“I’m going to be an indie author!” Minnie thumped her hand flat on the table. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

We were in the coffee shop at my local Barnes & Noble, and dozens of aspiring writers were watching me coach Minnie through the process of getting her novel indie published.

“Who’s your target audience?” I asked. “You can’t do anything until you know who that is.”

Minnie’s forehead creased with a dozen wrinkles. “Dear boy, I hope everybody is going to want to read my book.”

I shook my head. This is the kind of notion that sinks writers. I held up my hands for silence and waited for the room to quiet. “Okay, I want everybody in this room to think for a few seconds and then name the best book ever written. When I count down to zero, everybody shout out the name of that book.”

I counted down slowly, holding up my fingers. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Say it!”

“Lord of the Rings!”

“Gone With The Wind!”

“Ender’s Game!”

“Pride & Prejudice!”

“The Da Vinci Code!”

“The Help!”

The room echoed with dozens of titles.

“Whoa, that’s enough,” I bellowed. “We seem to have a difference of opinion. I heard Lord of the Rings, and I’d have to say it’s a great book—”

“It’s boring,” said a kid holding a skateboard. “If I hear one more time about Tom Bombadil being a merry fellow, I’m gonna puke.”

“What book do you like best?” I said.

“Ender’s Game, dude. It’s brilliant. See, there’s this Battle School—”

“I’ve read it. That’s definitely a brilliant book—”

“Well, I hate the author,” said a young woman with retro plastic glasses. “He’s a cave man in his politics. I think The Da Vinci Code was fantastic.”

Minnie shot up out of her chair. “That was a horrible, blasphemous book, and that Dan Brown boy needs to be taken over my knee and spanked.”

“Oh, Ma, lighten up,” said my plumber, Sam, who was standing with his arms crossed. “It was just a storybook with a lot of blah, blah, blah about math and history and conspirafication. Woulda been a whole lot better if there was more shooting and less quacking about that dumb Lisa woman.”

“What do you think is the best book ever written?” I asked Sam.

He grinned and rummaged around in his pockets. “Thought you wasn’t never going to ask. I just happen to have a copy here. The title is Joe Whacks Sam the Plumber, and it’s selling like ice cream. I noticed this here store is fresh out of copies.”

Silence filled the room. Dozens of pairs of eyes were giving Sam mystified looks.

I cleared my throat. “Sam, since you’re the author of this famous work of art, suppose you tell us what the target audience is for your novel.”

“Well, it’s folks that hate Joe Dunn,” Sam said. “You know—that feller that charges low rates, does a good job, and works fast.”

“Your target audience is people who hate a plumber named Joe Dunn?”

Sam nodded. “I figger that’s just about everybody.”

“Let’s take a vote,” I said. “Who hates Joe Dunn, the plumber?”

Nobody moved. As far as I could see, nobody had even heard of Joe Dunn.

“He … sounds pretty good to me,” said the woman with the plastic glasses. “Does he fix leaks in irrigation systems?”

Sam’s face turned purple. “Sure does, and he’s cheap too. Tracks down the leak with some fancy smoke gizmo in no time and gets it fixed faster than you can say Joe Dunn done it. That ain’t no way to run a business. If you folks want to leave a angry message on his voicemail, his number is 555-DUNN.”

I noticed several people scribbling notes on paper.

Sam grinned triumphantly and sat down.

“The point here is that different people like different things,” I said. “Some people are going to love your book. Some are going to hate it. So what’s the lesson to learn from that?”

Minnie shrugged. “Dear me, I suppose it means that you have to try to make everybody happy and don’t offend anyone.”

“Right, take out Tom Bombadil,” said the skateboard kid.

“But I love Tom Bombadil!” protested the woman in glasses. “If you really want to make Lord of the Rings better, take out those horrible ents who take forever to say anything.”

“Ents!” roared a middle-aged man in the back. “Treebeard is brilliant!”

In seconds, the entire room dissolved into chaos.

I rapped loudly on the table. “People! They’re going to throw us out if we can’t keep the noise down a little.”

It took a minute, but slowly the room quieted.

“You can’t make everybody happy with your book,” I said. “So you choose one group of people you’re going to make happy. That group is called your target audience. If everybody else hates your book, that’s okay. Make your target audience happy. That’s your whole goal as a novelist.”

Sam coughed. “What about putting yer competitor outta business? Shouldn’t ya care about that?”

I shook my head. “Sam, this may come as a surprise to you, but the more you talk somebody else down, the more people are going to learn about him and discover that they’re in his target audience.”

Sam gave a skeptical laugh. “Yer telling me that when I tell folks about what a rotten feller Joe Dunn is, he gets more business?”

“Amazing as that may seem, yes.”

Heads were nodding all around the room.

“That’s true.”

“He’s right.”

“I never thought of that.”

“So the point,” I said, “is that you don’t need to worry about people who hate you. If they go making a big fuss about how bad your books are, that only brings you to the attention of more people who are in your target audience. So if you write a book to give those people a great read, then you’ll do fine as an author.”

“But … how do I figure out who all those people are?” asked Minnie. “I can’t afford to take a poll.”

I sat down across the table from her. “You start with yourself. What do you like in a novel?”

“I like dragons!” Minnie said. “And sword fights. And beautiful princesses. And some romance. And a big battle scene. And some sort of evil villain.”

I was taking notes furiously as she talked. “Anything else?”

She thought for a moment. “I think that’s every—”

“She likes naughty scenes,” Sam put in helpfully.

“Sammy, hush!” Minnie’s face turned bright red. She covered her face with her hands. “Whatever will these people think of me if they know I write … kissing scenes?”

The young woman with the plastic glasses leaned forward. “Ma’am, I think all that sounds wonderful. Can I read your book?”

Minnie peeked out from between stubby fingers. “You’re not just saying that?”

“O course she’s just saying that,” Sam said.

Minnie burst into tears.

“Sam, out!” I hissed.

Sam scowled and slouched toward the door.

I turned back to Minnie. “So here’s the thing. Your target audience is the set of people who like dragons and sword fights and princesses and romance and big battle scenes and villains.”

“And naughty scenes with kissing,” said the woman in the glasses. “Lots of kissing.”

Minnie sniffed loudly. “And so … what do I do, now that I know that? It doesn’t seem like that’s very helpful.”

“It’s extremely helpful,” I said. “Write down that list and tape it above your computer. Look at it every day. Before you write a scene, remind yourself who you intend to make happy. Before you edit your scene, remind yourself who you intend to make happy. Before you build your web site, or start a blog, or get on Facebook or Twitter or whatever else you do, remind yourself who you intend to make happy.”

“But … that’s only a few people,” Minnie said. “In all this big room, there’s only this one dear girl in my target audience.”

“Yes, but in the whole world, there are many people in your target audience. And this one woman…” I pointed to her. “I’ll bet she has a few friends.”

The young woman hung her head. “I’m just a boring librarian.”

“And I’ll bet you talk about books all day long to people who like books.”

Her eyes brightened. “That’s my job, and it’s the best job in the whole world.”

“So Minnie, this young woman, if she likes your book, will tell hundreds or thousands of people about it. IF you write it with her in mind. IF you focus on making her as happy as possible with your book.”

Minnie’s eyes pooled with tears. “But … Sammy’s going to just go around running me down and telling people I write … naughty scenes.”

“And did you notice what happened when he did that?” I said. “That’s how this young woman discovered you. Because Sam was bad-mouthing you.”

“Dude, I get it now!” said the kid with the skateboard. “What you want are fans AND haters, because those are the only people who talk about you! The fans talk you up. The haters talk you down. Either way, people are talking!”

“Exactly,” I said. “The worst thing you can do is write something that tries to make everybody somewhat happy without ever offending anybody. That just turns out lukewarm. Nobody much likes it, nobody much hates it, so nobody talks about it.”

“So … what do we do?” said the middle-aged man. “How do we find our target audience?”

“Everybody take out a piece of paper, leave a couple of blank lines at the top of the page, and write down the things you love best in a novel.”

Pens scratched furiously for two minutes.

When I saw that everyone was finished, I said, “Now write at the very top of the page, ‘My Target Audience Is All The People in The World Who Like These Things:’”

More scratching on paper.

“And that’s all there is to it,” I said. “A target audience isn’t complicated. But if you want to be successful, you need to figure out your target audience first, before you do anything else.”

Minnie stood up and hugged the young woman in glasses and then beamed at me. “This is so exciting, dear boy! I’ve got my first fan and I’m on my way. What’s next?”

 

TO BE CONTINUED …

Randy sez: This is the fourth in a series of blog posts on self-publishing novels. Some of what we say will be useful to non-fiction writers too, but our target audience for this series is composed of novelists who want to indie publish their work.

Minnie now knows who’s in the target audience for her novels. What’s her next step? We’ll find out in the next episode.

If you’ve got friends who might be interested in the process, feel free to let them know about this Indie Author Guidebook series.

See you next week!

I was browsing in the Suspense section of my local Barnes & Noble when a familiar voice came over the store loudspeaker. “Attention all wannabe writers. We has inside information that a certain Bigshot Author is in the store giving out free advice fer the next hour. He’s the feller holding the copy of Jimmy Patterson in aisle K.”

Panic shot through my veins. I peeked around the corner at the central desk.

My plumber Sam stood there holding the microphone. He pointed at me and hooted with glee. “There he is! Tackle him now!”

Before I could move, a short bundle of insanity came racing down the aisle and body-slammed me to the floor. “Got him!” shouted Sam’s mother, Minnie. “Free cookies for everyone while this dear boy teaches us about how to get rich as an indie author.”

The store manager came scurrying up to Sam with a disapproving look on her face. “Sir, this is highly irregular! You can’t—”

Sam gave her a huge grin. “Listen, Miss Cutie, I betcha didn’t know you had the feller that wrote the book on fiction writing right here in yer store. And he’s gonna give us an impromptified clinic on publishing right now, and he’ll even autograph all the piles of books ya got on yer shelves that he wrote.”

Minnie pulled my wallet out of my pocket, extracted the driver’s license, and flipped it neatly to the manager. “Go on, dear girl! Just look up his books while we’re getting set up.”

By now an enormous crowd had gathered around.

“Get rich writing books?” one woman said. “Sounds good to me!”

“Awesome! Give the man some room!”

“Hey lady, you going to bring his books for us to buy?”

The store manager thought for a few seconds. “Let’s do this!” She went to a workstation and began pecking in information.

Minnie got off my back, hauled me to my feet, and produced a plate of cookies from her purse. “Free cookies for everybody!”

Five minutes later, we were all crammed into the small coffee shop. Minnie was clutching a thick sheaf of paper, which I assumed was the novel she’d been pestering me to help her with.

“So …” I looked around the group. “Minnie, you called this meeting. What exactly did you have in mind here?”

Minnie plopped her manuscript down on the table in front of me. “I want to know what’s the best way to get this published.”

The one thing I didn’t want to do was look at that manuscript. Most first novels just aren’t ready. Most authors write several novels before they’re ready to get published. So I did the honorable thing. I stalled.

“Okay, let’s review,” I said. “There are three basic ways to get published. You can pay a vanity publisher to do it for you.”

“And they’re all scammers,” Minnie said.

I held up a hand. “Not all of them. Most of the time, a vanity publisher is a bad deal for the author. But there are some honest ones who’ll charge you a fair price and do a good job for you.”

Sam pulled out his iPad and thumped on it for half a minute. “Yup, he told us that, Ma. I got it wrote down right here.”

“It can make sense to work with a vanity publisher under certain conditions,” I said. “If you have a good quality book and a strong marketing platform and you know how to read contracts, you can probably find a suitable vanity publisher. You’ll spend some money up front, but then all the profit goes to you.”

“But … I don’t have much money,” Minnie said. “I think my book is good, but I don’t know anything about that marketing platform thing—”

“No worries,” Sam said. “I can build ya a great platform, Ma. Mr. Bigshot here can give me a drawing and I’ll nail that puppy together, boom, boom, boom!”

“Sammy, dear, shut up.”

Sam gaped at his mother, then leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.

I cleared my throat. “Minnie, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think a vanity publisher is right for you.”

“But dude!” cut in a kid wearing a skateboard shirt. He looked to be about fifteen. “You don’t even know if the lady’s book is any good yet. Ain’t ya gonna look at it? Cuz if it’s a piece of crap, then she ain’t going nowhere with it.”

“That does make sense.” Minnie handed the boy a huge cookie. Then she did the one thing I’d been dreading.

She pushed the manuscript across the table to me. “Now, dear boy, I want you to read my novel and tell me if I’m just wasting my time. I do want to get published, but I’m not going to put my name on something dreadful. So you just tell me right now if it’s horrible.”

The crowd seemed to suck in its collective breath.

I stared at the brick of paper. The cover of the manuscript said simply Sammy Kills The Dragon, by Mama Minnie. With a ridiculous title like that, the odds were high that it was unspeakably awful. And I really didn’t want to have to say so in front of all those people.

Minnie reached across the table and flipped over the title page. “Read!”

I read.

The first sentence made me laugh.

The first paragraph hooked my attention.

By the end of the first page, I forgot I was critiquing it because I was having so much fun reading it.

Mama Minnie could actually write. Sure, there were a couple of spelling errors. But she had started right off in an action scene that put me inside the skin of a character I cared about.

That’s good fiction, no matter what absurd title is on the cover.

I flipped to the second page and raced through it. Then the third, the fourth, the fifth. And that was the end of the first scene, which ended on a cliffhanger.

I looked up at Minnie and smiled. “You write very well.”

The entire crowd erupted in cheers. Suddenly, people were grabbing for the manuscript, fighting for single pages.

Minnie blushed fiercely. “Oh, you’re just flattering me. I bet you tell every pretty girl the same thing.”

I shook my head. “Listen, the one thing I don’t do is flatter people. You write well. Very well. I think you could get this published. By a traditional publisher.”

Minnie began fanning her face. “Really? Oh my! Sammy, did you hear? I’m going to be published!”

I held up a hand. “Okay, remember, we talked about traditional publishers—”

“Buncha scammers,” Sam said. “They’ll rip ya off, Ma. You got to publish it yerself.”

“Sammy, be a dear and stuff that iPad in your … um, mouth.”

I pulled out a pad of paper and drew a horizontal line on it. I made tick marks at the left and right ends. “Let’s make a timeline here. This first mark represents today. The second mark represents the day you’ll see your book in actual stores.”

“Dear, how many days is it between those marks?” Minnie said.

I shrugged. “That’s hard to say. Probably at least a couple of years.”

“A couple of years!” Minnie scowled at me. “You listen here, young man! I don’t want to sit on my hands for a couple of years. I want to get published before I … before I … you know.”

Sam’s face went pale. “Ma, you ain’t gonna snuff it anytime soon.”

Minnie pointed a stubby finger at me. “You say at least two years. But it could be more?”

I nodded. “It could be a lot more. I know a lot of writers who took five or ten years to get published.”

“I’ll be an old woman by then.” Minnie scowled. “What are those publishers going to do for me to make up for wasting years of my life?”

“Several things,” I said. “First, they’ll pay you an advance, probably several thousand dollars. Second, they’ll edit your book. Third, they’ll give you a professional cover. Fourth, they’ll pay all the costs of production. Fifth, they’ll make sure your book gets into stores like this one.”

“And they’ll cheat ya on royalties,” Sam said.

“And they’ll pay you royalties,” I said.

“Will they really cheat me?” Minnie asked. “Or is Sammy just blowing smoke like he usually does?”

“Your royalties won’t be very high,” I said. “On a hardcover, your royalties would be a few dollars per book, assuming—”

“That’s all?” Minnie shrieked. “How come, when it costs twenty or thirty dollars in the store?”

“Overhead and middlemen,” I said. “The publisher has to pay the rent. And the printer. And the warehouse guys. And the truck drivers.”

“And the thieves that run the stores,” Sam said.

I noticed that the room had gone deathly quiet. An icy chill seemed to be radiating onto the back of my neck. I turned around.

The store manager stood there holding two copies of my latest book. “Apparently this is all the stock that the thieves who run the store have on hand.”

“Um … for the record, I think you guys are doing a great job.”

“If you say so, sir.” She slammed the copies on the table and stalked away.

“Hey, Sam, if you wouldn’t mind keeping your opinions to yourself,” I said.

Sam shrugged. “Just telling the plain, unvarnishified truth. It ain’t my fault if some folks is flogging a dying horse.”

I turned back to Minnie. “And if you have a trade paper edition, you’ll be getting about a dollar in royalties per book.”

“One lousy dollar?”

“And if you have a mass market paperback, it would probably be a lot less than that.”

Minnie looked shocked. “What about e-books?”

“Your publisher will get 70% of the purchase price of an e-book. You get 25% of that.”

Sam whipped out his calculator. “So say the book sells fer $10. Yer publisher rakes in $7 and pays you $1.75. But then yer agent takes a cut, so you end up with $1.49.”

Minnie gave him a suspicious glare, then appealed to me. “He’s fibbing, isn’t he? There isn’t any printer or warehouse or truck drivers for an e-book, so why is the publisher going to keep all that much money?”

I shook my head. “Unfortunately, Sam is telling the truth. Right now, this may be the biggest conflict between authors and publishers.”

“Well, then what if I don’t get an agent? Why should I give some agent my money?”

“You really need an agent if you’re going with any of the major traditional publishers. Without an agent, you probably won’t sell your book, and if you do, the publisher will give you a terrible contract and you won’t know any better so you’ll sign it.”

“But I could sell my book myself to a smaller publisher?”

“Maybe. But the smaller publishers probably won’t get you into many bookstores. And one of the biggest reasons to work with a traditional publisher is that they get you into bookstores.”

Minnie’s face had gone bright red. “Well let’s just suppose I were to self-publish my book. I’m not saying I will, but just suppose.”

Sam smirked.

“That’s an option,” I said. “It has some disadvantages and some advantages. First, there’s no advance.”

“Don’t need an advance,” Minnie said. “I have my Social Security and I get by.”

“Second, you’d have to pay your own editor.”

Minnie flinched. “How much would that be?”

“Could be a few hundred. A really top-notch editor would cost you a couple of thousand dollars.”

“That’s all?” Minnie stared at me. “Could I get something decent for two thousand?”

“You could get an outstanding editor for two thousand dollars. But then you also need to pay a graphic artist to design your cover.”

Minnie shook her head. “And how many thousands is that?”

“You can get a decent cover for a hundred dollars and a very good one for five hundred,” I said. “You just have to know an experienced artist, and there are plenty of them. I can give you some names.”

“Dear boy! Would you?” Minnie seized my hand in her powerful grip and squeezed.

Tears sprang up in my eyes. “Y-yes.” I worked my hand free and began checking it for broken bones. “And your final cost would be production. You need to create the e-book files for the online stores.”

Minnie shuddered. “I knew there was a catch. How much is that? Five thousand? Ten thousand? I’m not rich.”

“You can do it yourself if you’re willing to spend a little time. Or you can pay somebody to do it for one or two hundred dollars.”

“And that’s everything?” Minnie said. “That’s my final cost? What about that agent thing? How much does he get if I self-publish?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You don’t need an agent if you’re an indie author. You just do it.”

“Just … do it? All by my little lonesome?”

“Ma, I’ll help you. I done it loads of times,” Sam said.

Minnie shushed him. “So you’re saying that for under three thousand dollars, I could self-publish my novel and keep all the profits?”

I nodded. “I know plenty of indie authors who’ve done it for under a hundred. They don’t hire an editor. They do their own cover art. And they just upload their Word document straight to Amazon.”

Sam jumped up and blew an imaginary trumpet. “Not to brag, but my JoeDunnit murder mystery novel didn’t cost me nothing, and it’s selling like fire on Smashwords.”

“And it’s the most ridiculous piece of dreck a mother ever was forced to read,” Minnie said.

Sam grinned at her. “Ya can’t argue with the numbers, Ma. I’m earning hunnerts every week fer my books, and you ain’t earning squat.”

“Language!” Minnie said. “I didn’t raise you to say words like that!”

“There’s one last thing,” I said. “If you self-publish your book, you probably won’t sell any paper copies in stores.”

“And why is that?” Minnie looked alarmed.

“Because bookstores typically don’t buy books unless the publisher takes returns. And bookstores are wary of self-published books because a lot of them are … not very well-written.”

Minnie threw a furtive glance at Sam. “I suppose they have a point.”

“So yer saying Ma ain’t gonna have great piles of her books in this store like you do?” Sam pointed at the two copies of my book on the table. “Whooey, that’s a mighty strong case yer making there fer the big cheese publishers.”

I felt my face getting hot. “I’m officially a hybrid author. I’ve published eight books with traditional publishers. Now I’m releasing my out-of-print books as an indie author and at the same time, I’ll be doing some other books that crashed and burned with traditional publishers.”

Sam sniffed loudly. “You might think you’re some high and mighty high-bred author, but you ain’t all that.”

“Sammy, shut up!” Minnie put her head in her hands and closed her eyes. “It just isn’t an easy decision. I can see that each of the choices makes sense for some authors but not for others. But for me … I’m going to be an indie author.”

Sam began dancing a little jig, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

“That boy!” Minnie shook her head. “But let me tell you my thinking and you can tell me if I’m just a silly old woman or if I’m thinking straight.”

I waited.

Minnie held up one finger. “First, I don’t need an advance because I have some income.”

“Makes sense.”

“Second, I’m going to hire an editor and graphic artist and some geeky boy to make my e-book files. You say I can do that for under three thousand dollars, right?”

I nodded. “You can get a stellar job for that much. You can do quite well for under a thousand.”

“Third, I want a fair shake on royalties. If I make five times as much on e-books and never sell any paper copies, I’d come out ahead, right?”

“Quite possibly,” I said.

“Hey, lady, what about your marketing?” said the skateboard kid. “You ain’t gonna sell nothing without marketing.”

“Oh dear!” Minnie said. “I don’t know anything about marketing. Maybe I’m just all wrong. Maybe I need a traditional publisher after all.”

I shook my head. “A traditional publisher is going to expect you to do most of your marketing anyway. No matter what publishing option you choose, you’re going to be stuck with the marketing. And it’s not as hard as it sounds.”

Minnie took a deep breath. She obviously didn’t want to market her books. But she also obviously wanted to get her book published.

She clenched both her fists and pounded the table. “I’ll … do it! I want to be an author. I’m going to be an indie author. And if I have to learn how to market my books to do that, then I’ll just do it, by gum!”

“Language, Ma!” Sammy said in a shocked voice.

For a second, the whole room was quiet. Then the entire crowd burst into applause.

Minnie quietly stood up and took a bow, a huge smile covering her face.

A new indie author was born.

 

TO BE CONTINUED …

Randy sez: This is the third in a series of blog posts on self-publishing novels. Some of what we say will be useful to non-fiction writers too.

Minnie is now officially committed to becoming an indie author. What’s her next step? We’ll find out in the next episode.

If you’ve got friends who might be interested in the process, feel free to let them know about this Indie Author Guidebook series.

See you next week!

In the meantime, please do me a favor and let me know how we’re doing so far. We’re now three chapters in on the Indie Author Guidebook. I’m using storytelling techniques to teach the basic ideas. Is it working for you? Is it not? I’ve created a short survey on SurveyMonkey where you can tell me what you like and what you don’t. Please take the survey now. This is your chance to help me help you. Thank you! I appreciate you taking the two minutes to answer a few simple questions.

The phone rang just as I was sitting down to write my next blog post. One look at the caller ID told me it was trouble. My plumber, Sam, who has an endless number of ways to drain my bank account.

I let the phone go to voice mail and logged in to my blog.

The doorbell rang. Twice. Three times. Then one long continuous ring.

I peeked out my office window and saw a very short, stout older woman on my porch holding a plate stacked with the largest cookies I’ve ever seen.

I went to the door and opened it. “I’m sorry but–”

“See, he’s home after all!” boomed a familiar voice. Sam the plumber jumped out from behind an enormous tree.

“Dear boy!” said the woman. “Little Sammie’s told me all about you! Thank you so much for offering to help with my book. Here, have a cookie!” She handed me a chocolate-chip cookie the size of a small pizza. It felt like it weighed ten pounds.

I suddenly realized that the woman looked a lot like Sam, except scaled down in size. Sam is well over six feet tall and weighs about 300 pounds.

“I see you’ve met my Ma!” Sam bellowed as he wiped his boots on the welcome mat. “She’s got great news. Wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Um, that’s … great.” I noticed that some of the chocolate chips were already melting in my hands. “Listen, I need to go put this cookie down.”

“Go on ahead.” Sam pushed open the door. “We’ll just make ourselves at home.”

Which was exactly what I was afraid of. I backed into the kitchen, dropped the cookie on the counter, and washed about a pound of melted chocolate off of my hands.

When I got back to the living room, Sam had taken over my favorite chair and his mother was perched primly on the couch.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” I said as I sat down. “I’m–”

“Sammie’s told me all about you already,” she said. “You can call me Minnie.”

“Well, um, Minnie. What sort of news do you have?”

“Dear boy!” she said. “I’m going to be published! By a real publisher. I’ll be an author at last!”

“That’s … great. So there’s an advance and all that?”

“Yes, and quite a sizable one!” she said. “That’s why we need your advice. Sammie tells me you’re a world-famous author and you know about these things. I don’t want to make a mistake.”

“Well, what kind of book are you writing?”

“It’s a yeah novel,” Sam said.

“A … what?” I said. “I’ve never heard of a yeah novel.”

Minnie gave me a disapproving frown. “Sammie said you know everything about publishing. How could you not know about yeah novels?”

“Who’s the target audience?”

“Why, young adults, of course.”

“You mean a YA novel?”

“Of course. A yeah novel.” Minnie beamed at me. “And it’s got a wonderful title: SAMMIE KILLS THE DRAGON.”

“That’s, um, pretty unusual.”

“My publisher thinks it’s marvelous and unique. He says they want to publish it right away, as soon as I sign the contract.”

Every hackle in my body rose. “Right away? They don’t want to do any editing?”

Sam grinned. “They said they might wanna fix a few spelling errors. Other than that, it’s good to go. They even have a whole buncha nice covers on their web site. We already picked one out — it just needs a title and author name.”

“And the dragon has to be pink,” Minnie said.

This was not computing. Not at all. “You said there was an advance. Can I ask how much?”

“Almost $8,000,” Minnie said.

I stared at her. Something was really wrong here. “$8,000? That’s pretty high for a first novel in this economy. You must have really impressed them.”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” she said. “We think it’s too much.”

Then it all clicked into place. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop right there. You’re telling me they’re ASKING for $8,000 to publish your novel?”

“See, that’s where we figgered you could help us,” Sam said.

“Dead right, I can help you.” I was angry now. I hate seeing writers get ripped off by predatory publishers. Here’s how I’ll help you–”

“Dear boy!” Minnie leaped to her feet and threw her arms around me and squeezed. Hard. For nearly a minute. Forcing every molecule of air out of my lungs.

By the time she finished hugging me, I was nearly unconscious.

Sam grinned. “See, we know that being a bigshot author, you probably got $8,000 in spare change socked away that you could use to help a feller author out–”

I waited for the black spots to disappear from my eyes. “Okay, listen. Have a seat Minnie. Let me tell you a few things about publishing.”

Minnie sat back down on the couch.

I tried to pick my words tactfully. “Listen, the way publishing normally works is that the publisher pays the author an advance.”

“That’s what we thought,” said Minnie. “So we were surprised when they said that they were going to partner with me and my share would be all that much money.”

“There are plenty of publishers who ask you to pay to publish your work,” I said. “Sometimes they’re called vanity publishers. Or subsidy publishers. Or whatever. Most of them are not legit.”

Sam pulled out an iPad from his coverall pocket and started thumping with two fingers on the screen. “Don’t mind me. I’m just taking notes on all this. So we don’t fergit.”

“Let’s be clear that some of these publishers are legitimate,” I said. “They basically do all the work you’d have to do if you were acting as your own publisher. They help you manage the process and they take a fee, but the profits for the book go to you.”

Sam pecked madly on his iPad.

“But way too many of these publishers are scammers,” I said. “Their job is to get as much money as possible from you and to do as little work as possible. They take a fee and then if any copies of the book actually sell, they take most of the profits.”

Minnie’s lower lip was trembling. “How … how can you tell which is which?”

“It’s kind of a gray line,” I said. “There are some publishers that are very clearly legit. There are some that are obviously a scam. And there are some in the gray middle. You have to read the contract and know what you’re looking for–”

“Dear boy! You’ll help us, won’t you? Sammie, you were so smart to know to come ask him for help!”

I sighed. Obviously, I wasn’t going to get my blog written today. “I’d need to have a copy of the contract to know for sure–”

“That ain’t no problem,” Sam said. “Got it right here on my iPad.” He pecked and swiped furiously on the screen for half a minute, then handed it to me. “Just read that there contract and tell us what yer expert eyes sees.”

I took the iPad and began reading. By the end of the first paragraph, I already didn’t like it.

“You realize that this contract gives the publisher the exclusive right to publish your book anywhere in the world, in any language?”

“That’s good, ain’t it?” said Sam. “Means they believe in the book.”

“It means they’re locking down all sorts of rights, even if they have no plans on using them. But if your book should happen to do well and some foreign publisher inquires about foreign language rights, then this publisher will take 50% of that income. The contract says very clearly that they don’t seek out foreign deals.”

“Dear me, that doesn’t sound honest,” Minnie said.

“And this paragraph says that the publisher will print out copies at their expense to fill out all bona fide orders.” I looked at Minnie. “You do realize that means they’re a print-on-demand company, right?”

Minnie shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means they don’t publish any copies at all until an order comes in. Then they have a machine to print out that one order.”

“That’s good, ain’t it?” Sam said. “Means they don’t waste no space in a warehouse with books that ain’t sold yet.”

“It means they never have to print a single copy,” I said. “Unless by some miracle somebody somewhere orders it. Then they print it out.”

“Well, but then they pay me royalties when they do that,” Minnie said. “I know I saw something in there about royalties.”

“Royalties!” I shouted. Now I was furious.

“Ain’t royalties a good thing?” Sam said. “You get royalties from that publisher of yours that publishes books fer stupid people.”

“Royalties are fine when the publisher is paying the costs of publishing the book and is paying the author an advance. Royalties are NOT fine when you’re paying those costs.”

I scanned to the next paragraph in the contract. What I saw made my head start throbbing.

“Okay, this is awful. This is horrible. You pay for all the production costs, and then when you make a sale, IF you make a sale, they pay you 10% of the retail price.”

“Is that … bad?” Minnie’s voice was quavering.

“They ought to be paying you the sale price minus the cost of printing and distribution.”

“But they’re the publisher,” Sam said. “Don’t they got to earn something fer their investment in Ma’s career?”

“They AREN’T investing in her career!” I shouted. “They’re asking her to invest in them.”

Sam looked thunderstruck. “That ain’t right,” he said. “That’s like … charging a customer full price on a low-flush toilet that ya bought at wholesale, and then charging fer delivery when it’s already in the back of yer truck.”

I gave him a sharp look. “Exactly like that.”

Sam’s face turned bright red. “Not that I’d know nobody who ever done something like that.”

Minnie pointed at the iPad. “Explain to me about this catalog fee.”

I studied the paragraph. I’d never heard of a catalog fee. It turned out to be bizarre. “Well, it looks pretty simple. Every January, they charge you a fee to put your book in their catalog. And if you don’t pay, then they deduct it from whatever royalties you might have earned.”

Minnie shrugged. “I suppose that sounds fair, but just how much is this catalog fee?”

I could feel my blood starting to boil. “That’s the beauty of this scam. They don’t tell you how much it is. Might be $10. Might be $1000. There is no way for you to know — until next January when you get the bill. And then you’ll get another bill the year after and the year after — forever! So not only are they taking your money at the beginning of this con job, but they’ve got you on the hook to pay money to them forever. And they aren’t telling you how much it is–yet. But they’ve got a contract to prove that you owe them more money every year.”

“Well, that ain’t fair!” Sam said. “Wiggling in extra charges like that, it’s like … fixing the toilet and then offering to service the flaboozie valve on the septic system fer an extra hunnert bucks.”

“Sammie, dear, what’s a flaboozie valve?”

Sam looked extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m sure no honest plumber would ever pad the invoice,” I said.

“But a feller hears stories from time to time,” Sam said.

“The point is that this charge is ridiculous,” I said. “This is a predatory publisher, for sure.”

“But the man on the phone was so nice!” Minnie said. “He said they print all the author copies at their own expense.”

I read the next paragraph. “Yes, they print the first 25 copies at their expense. That probably costs them $100. Maybe as much as $200. But you’re paying $8000. Where do you think the rest is going?”

“They said they was paying the editor fellers,” Sam said. “Says so in the e-mail they sent.” He grabbed the iPad and switched over to the e-mail. “See all the things they was going to edit? Long list.”

I read it carefully. “Let’s see, spelling, grammar, punctuation, commas. I should hope they’d fix those. It’ll cost them a few hundred bucks to hire a proofreader off the internet. Oh, and they say they MIGHT change the readability level. And what’s next? Aha!” I jabbed my finger at the screen. “Read that list, Sam.”

Sam peered at the screen. “Basic content could be enlarged and better examples given.” He frowned at Minnie. “Ma, I didn’t know you had any examples in yer book.”

“Well, I don’t. It’s a yeah novel.”

Sam continued down the list. “Many common references need to be checked fer accuracy. Permissions fer use of copyrighted work may need to be obtained. Any potentially libelous statements will be purged.”

A puzzled look settled across Minnie’s face. “But I don’t HAVE any references in my book. This is a yeah novel. And I don’t quote any copyrighted work either. Or make libelous statements. Why are they going to do all that work for me when I don’t need it?”

“They aren’t,” I said. “Here’s the thing. They send this exact letter to every writer, fiction or nonfiction. They haven’t read your book. They have no idea what’s in it. They’re giving you a long list of things that they might do, when they hire some cheap editor somewhere to skim through your book and tweak it up a bit.”

“That’s … that’s like a feller who calls up cold and offers to inspect yer irrigation system fer termite damage when–” Sam stopped and coughed lightly. “What I’m saying is, it ain’t honest.”

“And here’s the clincher,” I said. “this last point says that the Marketing Department has indicated that their promotions may not result in as many sales as they would wish, and they want you to know that, but they’re going to approve publishing your title anyway.”

“Why would they DO that?” Minnie said. “If they don’t think my book’s going to sell, why would they go to all the work to publish it?”

“Cuz it ain’t no skin off their nose if it don’t sell,” Sam said. “Since they’re asking us to pay fer it all, they don’t care if it sells or not.”

Minnie looked shocked. “That’s dreadful! Perfectly criminal!” She jabbed a finger at me. “You’re telling me that all these publishers are naughty, naughty boys, aren’t you?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “There are some perfectly legitimate subsidy publishers who would do a good job for you, hire good editors and get a good quality cover made, all at a fair price. That could make financial sense, if you had a marketing platform in place and could sell copies on your own.”

“Sell copies on my own? Is that legal?” Minnie began wringing her hands.

“Authors should be able to buy copies at cost and then sell them. Let me just check the terms.” I scanned the contract.

“Ma, you could buy copies and sell ’em to yer friends,” Sam said.

“These are terrible terms,” I said. “This publisher will sell you books, yes. But they’ll charge you the wholesale rate, which is probably a lot more than their cost. That’s a ripoff. They should charge you their cost.”

I continued scanning down the contract. “And it gets worse. They only pay your royalties annually. Legitimate publishers pay your royalties at least twice a year.”

Sam was stomping back and forth in my living room. “Ma, this coulda been a fiasco. They mighta took yer money and then you woulda got nothing and then you’d have to wait till the next book to get rich.”

I shook my head. “No, it would be even worse than that. This is unbelievable, but there’s a no-compete clause in this contract. If you sign it, not only will they cheat you out of your money, but you agree not to publish another book with any other publisher, EVER, that might compete with this one.”

“Ever?” Minnie squeaked. “But … don’t contracts end eventually?”

I pointed to the termination clause in the contract. “The contract only ends when this predatory publisher says it ends, and they have no incentive to ever end the contract because they’ll be getting that catalog fee from you forever. The only way you could force it to terminate is if the book goes out of print. But a print-on-demand book NEVER goes out of print.”

Sam was thumping his enormous fist in his palm. “There’s ways to MAKE a feller go out of business. That’d end the contract!”

“Not this contract,” I said. “This clause right here says that the publisher can assign the rights for your book to somebody else if they go bankrupt. And you can’t do anything about it.”

“So yer saying it’s a horrible contract,” Sam said. “Can you negotiate for us? Make ’em give us a better deal?”

I shook my head. “Sam, this is the worst contract I’ve ever seen. These people are thieves. They’ll take your money and do the absolute minimum needed to get the book in print. They won’t do anything to market the book. If you market it yourself, then they’ll keep most of the money. They’ll charge you a catalog fee every year until the world ends. They’ll never terminate the contract. And they’ll sue you if you try to write another book that competes with it.”

“Dear boy! You’ve saved us from making a dreadful, dreadful mistake!”

Sam took my hand and shook it violently. “I take back some of the things I said about you on Twitter. Yer a decent feller, even if yer always griping about how much a honest plumber charges.”

There seemed to be no good answer to that, so I said nothing.

Tears were rolling down Minnie’s cheeks. “But I wanted so BAD to be a best-selling yeah author. And now there’s no hope. No hope at all.”

“Ma, I told ya about how ya could self-publish yer book on Amazon,” Sam said. “I done that and I’m making good money with my Joedunnit books.”

She blew her nose on my sleeve. “That isn’t real publishing, Sammie. That’s just something amateurs do.”

I didn’t want to make more work for myself. I knew I was crazy to say anything. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I wouldn’t have to deal with Minnie and her yeah novel, ever again.

But I’m stupid. I’m an idiot. I’m a hundred-percent, grade-A fool.

Which is why I corrected her.

“Minnie, that’s not exactly true,” I said. “Plenty of professional writers are self-publishing these days. And some of them are making good money.”

Minnie dried her eyes. Stared hard at me to see if I was lying. Took hold of my hand and kissed it.

“Dear boy! You’re going to help me publish my yeah novel, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Oh, Sammie, you’re such a genius to bring me here. Such a genius!”

TO BE CONTINUED …

What’s Next

Randy sez: This is the first in a series of blog posts on how to self-publish a novel. Some of what we say will be useful to non-fiction writers too.

Minnie’s contract is based on a real one I have seen. The list of spurious editing services offered to Minnie is based on a real one I have seen.

In the coming weeks, I’ll walk Minnie through the process of editing her novel and getting it published on Amazon and other online retailers. Maybe Minnie will earn big bucks. Maybe she won’t. But she’ll never know unless she tries.

And at least she won’t be paying out a huge pile of money to a predatory publisher somewhere.

A Contest For Most Helpful Story

Now I’d like to hear from my Loyal Blog Readers. Have you had a bad experience with a predatory publisher? Do you want to share what you learned? Can you tell us what you’d do differently?

You don’t have to name names, but if you do, I won’t stop you.

The main thing is that you can make a difference in the world. You can tell other writers what mistakes not to make. You can help put the crooks out of business.

Leave a comment and tell your story. If you’ve got a friend with a predatory publisher horror story, send them here to leave a comment.

I’ll read each story and choose the one that I think is most helpful to my Loyal Blog Readers.

The winner gets their choice of an interview on my blog or a free five-page critique by me of their current manuscript.

I’ll choose the winner two weeks from today, on July 2, 2013.

Note added July 3, 2013: And the winner is … Caprice, with her cautionary tale about “Publisher X.” Caprice, I’ll email you privately to ask whether you want to do an interview or get a critique.

Thanks to all my Loyal Blog Readers for your comments and stories about predatory publishers. I appreciate you!