Consafo: a social media publishing experiment
September 16th, 2008 | 
Author: Greetings,
Real Live Preacher here. I’m glad you stopped by. This is the Consafo experiment in social media community publishing. You can read a summary here. Details are on the left menu
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A traditional publisher does the following:
- They help decide what the book should be about.
- They provide an editor for the book.
- They pay for the cover design, layout, and artwork.
- They pay to have the book printed.
- They provide an ISBN # and barcode.
- They MIGHT help get the book distributed and publicized.
In return for this a traditional publisher requires the following:
- Final say on the content and editorial philosophy.
- Control of the cover design and layout.
- Exclusive publication rights in perpetuity.
- 100% of the income from the book until all expenses are paid, including the author’s advance. After that, roughly 90% of all income from the book.
Why would a person enter into this agreement? Well, in the past there were no other options. No ordinary person could possibly do all of that AND have a large enough personal network to publicize the book.
BUT HERE’S THE THING: I got to thinking that you and I could do all that stuff. We could decide what essays and content will go in the second real live preacher book. We could edit it together. Someone could design a cover. I know how to do the ISBN/barcode stuff.
I’m not concerned about selling thousands of copies. And going with a traditional publisher is NO guarantee that you’ll sell that many books anyway. I just want to do the book. If I can sell it online and make a few bucks, great.
How would this work? Check out the menu on the left.
Thanks,
…………………gordon (rlp)
Leave comments and help me with this idea. Do you see any potential problems? Have I left anything out? Do you have a better idea about how this might be done? You’re the publisher. As such, we would even work together to decide exactly how we would do this.
NOTE: You can leave a comment on any page. Talk back to me. I want to hear from you. If enough of you are interested, I say let’s move forward with it.
I think it’s a great idea, and I’m interested in both an advance copy and in editing. The only editorial experience I have is on blogs, and I can provide a few samples of my work. I’ve long thought that the world is missing out on some excellent writing because some stiff-shirt exec is more concerned about sales than about how the project is received.
It’s an interesting idea. Have you considered Lulu.com as a publishing alternative, when it’s ready to go to print?
If you need art design for the cover, or layout work, let me know. I don’t know how much time I have on my hands, but I’m a long-time RLP reader (even if I’ve been quiet for a few years) and would love to help out, even if it’s just a little.
(… and now I see someone already suggested Lulu over on the main RLP site…)
Really, you can just use Lulu as a printing source. Print On Demand kinda changes the way things will be done in the future, and you’re not forced to use their ISBN services and the like. There’s no reason not to use them (or another POD service) when it comes ot the final run.
I love this idea. As someone whose writing doesn’t have the highest appeal in many traditional religious settings, this is something that I would be very interested in. I think it’s a terrific, democratic idea for book publishing.
I was a copy editor and a journalist, with (moderate) experience in layout and design, so I’d be more than happy to help in any way.
Gordon,
I’ve done editing and layout for books — as well as cover design. I’ve used several different print on demand companies — I even have my own little company (St. Thursday Press). My main thing was control. I hated that publishing companies wanted so much control where I believe the owner/author of the material needs to maintain control of their own thought.
The ISBN thingy is about $35 — and if you get listed in all the biggie websites, it may run you about $140 total. I would also suggest copyrighting (about $25).
Whatever you do, I would love to help.
Theresa
One note if you want to do the layout yourself is that LaTeX is incredibly good for laying out any kind of manuscript, and is available for free. It’s a markup system (like HTML) that you then compile from a plaintext file into a file type called .dvi, but you can turn that into a .pdf which any print-on-demand service should take. There are a lot of resources on the web, but the best is probably “The Not So Short Guide to LaTeX 2e”.
I’m going into my own, erm, esoteric self-publishing work myself, used LaTeX to format my undergraduate thesis, and pushed it on my editor. He thinks it’s brilliant.
Also, I loved your first book and would love to have a second.