Explaining Research (Oxford University Press, 2010), began its eccentric evolution as a modest booklet-sized manuscript that I planned to self-publish; but ended up as a 368-page book produced by a major academic publisher. The tale of that evolution, I think, offers useful lessons for authors who face a daunting new era of self-publishing technology and an economically depressed publishing industry.
Explaining Research (Oxford University Press, 2010), began its eccentric evolution as a modest booklet-sized manuscript that I planned to self-publish; but ended up as a 368-page book produced by a major academic publisher. The tale of that evolution, I think, offers useful lessons for authors who face a daunting new era of self-publishing technology and an economically depressed publishing industry.
The experience certainly taught me quite a bit about how to navigate this new publishing world and emerge with a useful book and maybe even a bit of income.
The project began some five years ago as a revision of the outdated NASW booklet Communicating Science News, written in the last century. My wife, Joni, and I planned to self-publish the new booklet, so I began to explore the technology and economics of self-publishing. One product of this exploration was the marketing and publishing section on the NASW website.
That exploration yielded advice that is key to developing a successful book: Identify target readers, figure out what information they want, and create a book to give them that information. In the case of our book project, following that advice led us to realize that only a small fraction of our target readers, scientists and engineers, care much about reaching the media. The majority are far more concerned with other audiences: their colleagues, officers of funding agencies and foundations, donors, their institution's leaders, corporate partners, students, and legislators. The information our readers need to reach those audiences ranges widely, including how to create effective news releases, feature stories, blogs, websites, videos, etc.
Thus, the book began to expand in scope, even more so as I interviewed several dozen PIOs and science writers, who contributed great ideas and anecdotes. Although the book had grown far beyond a mere pamphlet, we still believed we should self-publish, since it would give us more control and a bigger slice of any income. And, we calculated that the available self-publishing services — for example, cover and interior design, layout, and short-run printing — would enable us to initially self-publish and market a book for a few thousand dollars.
We named the book Explaining Research and importantly, found that we could reserve the URL ExplainingResearch.com. In developing the book's website, we followed another excellent piece of advice: Make the site a major marketing tool. So, to show potential readers the book's substance we posted considerable content, including the table of contents, preface, acknowledgments, and introduction. Also, we put the references online, rather than including them in the book, to allow updating and expansion.
Ultimately, our self-publishing scheme went out the window when we realized how large the potential market had become. Our audience analysis showed there are about 6.5 million scientists, engineers, and physicians in the U.S. alone who might buy the book, not to mention the students in scores of science writing courses.
While it is economically feasible to self-publish a narrowly targeted book with a relatively small audience, Joni calculated that if our book began to sell well to this large audience, we would be faced with shelling out tens of thousands of dollars in printing costs, with no payback for a year or more. And, we would be trying to sell in the academic market, which involves working through distribution channels that prefer to deal with established publishers.
So, we pitched the book to commercial publishers, and fortunately Oxford University Press was interested. It was a perfect fit, given Oxford's reputation, emphasis on communication books, and international reach. Oxford proposed an initial contract, and we launched into negotiations that taught us a hard lesson in the tough economic realities of publishing today. For example, Oxford offered an initial advance of only $1,500 and proposed to calculate royalties based on the net price rather than the traditional basis of list price. The net price is the amount that the publisher receives from the bookseller, while the list price is the suggested retail price.
Oxford also wanted to hold the copyright to the book. And if it requested a new edition, and I declined to produce it, Oxford wanted the right to hire another writer and charge the costs to my royalties.
Fortunately, we were alerted to the pitfalls of such contract terms by the book Negotiating a Book Contract (available from bookcontracts.com). And even more fortunate, a top-flight literary lawyer, Bob Stein of Pryor Cashman in New York City, agreed to negotiate the contract for me. Although he obtained far more favorable publishing terms, the final advance was still low — $2,000 plus $1,000 to help pay for cartoons for the book. Thus, given that I had to pay for research expenses, the index, lawyer's fees, and website fees, the book started out in the red.
I do not blame Oxford for its tough contract negotiations. After all, it needs to stay in business during hard times for publishers. Not long before we began negotiations Oxford U.S. laid off 60 people from its staff of 700.
I asked Stein whether Oxford's contract was typical of book contracts these days. He commented that, even though Oxford has been described as the most "commercial" university press, its contract form "contains provisions more similar to those used by other university presses and by textbook publishers than those of trade publishers; provisions which favor the publisher rather than the author." These provisions include (among others) those dealing with copyright ownership, later revisions of the book, royalty advances, and royalties. Stein emphasized that, especially given today's publishing climate, having a savvy negotiator is critical to coming out ahead in negotiations over such issues.
Because Stein was familiar with standard trade publishing practices, and had persuasive arguments (i.e., arguments which went beyond "I don't like this provision, and it's bad for the author ... please change it"), he was able to obtain most of the changes I needed for my protection, and indeed a contract that rivaled those of most trade publishers.
"The exceptions, of course, were the low advance and royalty rates, which remain typical of university press publisher," said Stein.
Contract aside, it turned out to be a very wise decision to go with Oxford. Its editing and marketing has been first-rate, and its sales force has given the book a reach we could not possibly have achieved alone.
A major irony, however, is that we have ended up back in the self-publishing business. When Oxford asked me to cut the manuscript by 15,000 words, I elected to pull out a long section on working with public information officers. We decided to self-publish the section as a print booklet (www.WorkingwithPIOs.com), besides posting it on the website as a service to researchers and PIOs. In deciding to self-publish the booklet, we followed another prime piece of publishing advice: Make your book a centerpiece of other related publishing and consulting ventures.
We are producing the booklet through the print-on-demand company Lightning Source (lightningsource.com) and selling it on the ExplainingResearch.com website through Amazon.com, and other outlets. Whether we will make any money on the booklet remains to be seen, but it's a worthwhile self-publishing experiment.
Now begins the real work of marketing Explaining Research using e-mail, flyers, talks, and other techniques we learned in exploring book marketing. My promoter's dream is to persuade readers to buy multiple copies — one for their office, one for their home study, and one for each bathroom. And maybe one to prop open a window, one to swat flies, one to ...
Dennis Meredith (www.DennisMeredithConsulting.com) is a science writer and research-communication consultant.
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