Welcome to the Publicious Blog

Brian Feinblum of Media Connect NY
interviewing Publicious Director
Andrew McDermott

POSTED ON: April 6th, 2012 BY Publicious

I used to chew on Bublicious gum. What is Publicious?

Publicious (equally as delicious as Bublicious, I’m sure) is a company set up by self-published authors to assist their fellow authors to self-publish their books. Through our own experiences we can offer advise and a range of services including: editing, book formatting, cover design, ISBN’s, printing, ebooks, and global print on demand (POD) distribution. Our clients retain all copyrights, earn 100% royalties and enjoy complete control over their books.

As the director, what do you do all day?

I started the company from scratch, and in the early days did everything myself from building the Publicious website (http://www.publicious.com.au) to perfecting the art of publishing and design. This allowed me to mould Publicious into the kind of company I would have wanted to deal with when I was first self-publishing. Our company motto is “Service, Quality and Affordability”. As well as making sure these principals are adhered to, my days are busy liasing with clients and printers etc, as well as designing book covers and interiors.

How is an Australian going to help authors here get published?

We offer good old-fashioned service, and with the benefit of the Internet it doesn’t matter where our clients are. We currently have clients in the US, Canada, Brazil, NZ as well as all over Australia. We’re not a huge company driven by profits; our clients enjoy the fact that they are dealing with real, like-minded people. We offer a fresh and honest approach to the sometimes-confusing world of publishing, and we maintain a presence in the US through our editors and printers that we use over there.

What is the future of self-publishing?

There’s never been a better time to self-publish and I think the trend is going to continue and grow. If your book is written, edited, designed and printed properly, it will be as good as anything that is in the shops. Then you need a platform to sell it from.

Here’s an example of how it used to be for the self-published author: You print a quantity of books, you haul them around the local bookstores with cap in hand asking if they’ll take a few to sell on consignment. You sell a few here and there at library talks and events. You send a couple of copies to Amazon and get them listed. When or if the books sell you replenish the stock.

Here’s the difference now with POD distribution: You submit your PDF cover and interior files to the POD distributor. Your files are placed into a digital worldwide database and made available to all online stores including Amazon (worldwide), Barnes and Noble, and The Book Depository, just to name a few. Your title shows as always in stock, this is called virtual stock. When a buyer purchases your book through say Barnes and Noble, that one book will be printed at a POD facility closest to the buyer’s address, and shipped out within twenty-four hours at the buyer’s expense. So the self-published author doesn’t have to worry about purchasing lots of stock and then having to add the price of postage to every sale. Further more they’ll receive a monthly statement telling them how many books they’ve sold the previous month, and royalty payments will be transferred directly into their bank account.

There are over 50,000 books being released each week in America – too many?

The worry here is the quality of the books that are flooding the market. There are a number of important issues that (unfortunately) many self-published authors ignore, and which some unscrupulous so called partner publishers disregard. Here are a few:

Editing. A manuscript (ms) must be edited and proofread, and I don’t mean by the retired schoolteacher down the street, I mean by a professional editor who specialises in the genre that the ms is written for! Editing can seem expensive but it is the only way to ensure that a book is right.
The design, layout, and print quality (depending on the type of book) must be produced to a bookstore standard. Some self-published authors will use a desktop publishing program to design a cover and to layout their book, then they’ll use the first printer they find whose speciality may not be printing books who will charge more for an inferior product. Unfortunately we see this all the time and it would be interesting to know how many of the 50,000 books fall into this category.
Price. Unrealistic recommended retail prices (RRPs). Just because a self-published author paid too much for their print and design, this doesn’t mean they can pass the cost on to their buyers. For an unknown author, buyers will usually buy on price. Self-published authors need to be realistic about how much money they hope to make per sale.

What the heck is going on with the book industry these days?

High street bookstores are struggling because of the ease and affordability of purchasing books via the Internet, and the increase in ebook readers and download sites. We’re seeing this in the closure of many of the large physical bookstores.

Due to self-publishing and POD distribution, publishers are also finding themselves in not such an important position as they used to be. We know that with a little know how anyone can produce a book, and distribute it worldwide. I think we’ll see publishers shift more into the role of marketing rather than production in the future.

Which genres have the most growth potential?

Sales wise: self-help, celebrity biographies, and branded fiction will continue to grow. This is the reason why it is important for first time authors to develop a brand. Unfortunately many authors think that once their book is published it will sell, which means there will continue to be thousands of new titles each year sitting on the virtual shelves of Amazon without any sales. The books that continue to sell will always be the ones that are marketed right.

By Brian Feinblum, Chief Marketing Officer, Senior Vice President
MEDIA CONNECT formerly Planned Television Artsa division of
Finn Partners, a Ruder Finn Group Co.1110 Second Avenue
New York, New York 10022
Phone: 212-583-2718
Fax: 866-628-6116
brianf@finnpartners.com
www.Media-Connect.com

For everything self-publishing please visit: http://www.publicious.com.au

If you would like to submit a article relevant to publishing or writing to be included on the Publicious website please contact us here: mail@publicious.com.au