I started my publishing journey in 2020. I wanted to create a publishing company that was different. I am not alone in this idea. As an author myself, I saw how hard, and I would actually say impossible, it was for some authors to get their book published.
I could write a book on what is wrong in the publishing industry as far as the large traditional publishers go, but most of us know the horror stories and have some scars ourselves.
I branded my company 4 Horsemen Publications because I wanted to be part of Bringing the Publishing Apocalypse to our industry. Things need to change and I know that every independent publishing company and independent author are making that change happen.
Yesterday, a news item was shared with me about the sudden closure of Small Press Distribution. You can see the article from NPR here: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/08/1243433868/authors-scramble-after-the-main-distributor-for-small-publishers-suddenly-closed
Reading it made my heart sink. I know first hand what this can mean for a publishing company of any size.
After almost five years in this industry, I can tell you that anyone who joins it to “get rich” will become disillusioned very quickly. Publishing is hard work. It is not only creating the content, but being a stable person in your author’s lives. They will need a sounding board or simply someone to vent to. It is learning how to find readers and training your authors to do the same. It is understanding how books are created, listed, and found on retail sites and elsewhere. Again, I have literally written the books on some of these points.
However, what I have seen more than anything is that there are deals with the publishing “devils” that you have to make in order to succeed. Our fates as publishers are in the hands of a few companies like Small Press Distributors in order to get the books that have had blood, sweat and tears poured into them into stores and the hands of readers. Do I have a large printing press and am I printing my own books? Nope. I can’t. There is not only the cost to get and maintain these machines, but the space to keep them and the supplies to run them. How do we then distribute these books? Having a warehouse of amazing award-winning titles does not mean you snap your fingers and they are listed on all the sites you need them to be.
So what are our options? There are a few::
- Find a printer, get your books printed, warehouse them, and then find a distributor.
- List your books only on sites like Amazon, B&N, and Kobo, to name a few, that will allow you to upload your print books (however, be prepared to buy ISBNs for every version unless you want that company listed as the publisher).
- Find a distributor like Ingram who will print your books on demand (POD) and allow you to distribute them to all the major retailers for a cut of your profits.
It is very hard—as the owner of a company—to have something so vital to the survival of your business in the hands of other entities.
How do you overcome this?
I am seeing that more publishers are finding creative ways to sell via their websites and allowing the authors to sell on their own websites. copies of the books being able to be printed from some of the sources listed above.
You can also work with book printers to create “Special Edition Copies” of books in a smaller print run. There are what are referred to as Mom and Pop printers that would love to help you make your books amazing. BookTokers and Bookstagramers love these and so do the fans.
I will say that we, as a community of independent publishers, need to work together to form better solutions to make sure what happened with Small Press Distribution does not continue to happen.We must find new and creative ways to thrive so that we can get our author’s voices and stories out to readers that are hungry for them.
Let’s start a dialogue together on how we change this machine, so to speak, to redefine how we are able to succeed.
