Crafts For Less

When it comes to craft publishing I’m a big fan of doing it yourself. With current technology anyone can publish their own craft book. It’s very satisfying personally and the profitability can be remarkable. What’s more, once established it’s almost a craft business model that almost runs itself.

The other day I read a story which further convinced me that if you have a craft book in you then going the traditional publishing route can be fraught with difficulty and disappointment.

This is someone who is quite well known online and an experienced crafts person. To be honest I’m a little surprised they hadn’t gone the self-publishing route in the first place. However, our friend had been approached by a large publishing house and asked if they would be interested in writing a craft book on a particular subject which they are known to be expert at.

Not surprisingly, she agreed, and set about putting together an expansive proposal with plenty of detail about content, examples of pictures, etc. Probably took her quite some time. Still, it’s what you need to do if you choose to go that route. The package was duly sent off and then there’s the wait to see if all of this was acceptable to the publisher (who, let’s not forget, has asked this crafter in the first place).

I would be asking myself if that time could not have been better spent on creating and publishing her own book.

Anyway, the book was accepted, months were spent actually working on it. It was submitted, edited, resubmitted and finally accepted and ready to publish. Months of effort would be rewarded with a published craft book on general sale in bookstores all over the country.

Except that unfortunately during the process the publisher was sold to another company. Work on all craft book publishing was halted. Our friend has no book in print and, depending on the wording of the contract, may not even have the rights to take that book elsewhere.

Which is is the problem when you hand control to someone else. It’s a sad story but a true one, and not the first time I’ve heard something similar.

Now you can argue that craft publishing through a major company gets you a better chance of having your book in the nation’s bookstores – and you would be right. But how are you going to guarantee that your book will actually be published? You can’t.

So what if you publish yourself? Well you can distribute a digital version online that can be sold all over the world, 24/7. Then for “real” books you can work with a print-on-demand company who will print as few as one if that’s all you need. You don’t pay any money for that up front either! Then on day if a big publishing house comes along and wants to sell your craft book you are in a position of strength. You already have income that they need to better. Now that’s a happy story!

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