7 Questions Every Author MUST Ask Before Hiring a Publisher (or Risk Losing Control of Your Book)

If you're working on a book, interviewing publishing partner companies, or you're getting close to paying someone for services to help you write, publish, or promote a book, there are questions you should be asking. And if you want to know what questions to ask and what the answers you should be looking for are, well, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Jilly the book Broad, founder of Book Launchers and your host here at Book Launchers tv. A few months ago, someone sent us a list of questions they had gotten from ChatGPT on things to ask any publisher or book marketing company before you hire them. They wanted us to give the answers. I took a look at the questions and thought, okay, they're okay questions, but maybe not quite the best ones to ask. But since it's what ChatGPT has given potential authors to work with, I wanted to help you out with them. So the first question was, what percentage of book sales do authors receive from your company? Well, the context ChatGPT gave this person was Hybrid publishers typically offer 30 to 60%. Traditional publishers offer 10 to 15. And self publishing with good distribution can yield 70% or plus. Well, a little context, because this does confuse people. When you upload to KDP to distribute with Amazon am Amazon is not your publisher. They are a distribution channel. When you upload to Ingram to distribute to bookstores, Ingram isn't your publisher. They're a distribution channel. So asking what royalties you get when you're self publishing isn't actually accurate because it's not royalties you're getting. Proceeds royalty, as it pertains to books, refers to compensation that an author receives for the rights to publish their works. This compensation is typically calculated as a percentage of book sales, which means authors earn a share of profits generated from each copy sold. Essentially, royalties serve as a form of payment for use of an author's work, ensuring they are financially compensated for whatever they have created. When you're self publishing, technically there are no royalties. Now, people use this. We even use it at Book Launchers because that's what people think think of because of traditional publishing. But really, the question that we're asking here is how much money per copy sold will you make, and how much does it cost you to buy a copy of your book? The answer, when it's a traditional publisher, will probably average around $1 of profit. That's what's going in your pocket. And your cost when you're buying a book will usually be at least $10, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. When you publish with a hybrid the dollar amount can vary widely, but usually it's around $3.50 to $4.50 per book that you're making and your cost is somewhere around that seven to eight dollars. When you self publish, it will be closer to a six dollar profit per book and five to $6.50 for cost. Now there's so much variability and so many factors that will impact all of the above. You know, like book size, paper choice, color versus black and white hardcover, soft cover. The point here is really just to illustrate ratios and comparisons and to know more about the question before you ask it. Book Launchers is not a publisher. We're a self publishing services company, so we don't take any proceeds per book. You pay us a fee for our services to edit, design, set up your book for distribution and market your book and you retain all proceeds. So the next question the person asked us was, do I retain full rights to my book and intellectual property? This question is okay, but my question extends beyond IP to control. We have learned over the many years that we've helped many authors untangle themselves from hybrid publishing companies that rights is not the same as control. What do I mean by that? Well, if you own the rights but can't access any information on the sales, or you don't have the print ready files to print at any printer you want to, or you can't run promotions on KDP because you don't have your own dashboard, well, you may own your book but you do not control it. So in theory you can do anything you want with the book, but the reality is not the same. So it's not a bad question to ask about rights because you want to fully understand that. Because if you get a traditional book deal, you're giving up rights in exchange for the royalty and hopefully something else of major value like massive distribution, big PR push, or something the publisher can give to you that, that you can't get on your own. But so many authors go to hybrid because they want a publisher. Traditional book deals haven't come their way, but they think a hybrid is better than self publishing only to realize that even though they own the rights, they've given up control. I want to understand not only who has the ip, but will you get all the files for your book? Will you be able to set it up so you can run Amazon ads? Will you be able to order it wholesale or set it up to sell direct from your website or, or in bulk to corporations or in speaking deals? Or does all that have to run through this company? Because what if they go out of business, someone gets super sick or they just stop responding to your emails. And that happens. All right, the third question was around distribution channels. Will my book be distributed through Amazon, Ingram bookstores, libraries or international retailers? This question is fine to ask, and the answer for almost every company these days is yes. Unless they are only using Amazon's kdp. Then they're using Ingram and likely some other service for aggregated ebook distribution. And when they do that, voila, you have the wide distribution you want. So if you're signing a hybrid or a traditional deal expecting physical bookstore distribution, I would be asking a lot more questions like where is that distribution? What do they do to help you get that distribution? How long can you expect it? And and what promotions do they do to support it? The reality is every author, traditional, hybrid or self published can access the vast majority of places books are sold these days online. The physical on the shelf. That piece is still possible, but it might not be worth the time, effort and cost. But if it's important to you, understand and ask deeper questions about that piece. Number four Marketing stuff. What specific marketing services are included? Pr, social media, podcasts, tours, email strategy, bookstore outreach. This is a fantastic question to ask, and here's the thing you do not want the answer to be. We'll issue a press release, design a bookmark, and blast out on a wire service. That sounds good, but honestly, it's about as effective as stapling your book to a telephone pole and hoping someone like Oprah walks by. And if a company tells you, oh, we'll share your book on our social media or website, you better be asking, do the people who follow you actually match my target reader? Because. Because if not, it's just noise. It's not going to sell books. So think about it like this. Good book marketing is like a sniper, not a cannonball. A cannonball shot into the ocean might look impressive with the splash, but it almost never hits anything but a sniper. That's precise. It's targeted. That's what moves books and builds your brand. And remember, some activities look good, even feel good, like tv, but they don't actually move the needle on your bigger goals. That's not always bad. It's fine to do things for the feel good factor. Just be clear on the outcome you're expecting. In other words, don't expect thought, leadership or big book sales from something that isn't set up to deliver that. You can also make this question even more specific to be how do you support authors in the first 90 days around their launch because this is when most sales and media attention will happen. Most of the buzz, the media attention and the sales momentum are going to happen in that window. So understanding how a company plans to support you during that time or what you will need to do because they don't do it is really important. At Book Launchers we have two paths. One where we wrap our arms around you and support you through the whole thing with website build out, strategy planning, post launch marketing with media, podcasts, live appearance pitching, book award submissions, review support, ebook sales and so much more. And that comes with a cost. So our other option is we have the DIY Book Marketing Path where you are creating your plan with our Author Launch Kit which is our wonderful software that helps you with all things book marketing and getting support through our group coaching calls and our forum. Either way, we know how important a launch is as well as consistent activity after launch. So you need to know what your bigger picture goal is and then what tactics are likely to get you there. And if you need help with that, Self Promote and Succeed covers all of that and you can download the audiobook for free@self promoteandsucceed.com audio link down below. You need a plan because here's the truth. Books don't sell themselves. That early push sets the foundation for everything that's going to happen in the long term. And if the company's 90 day plan is fuzzy, well, chances are your results will be fuzzy too. The next question is on ROI. What is the typical ROI or average revenue authors see through your model. And ChatGPT had given this author context as ask for a ballpark range, average first year earnings or what percentage of those authors recoup their investment. I don't like this question. Not because it's bad, but because it assumes if you follow what a company lays out for you, then you can achieve at least their average results. The truth Every author is different. Every book is different. By asking this, you're putting on the company for you to succeed. And the reality is that a services company can do everything everything right and a book still doesn't sell. Sometimes they can do almost nothing and a book becomes a massive hit. So this question is a meh question and it doesn't put the focus where I think the focus should be. Here's what actually matters. Your results depend on the assets you bring to the table. If you have an existing audience, email list, podcast listeners, social media followers, that's a huge accelerator. If you're fantastic and doing interviews on podcasts or as a speaker if you have speaking opportunities already in line that can dramatically change your roi. If your message is unique and you have a clear audience that needs your book, your book will gain traction so much easier than another leadership book geared towards middle managers because that market is a saturated market. So instead of asking what's the average roi, maybe flip the question and say given my audience, my strengths and my goals, what kind of ROI is realistic for me? Or what kind of activities do I need to do in order to get a good roi? And then define what a good ROI is for you. Because what you really want to know is not the average, but how does this company help me maximize the assets I already have or build the ones I need? Are there strengths, what I need to help me to get to my goals and how do they help me build new ones like get media exposure, speaking platform or email newsletter subscribers and that will help me boost my long term roi. That's where the real value lies. When someone says I want Good Morning America or Reese's Book Club and I go great, I have the right person for you. It's not us, but if someone wants help using their book to build thought leadership and grow a brand and a business, well that is what we rock at. If they want someone to run ads to their book page for top of the funnel work, ask someone to refer them to as well, some things we're great at and some things we know people who are great at it. So we'll tell you about them. Knowing what you need and why is so important. Number six, Author community and support. Do you offer coaching, networking or collaborative author events? This question is good to ask if it's important to you and if it's important. I think you also need to be clear on why you want it. Many of our authors actually don't really want too much of this because they're busy. They don't have time to network and collaborate and they really just want us to get the work done for them. And then there are the ones that watch every video. Hi to Alex, Jack, Elizabeth and more. And they participate in our Author business accelerator and want to learn everything and meet other authors as they go. Every author gets value from something different. So ask this question if it's important to you, but don't assume it's important to you just because it's on this list that ChatGPT gave you. All right, number seven, sales transparency. How often can I get sales reporting and what is it like? This is a really important question, but here's the catch. It only really matters if you're not in control of your book. When you self publish, you own the data. You can log into Amazon, KDP, IngramSpark or whatever platform you're using and see your sales in real time, daily, hourly. If you want to refresh like you're checking Instagram likes, you can full control, full transparency. But the second you give up that control, say you publish through a hybrid company that holds the accounts, you're at their mercy. And this is an important question. How often are you getting that data? If you're getting it once a month or once a quarter, well, that's not just frustrating. It makes it almost impossible to adjust your marketing strategy because your data's old. So you should ask to understand what their reporting is and realize your marketing efforts are going to be murky to measure if you have to wait. I guess you could think of it like driving a car. You're in the driver's seat, you see the speedometer, the gas gauge. You've got control over everything. But if someone else is driving and let's say you're blindfolded, well, you're just hoping they tell you when you're running out of gas. That's the difference between control and no control. So when you ask about sales transparency, what you're really asking is, do I have access to my sales data or am I waiting for someone else to trickle my numbers down to me? Those were seven good questions. Now, what questions did we miss? What questions should you be asking before you hire a publishing services or publishing company? Let's chat about it below. And on your way to comment on the video, be sure to subscribe so we can hang out more in the future. And of course, like the video. So YouTube and I know you want more content like this. See you on the next video.