Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
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Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#2Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing!
The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpub.com.
I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process. I would suggest using a publisher for a book and then also try self publishing using leanpub.com or some other platform. Decide for yourself with you prefer.
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#3Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…
When you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#4The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print:
"Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award imaginable, cost $3.83 per book to print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US. I thought he must be mistaken and I said so. “No way.” He replied, “well that was the first edition, I’m sure the cost has gone down since then.” He thought I was implying that $3.83 per book was too high!"
One implication of this is that the cost difference between digital and physical publishing is probably much less than most people think. While a weighty tome may literally feel like it's worth a hefty premium, this is due more to consumer psychology than anything inherent to cost of production.
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#5Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…
leanpub is a cheap markdown printing. you don't get even bibliographic helpers. let alone full color bled pages. always saw it as printed github wiki pages (which seems to also describe most of their content)
...or am I wrong?
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#6Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…
When you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?
Absolutely
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#7Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…
When you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?
The big caveat is that Amazon wants you to enroll in the Kindle Unlimited program—and they'll require exclusivity. This is, to be extremely generous, a bad idea for the author.
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#8The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…
Very true. Another great insight is: "The end results proved that customers could tell the difference."
Customers can always tell the difference between quality and non-quality, and since manufacturing is actually a small part of the retail price, it's crazy to try to save money on quality.
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#9The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…
Well, that and that their initial publishing offer (which is good? I have no experience) is more insulting the more you run through the numbers.
On the other hand I've read accounts of people who've published through O'Reilly and were very happy with having a team of people to crunch through the layout, typesetting, etc.
Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
#10Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…
This guy [0] thinks mainstream publishers exists mostly for the prestige.
[0] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/crossing-the...