the thought of cooking those cute Koalas in a specialised oven is repulsive to 99.9% of Australia’s population. I’ve taken this to the extreme, but I’m sure most will get my point.

Authors need to think their book titles through.

Some simple suggestions include:

  • Simplicity /brevity (you can have a one word title or just the name of the main protagonist) e.g. Wilf
  • Use literary devices like alliteration e.g. The Good Food Cook Book or use  double entendre (but be careful with this device because for some a double entendre is hard to decode)
  • Involving – your can involve the reader by asking a question e.g. Can you fly?
  • Solving a problem e.g. How to fix a credit card problem
  • Evocative – not telling the whole story but evoking a feeling, emotion or  generating intrigue e.g. Smoking Gun
The economics of selling your book

The economics of selling your book

It’s the dream for most authors to profit from the sales of their book.

Choosing the self-publishing route may make this seem like a daunting task, but through proper self-marketing and passion for your book it can be achieved.

Self-published authors take control of their sales and can sell their own books themselves. This is called self-selling. If you self-sell, you get the most profit from the sales of your books as you cut out the retailer’s margin. You can self-sell through avenues such as author websites, your personal business, on social media marketplaces, or through author events like launches and readings. Self-published authors can also easily sell through bookstores—both online and brick-and-mortar—by enabling their books for online distribution and pitching to bookstores to stock their books.

On the other hand, traditional book publishing companies will take your book under stringent legal conditions, then print and distribute your work through the industry’s established channels, including retail stores and online outlets. For all your hard work as the author, you might only get a small percentage (royalty) of the retail price.

So, how much more could you be making if you self-publish rather than using a traditional publisher? Have a look at the figures below:

If you get royalties through a traditional publishing deal:

  • Print cost: $4.95
  • Retail price: $14.99
  • Your profit: 74 cents

 

If you self-sell:

  • Print cost: $4.95
  • Retail price: $14.99
  • Your profit: $10.04

There’s a huge difference, as you can see. If you sell 200 copies of your book as a self-published author you can breakeven with your production costs, leaving any extra sales as pure profit.

The key to success when marketing as a self-published author is your network. Personal and author dedicated social media profiles are an excellent place to start. If you are a trainer, public speaker, consultant, or have any sort of profile within your potential readership target, you also have the capability of selling hundreds and hundreds of copies of your book at events, meetings, and seminars.

Green Hill can also help you out with marketing. We can write professional press releases, create stunning graphics, organise reviewers, and give you advice on how to best market your book. If this interests you, head over to our Marketing your book page to read more and get in touch!

What 99.9% of authors don’t know.

What 99.9% of authors don’t know.

​Why I see so many good authors fail.

Book publishing is a creative pursuit. Writing a book is creative. Designing a book cover is creative. Marketing a book is creative. Or is it?

Book publishing is like construction.

Architect Jørn Utzon designed the Sydney Opera House. He used his creativity but within a constraining framework of physical laws. He designed the Opera House making sure it could withstand weather conditions, suited the geology and would not collapse under its own weight. In other words he couldn’t ignore the laws of the environment, geological realties and the law of gravity. These laws are immutable – these laws are rooted in science.

When you enter the Sydney Opera House you certainly don’t feel its about to collapse. It’s a great experience.

The laws of successful book publishing.

New authors who come to me wanting to self-publish know little about what I call the immutable laws of publishing. Full knowledge and understanding of these laws takes many years. I’ve leaned some of these by trial and error (a tough way to learn). And some by being mentored by some of the best in the business.

Unfortunately many authors focus on their creative prowess while at the same time being completely ignorant of the science of book publishing.

Here are just a couple of these laws that I will then summarize in a single mega-law.

Law No. 1  Design a book cover for the market not for the author. Books that fail often do so because of a poor cover design. Poor cover designs are usually dictated – often in fine-grain detail – by the author (who might be publishing their first ever book). Green Hill’s lead designer has personally designed almost 1,000 books – does she understand the law of book cover design? Yes, she certainly does.

Law No. 2 Editing is important. This is very similar to Law No. 1. While writing is a creative pursuit, an experienced editor will use their skill and experience to make the manuscript better (in many cases superior). Authors often break this rule pushing-back on the editor with “I don’t want my writing changed” or the old classic “you’ve removed my voice”.  There are immutable laws of good writing including structure and grammar that when violated are done at the author’s peril.

The mega law Successful book publishing is both art and science.

If you are a new author leave the science to the publisher and their staff i.e. book designers, book editors and book marketers. These professionals will approach the publishing of your book based on their hard won knowledge of the science shaped by empirical evidence. Publishing a good book is much about science.

Understand the ‘mega-law’ – only then will you improve the chance of your book’s success!

David Walters

Director, Green Hill Publishing