Self-Publishing Questions and Answers
Your questions, my answers! These are questions that were asked either online or at The Weeds Grow Anyway release show.
As with all blog entries, this post is in-progress and will be added to as questions and answers come in. Some of these were questions sent to me in a DM by someone looking to self-publish their own work.
Question: I guess what i'm curious about is how you published? Self-published or with an indie publisher?
I self-published on hard mode. Since I’m a printer and bookmaker, I designed, edited, and formatted the book myself. I printed the covers via linocut and risograph, using a risograph machine at Ladyfingers Letterpress and the printing presses at Colorado College, which I had access to through a residency. The covers sat for a while, while I edited and formatted the book in inDesign. Once the manuscript was done, I sent it for printing to Cheetah Printing, a local print shop. I specified my bookbinding method, as I needed the pages imposed for saddle stitch book binding (as in, each book was a stack of paper that was then folded in half so the books were nested together.) I also asked them to leave space for trimming. I then bound the books using a needle and bookbinding thread in a saddlestitch format, and then trimmed the top, bottom, and outside edges using a large guillotine. I wrapped the external covers around the saddlestitched insides, and glued the back cover on so that it would stay together, while allowing the book the flexibility to open and close.
I did this because I enjoy bookmaking and liked having agency over the design of the book. I recommend this approach for people who like the act of physically making things – otherwise, I think I’d have been rather miserable. I also knew it would be a learning experience, and I did learn a lot about bookmaking, formatting inDesign, marketing, and now ebook formatting. Honestly, if I didn’t open preorders and have folks waiting for the book, it probably wouldn’t have been printed. But also, because the funds from the preorders helped make assembling possible.
A note on preorders:
They’re a great motivator! And the funds from preorders help cover the upfront printing costs.
The longer preorders are open, the more logistical challenges might arise with people changing their addresses and such. Before shipping, I sent out a google form for folks to notify me of their shipping address changes and signing preferences.
I recommend including sliding scales or tiered pricing for those who want to offer extra support.
It might be good to charge a little extra if people want a signed copy. I didn’t realize how time-and-brain-intensive signing would be
I recommend also adding a field to the checkout form to ask folks how they want their books addressed if you are signing them, in case they go by a different name than the name on their order, or if it’s a gift.
I then weighed down the books so they would lay flatter using some bricks I had lying around, along with using my book press.
There are ways to make this process easier or harder. Like, if I didn’t make the wrap-around covers, and just stitched the cover directly around the bookblock, that would have saved a lot of time. When I make the second edition printing, this is probably the method I’ll use. No glue required. Just paper, ink, and thread.
I had access to a lot of tools that others might not have access to, but there are different ways to go about this that are less resource intensive. For instance, you don’t have to linocut print your covers. You can just as well digitally print them on cover stock paper. Or you can design a cover that only requires one layer instead of three.
Regarding self-publishing, you can also go the print-on-demand route through various online services. Also, a lot of printshops also offer perfect binding services, Cheetah Printing included. So you could send in your cover and manuscript, and they can print and bind the books for you. This requires more cost up front, but is more cost effective per-book than print-on-demand. The more you order, the less each book costs as well. You just want to make sure you can move your product. Preorders also help gauge how many you might want to print. I will need to print more soon.
Regarding distribution, you will want to consider how you’re selling the books. In person at fests? Book readings and signing events? Online? Through local book stores? What about digital distribution? Libraries? These have question marks at the end because I’m in the process of figuring this out now. Right now I’m trying to make the ebook so I can publish it through Draft2Digital and sell it through major ebook retailers, including a pay what you want option on itch.io since my online store doesn’t offer sliding scale pricing. I’d love for it to be offered through the Queer Liberation Library, which is a digital national library on Libby. (Update! The ebook is officially made and can be purchased here.)
Regardless of whether you go with self-publishing or an indie publisher, you’ll be doing the lion’s share of marketing. Some indie publishers even check the follower counts of writers they’re considering, given how important marketing is to sales. Now is a great time to start collecting emails. Bring a newsletter signup with you to fests. Include email marketing opt ints on your online store. Market your newsletter/substack. Try to build connections with your audience that do not rely on an algorithm. Share your process where you can to get your audience excited.
Did you hire beta readers/editors?
I didn’t hire anyone. Instead, I shared the book with poets I trust and admire, and they gave me feedback on the book and suggested edits. When the time comes that they are looking for edits on their manuscripts, I plan to pay the favor back in kind. Places like Lighthouse Writers offer sessions in which cohorts gather to write manuscripts together and offer feedback.
What was the cost like per/copy and did you have to order a certain amount?
I haven’t calculated the cost per copy yet, so this is exciting! It was more cost effective to order a larger order, but I didn’t want to go too big too fast. At the time, I had around 100 preorders, so I ordered 250 copies of the bookblock (the insides) to be printed, and printed 600 covers (knowing I’d probably want to make more books in the future). I ended up with 225 books when all was said and done for this first edition.
Cover Paper (Both internal and external covers) from The French Paper Company - $100 (I made an error with my first order so I had to order more, which is why this is approximate)
Printing the text (250 copies) - $700
Glue - $30
Shipping Envelopes - $50
Shipping Costs - $400
Misc. Supplies (Book cradle, book thread, ink etc.) - $100
Adobe Indesign Subscription- Probably around $200 over the time it took to edit the book. Ugh! I recommend learning and using a different, less expensive software, but god, it is good. (Update: I have since downloaded the full Affinity license and am working on learning that software. It’s a one time payment!)
So, not including time, this came out to around $5 per book. Including time…well, the experience of creating is priceless to me, so I won’t worry about that.
How long (not including the actual writing parts) would you say the publishing aspect took?
I made the first version of the book in May 2023, just for a fun one-off hardcover copy. In December 2023, I started looking into submitting the manuscript places, so I worked on editing it some more then and submitted it to like…one place before realizing I’d really rather DIY it. I opened preorders in April 2024, thinking I’d be ready to release the book in the fall of that year. Hah! Not so. I printed the covers in June 2024. I could have probably finished the next step of finalizing the manuscript sooner, if not for some health and life circumstances and my intense perfectionism. I finished editing the manuscript in April 2025, as I had set the release date for June 27, 2025, and knew that I needed to pull that trigger. It then took many hours of concentrated work (nearly the entirety of Desperate Housewives, which I binged in the background) to bind the books, score the covers, and glue them on. The books were all finished a couple weeks before release. I then took some time to work on marketing the show, including a couple interviews.
The actual bookmaking – the stitching, trimming, scoring, and gluing – was the most time and labor intensive part of the process. You can outsource and simplify as much or as little of the process as you’d like. There are no wrong paths — ones that are inefficient in terms of time, labor, and materials? Yes. But even those are not wrong.