1. Press and ISBN:
For most laymen, the problem of how to get the book number seems a bit mysterious. In order to get a book number, many authors or units entrust people in many ways, hoping to do this, but often to no avail, and the final result is not ideal. Theoretically, all ISBN resources of Chinese mainland Publishing House come from the General Administration of Press and Publication (and the press and publication departments of various provinces and cities). But generally speaking, each publishing house has a certain number of approved book numbers, such as 200 or 300 per year, and so on. If ISBN is not enough in the middle or the end of the year, the general publishing society will apply to the General Administration of Press and Publication for additional ISBN, which will generally be approved unless the publishing house has bad information records in the current year or the previous year. For some of the most powerful publishers, the use of ISBN is usually unrestricted. This is the situation of ISBN in mainland China.
So how do you get the book number of the mainland publishing house? Generally speaking, today's publishing house has taken an important step on the road of enterprise reform, so as a public institution, the publishing house first considers the interest issue. Under such conditions, ISBN, as an important publishing resource, can exchange corresponding benefits through cooperation. If the author's income to the publishing house can reach the expected income of the publishing house on an ISBN resource, cooperative publishing will not be a problem.
For the first-class educational publishing institutions, the average profit of a single book project is very high. If an ISBN resource cannot generate tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of profits, they will not consider foreign cooperation. In this case, it will be very difficult or expensive to publish your books and works jointly or at your own expense in such publishing institutions without very special relationship resources. The expectations of general literature and art publishing houses, mass publishing houses and science and technology publishing houses are much lower. Therefore, generally self-funded publishing projects are generally in cooperation with such publishers. Of course, for most authors, the co-publishing cost of such publishing houses is still quite high. Take the central-level publishing houses in Beijing as an example, the general publishing cooperation fee should reach 15000-20000 yuan, and some publishing houses still need some editing fees. In addition to the requirement of one-time cooperation fee, some publishing houses also have the assessment of distribution profit indicators. In addition, generally speaking, publishers with high brand value have lower co-publishing costs; Publishers with low brand value have lower co-publishing costs.
Many authors consider publishing books recommended by publishing houses or some institutions in order to save the cost of publishing at their own expense. Some publishing houses or institutions collect books of the same category, different contents and different authors, and publish them together in the form of "New Century Education Library", "Academic Newcomer Series", "Network New Literature Series" and "New Poets Collection". Generally, each series has a single volume of 10.
This publishing form can indeed save a large part of the cost of cooperative publishing for the author. However, if you want to publish your own works in this way, there are also several problems to pay attention to. The first is the relationship between series and single-volume works. According to the relevant regulations, the title of a series of books is generally required to be larger than the volume name, but this will affect the appearance of a single book and the effect of the author's publication. Therefore, for this kind of self-funded cooperative projects, general publishing houses and publishing institutions will have some flexibility on this issue. On the one hand, the whole operation conforms to the national policies and regulations, on the other hand, it can help the author achieve his own goals. Secondly, the pricing of books and volumes. This problem is basically similar to the above problem and needs to be dealt with accordingly.
At some point, the ISBN of Hong Kong began to appear on the mainland. Some authors' books are published by publishing houses in Hong Kong. The publishing system in Hong Kong is completely different from that in Chinese mainland. Publishers and publishing companies in Hong Kong are completely corporatized enterprises, and they generally do not need any complicated approval or other audit to set up and obtain ISBN. Therefore, the ISBN cost of publishing books is very low for established Hong Kong publishing companies. It is precisely because of this difference that many publishing organizations in Chinese mainland either cooperate with some publishing companies in Hong Kong or register publishing companies in Hong Kong directly, and then publish books published in the name of Hong Kong publishing companies on behalf of Chinese mainland. For many authors, this is undoubtedly a very good publishing method. However, books published by Hong Kong publishing companies also have several shortcomings: first, they cannot be sold in the mainland unless they apply for the corresponding import license; Second, you can't participate in the book awards in the mainland, or the official publications that evaluate general titles. To put it simply, Hong Kong's officially published books do not enjoy the treatment of mainland books, but are more like printed materials labeled as publishing companies. With the reform of China's publishing system, this situation may change in the future, but at least for now.
An author asked me, how should I choose to publish ISBN independently, publish serial numbers in volumes and publish ISBN in Hong Kong? There are several main factors to consider here. First, what is the purpose of your book? If it is used to evaluate professional titles, or needs to be listed for sale, we can only consider publishing the official ISBN by the mainland publishing society. If it is not used for professional title evaluation or marketing, but for self-collection and giving away to friends, it is a more economical choice to publish in the name of Hong Kong publishing company. A Hubei author published his own book with ISBN in Hong Kong, and then sent it to the local writers' association to participate in the work selection. As a result, the writers association refused to accept books published by Hong Kong publishing companies. Second, how high do you expect books to be "decent"? It is the most respectable and easiest way to publish ISBN by mainland publishing houses, followed by a single book with ISBN, and publish ISBN in Hong Kong. For example, corporate image books and books published by entrepreneurs should not be published in the form of singles with serial numbers, nor should they be published in the form of Hong Kong ISBN. Third, what is your capital budget? For most authors, the cost of co-publishing is an expensive expense. Therefore, this is also a realistic problem. In short, the author can seek a balance on the basis of fully considering the above factors.
One problem that the author needs to be alert to on ISBN is pseudo ISBN. According to news media reports, fake ISBN has become a serious non-standard problem in some areas. There are generally two kinds of fake ISBN: one is to forge a non-existent ISBN; The second is to use the book number that has been used.
The author should be cautious about this problem. Many authors have been taken in by the fake ISBN, and suffered the loss of the fake ISBN. In fact, this problem is not difficult to prevent. The author should choose the publishing house, publishing institution and publishing house editorial department that he can know through certain channels. In addition, there are other ways to prevent ISBN from being tampered with.
The author can check three key information before publishing: (1) Are the book numbers on the back cover of the proof manuscript exactly the same as the first two groups of books in the publishing house? If it is inconsistent, it must be a fake ISBN. Because of the four groups of numbers X-X-X-X-X of ISBN number, the first group and the second group represent the serial numbers of the country and the publishing house respectively, and the books published by the same publishing house should have the same first two groups of numbers. (2) Are the CIP data and other materials on the copyright page of the proof manuscript standardized? Is it completely consistent with the format of other books recently published by the publishing house? If it is inconsistent, it may be caused by the nonstandard practices of publishing institutions, or it may be a fake ISBN. (3) Does the responsible editor who signed the proof really exist? If you are really uneasy, you can call the editor-in-chief or signing editor of the publishing house to confirm before the book goes to press. The books signed by the responsible editor Eiko, Hadron and Jingjing are all pseudonyms, which are more likely to be fake ISBN.
Of course, after the book is published, you can also use the above method to sign the book whether it is possible to use fake ISBN. If a book commissioned by a publishing agency encounters a fake ISBN, it can claim compensation from the agency in time and ask it to refund the publishing fee, or republish the new book in the publishing house according to the specifications.
2. The manuscript quality, editing and binding:
As far as I know, many self-published books have many problems in manuscript quality, editing quality and binding technology. The main reason is that publishers don't pay enough attention to and manage the quality of self-funded books-because they charge first, and whether the publishing effect is good or not has nothing to do with their later income; Of course, another reason is that most authors lack enough publishing experience, and without the strong assistance of publishers, they can't monitor the quality of their works well.
I know an author who confidently went to the local Xinhua Bookstore to discuss agency sales with a large private bookstore after he got his published novel. After reading the sample book, the buyer of the other party gave him an extremely disappointed and shocked reply: "The cover, layout and overall binding of your book are completely out of date, similar to those in the early 1990s. If it is now, it is estimated that it will be off the shelf after it is put on the shelf, and no readers will buy it at all. " After receiving such an answer, I think that if it were you and me, we would feel extremely desperate. We spent a lot of energy to create and a lot of energy and money to publish, but this is the result? !
Therefore, for most authors who are going to publish books at their own expense, completing the creation of the manuscript is only the preliminary work, and the later work, including the revision, editing and binding of the manuscript, is also of decisive significance to the final success of the work.
The first thing to remind the author here is the quality of the manuscript. From my personal point of view, if you publish a book under your own name, it is better. Our aim is not to publish a book, but to publish a good book. But experience tells us that a large number of authors have published works of poor quality. The reason for this phenomenon is usually the author's lack of adequate training and necessary guidance. When a work is finished, most authors will be surrounded by the excitement of finishing the work at first, thus ignoring the actual shortcomings of the work. The support of relatives, friends and online readers will increase the author's satisfaction. In addition, in the cultural atmosphere of China, criticism is usually an unpleasant thing, so few people make serious criticism (but a large number of people make casual praise). In this way, when an author finishes a work, he usually seldom hears valuable criticism.
Many young writers are always eager for the appearance of tutors. If there is a real tutor around, maybe he will give the author a pertinent opinion. But such tutors are often rare, or their time cost is too high, and they have no time or disdain to read the author's works carefully and give real opinions.
In this way, editors and planners' comments on manuscripts are often of great significance to the final quality of manuscripts. A good editor is not only a good reader, but also a good critic and a provider of effective opinions. If a good author is a good cook, then an excellent editor is an excellent gourmet. Gourmets can't make first-class dishes like first-class chefs, but they have special discrimination and judgment on what is good food and who is a good chef. Good editors are also such people.
As far as my experience is concerned, the quality of books published by different editors at their own expense is very different, which is partly because of this. An excellent and responsible editor will help the author improve the overall level of books and works from the aspects of literature, aesthetics and knowledge. And an ordinary editor, his job may only be to proofread typos and publish them.
Similar to the problem of manuscript quality, the editing quality and binding technology of book works are also the product of the cooperation of authors, publishers and editors. High-quality book editing and aesthetic binding art are also very important to realize perfect self-published works. This is also a very noteworthy aspect.
Generally speaking, if you want to publish high-quality books, so that the works can reach a higher level in terms of manuscript quality, editing quality, binding design, etc., the author must ensure two aspects of work: first, he is dissatisfied with himself, and he must have an attitude of Excellence and a spirit of pursuing perfection; Second, publishers and editors should ensure that the partners can reach the first-class level in terms of work quality and publishing responsibility. If these two aspects can't achieve the pre-set goals, the possibility of publishing high-quality works will be greatly reduced.
There are many such precedents at home and abroad. An unknown young author published his first work at his own expense, which was an unexpected success, thus establishing his position in a certain field. However, if a work is published for the first time, there are many problems in manuscript quality, editing quality, binding design and so on, then this possibility becomes very small.
3. Print quality:
In the whole cost of self-funded publishing, publishing management fees and printing fees account for a large part, while publishing management fees are generally fixed. Therefore, in order to reduce the publishing cost and improve the profit, many publishing agencies and agency publishing agencies often cheat on the printing cost, which leads to the decline of book printing quality.
Many authors know almost nothing about book printing. Indeed, this is a complicated matter, and editors of many publishing houses or institutions may not know the details very well. Therefore, this has left an opportunity for many irregular practices and caused great trouble to the author.
In fact, it is almost impossible for an author to fully understand all the details of book printing. But it's easy to understand the point. Generally speaking, the factors that determine the printing quality of books include:
(1) Quality and grams of cover paper and body paper;
(2) the quality of printing itself;
(3) Binding quality.
Generally speaking, the quality of printing and binding is relatively guaranteed now, and the printing and binding prices in the same city are not much different. If there is a problem with the quality of printing and binding, it is usually a serious injury. As an author, it is easy to claim compensation. The most troublesome thing is the quality of paper, which is often unclear and unclear. For the cover paper of conventional books,157g coated paper has the lowest requirements. If you want better quality, you generally need to use 200 grams of coated paper, of course, the cost will be higher. Text paper, 60-70g offset paper or 55-60g light offset paper are more popular. Whether it is cover paper or body paper, if it can be used in a larger paper factory, the quality will generally be better, but the price is also more expensive.
The author wants to control the printing quality of books in a simple way, which can be achieved in three ways:
(1) When signing a publishing contract, it is required to determine the pattern, including cover paper and body paper;
(two) when signing a publishing contract, it is required to designate other books as quality standard samples;
(3) When signing a publishing contract, it is required to specify the paper weight and brand.
Generally speaking, if you follow the above methods, the printing quality of the book is guaranteed. Of course, the price may be higher than the conventional practice. Some publishers or agencies have actually taken into account the factors of cutting corners if their quotations are too low when they publish books as agents. Therefore, sometimes the market is fair, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".
4. Financing and marketing issues:
Except for a few authors, most people are concerned about the funding of self-funded publishing. There are two main problems of funds: first, how much money is needed for self-funded publishing, which is a cost problem; The second is how to solve the funding problem of self-funded publishing.
Let me briefly talk about the cost of self-funded publishing. With so much information introduced above, the average author should know the cost of self-funded publishing. Generally speaking, if a publishing agency is entrusted to publish a book at its own expense, its cost is the publishing cost plus the service fee. If the publisher, ISBN, paper use and printing can be determined, plus the service fee, the total cost should be similar. Of course, some organizations may charge more service fees, while others may charge less service fees. Similarly, some institutions may eventually provide books that the author is satisfied with, and some institutions may eventually provide books that the author is not satisfied with.
I mainly want to talk about how to solve the funding problem of self-funded publishing. Generally speaking, the author thinks that since it is self-funded, the funds are all paid by himself, and there is almost no other choice, otherwise it will not be called self-funded publishing. In fact, this is a narrow understanding of self-funded publishing. Self-funded publication only shows that the author and the corresponding institutions invest in publishing their own works, but this does not mean that the author can not recover the investment of the works through various channels, and even generate the possibility of profit.
A friend of mine works as a Chinese teacher in a key middle school in the north. It has always been his dream to publish his own Chinese teaching works. Later, he made up his mind to do it and decided to write a Chinese tutorial book for senior high school. I helped him make a budget and published it in mainland publishing house. According to the calculation of 5,000 copies, it is estimated that the cost will exceed 40,000 yuan. Hearing the price, he gasped. Obviously, the cost is beyond his budget. Later, in order to solve the problem of publishing funds, he began to lobby his peers in other middle schools in his city to buy his works as counseling books for Chinese classes. Because of his high popularity and excellent quality, the subscription effect is very good. According to his statistics, he can print 8000 copies in the first printing. Not only does he not have to spend money on his own, but he can also earn back the normal manuscript fee. In this way, he not only published his own book, but also didn't spend a penny. What a talent!
Another friend of mine is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in a central province. He is also a government official. He is very interested in environmental issues in his spare time and has written a lot of things himself. Later, he wanted to officially publish his amateur research results. But I talked about several publishing houses and cultural companies, all of which cost a lot of money, but I didn't talk about them. Later, I gave him an idea to see if his research could apply for project funds in some places. Inspired by this idea, he found a local environmental protection expert, * * * signed the application for the project fund in this province, and then published it with the fund subsidy. Although it was signed by two people, he was the first author. Finally, he was very satisfied and published the book for free. This is also a feasible idea.
For literary youth and online writers, it is very beneficial to contact some bookstore channels for trial sale after publishing at their own expense. Just because you can't convince a publishing house or publisher to invest in publishing your work doesn't mean there is no market for your work. It can only show that your work was not optimistic until the moment it was published. But there are also many very successful works, which were not optimistic before publication. Therefore, contacting the bookstore for trial sale has two functions: one is to test the best-selling degree of the works; Second, part of the expenses can be recovered. If the trial sale is very successful and the sales volume is relatively large, maybe you can make money. As for how to conduct a trial sale, generally speaking, they will enthusiastically help the author to make this attempt, and will not occupy the funds of the publishing house or publishing institution.
In short, self-funded publishing is not necessarily a business that will lose money. There are many things that may help the author recover the cost and even become a profitable thing. How to do this? It depends on you!