Publishing biz

When a young adult just entered into the professional field... or the field that person dreamed about going into. There will always be some degree of shock, "this is not what I imagined it to be."

The idealistic side of the field will get shuttered within 1-2 years.


It's a norm.

After the shock, people chose different routes.

I happen to be one of those who wants to make a difference.... but before you step into any muddy battle field, it's better to learn about it. @_@ So I searched Amazon, the biggest internet bookstore on the planet for a book on publishing. lol~

and got this: Publishing for PRofit by Thomas Woll

I learned sooo much from this book, and learned about the mistakes others made from this book as well, in fact, this books' mentioned many common problems amongst the publishers even I have seen with my own eyes. Including my own.

"One of the reasons many new publishers jumped into publishing is that they think they can make a difference."
(True.... that was the reason why I wanted to do it as well. And... That's the reason why Challenger exists too.)

"Without defining your niche as a publisher, and try to do all things, you will just end up being nothing."
(I can count a couple of publishers trying to do all things and screw up everything)

Right now I am trying to answer this.... semi-worksheet this guy has pulled off... doing budgeting, thinking about mission statement. (Finally learned that... mission statement is the company's to-do-list for that year. lol I thought it was a vision statement or something. )

"Keep the staff lean....... some publishers will think staffing experienced old pros and a lot of people will speed up the production work. But reality is usually the opposite, professionals who worked at the big companies will be used to having a lot more people and higher budget; salesmen will over sell and cause the company problems due to desperation. And over staffing can blow your expanses. However, there's a stage where you can be under-staffed, you will need to hire more people."
(I can count a few publishers who did over-staff, understaffed, and recall companies I worked for that had hired the so called pro but aren't really good for the production.)

According to this book.... I still need to make a contract for myself and my work even if the company is mine.... because you never know when your company will be bought up. (a natural happening in business...)


I get stuck just on the first few chapters, because without thinking more and answer the questions this book asked about, and go to execute it, I can not go further in reading. Or else my brain will go hay-wire.
I even did some marketing research because of this book's questions... OTL

There's that many solid points on dos and don'ts. This guy is speaking on solid experience, gosh, it will be a while before I can chew through this brick.



There's something to watch out on even 100% copyright contract is the authors' too... it's whether the publisher is the claimant of your copyright, or just the owner of exclusive rights, and whether the author was filed as author, or worker for hire. If the publishers is your copyright claimant, according to law, the work is theres, doesn't matter who get the credit., but usually a contract needs to accompany that claim.

And... the publishers usually files the copyright information for the author, it's the author's rights and responsibility to check up on that. If they want to make sure they retain the copyright to themselves still.

In fact... I found this contract here, that can be rewritten into a contract from author to publisher, granting the publishers the general rights to reproduce the work, while still retain their own rights, one can try their luck on this contract instead: Copyright Toolbox

I believe publishers who saw this, as long as the contract has a good standard... some might accept it.


Right now, my brief plan is to increase investment each year by a small margin, $1000 to 2000, 2000 to 3000, and make the goals to make them all back within a year, until the time I can manage more money and have more confidence. Slow growth is good growth. My big goal for now is 1 milion.