As I’ve been expanding my skill set in the publishing process, I’ve been thinking about what to call what I do, and several years ago, the idea of shepherding came to mind. I’d been informally advising some self-publishing authors about that particular process and the basic aspects of editing that they’d have to go through, along with the book design process. So, I thought, hey, this guiding stuff is just like being a shepherd, a publishing process shepherd.

Of course, once I went to Google and searched, I found out lots of folks had thought of this already, and bookshepherd.com was already spoken for. Figures. So, for me, the title Book Shepherd is more of a role identity than a branding identity.

The Virtue of a Team Approach

I know the lone shepherd guarding his sheep is the main trope for shepherding, but one thing I want to make sure I do with this role is to focus my direct efforts on the aspects I have experience and talent in and refer the rest. Any one individual who says they can do everything for you in a long and often complex process like publishing is spreading themselves too thin, in my opinion, not to mention that more than one or two pairs of eyes on a document will almost always produce more accurate results. Remember that publishing has traditionally been a collaborative effort using a staff of editors, proofreaders, typesetters, printers, and marketers to support the writer’s creative effort. Just because we are self-publishing now doesn’t mean all these tasks must be done by one individual, whether it be the author or a single “book shepherd.” So, if I end up copy editing your book, I’m likely to recommend someone else to proofread it; I think you’ll get better quality copy that way. I also let other folks with better graphics skills do most of the book covers for my clients.

Book shepherds provide an invaluable set of services, though, particularly regarding expertise on the process as a whole. I am constantly being asked new questions (like “so, how can I get twenty-five copies of a new booklet to take to an event to show off and sell, but I don’t want to necessarily sell them on Amazon?”) that cause me to increase my knowledge on what’s available for self-publishing authors. 

If you need help with publishing, just let me know.

And in the interest of quality referrals, since it take a village oftentimes to publish a book, here are a couple of folks with great advice of their own:

Brian Klems at Writer’s Digest has written a great article on the editor–author relationship: “10 Things Your Freelance Editor Might Not Tell You—But Should.”

My editor buddy from the far north of Scotland, Sara Donaldson, is not only a great editor and genealogical researcher, but also a great writer herself, and her blog at Northern Editorial is just chock full of great advice for working with editors and writing in general.

And, in the past year, I’ve discovered an amazing book designer (who does covers, too!) I can refer my clients to for more complex interior designs and great covers. She is Julie Karen. If you need design, check her out!

Last time, I wrote a bit about work availability in the book production business. Today, it’s time for the rates question.

The question of how much to charge is often on new editorial freelancers’ minds. And I think we get into our fears about being rejected. We underbid and run into the same issues that happen when looking for a job and not asking what we are worth salary-wise. I don’t think that being job scared all the time will serve us in the long run as either employees or freelancers. Let’s look at this a different way.

The Value-and-Match Question

I prefer to look at rates as part of a value-and-match question for both the provider of a product or service and their client.

We can’t initially know for sure all of the motivations of a potential client (we are not them), so let’s begin with our side of the value-and-match: the freelancer in this case. What do you want from this gig? As an editor, you can get anywhere from $20 to $120US per hour (or less or more), depending on how potential clients see your value and what match relationships you create. I’m sure famous fantasy author, Neil Gaiman, pays his developmental editor an excellent rate: a) because he values her expertise very highly, b) because she values her expertise very highly, and c) because they are a good match for each other. As a result, she may not need many other clients in order to make a good living.

But you and I may not meet a famous (and prolific) author and become their go-to editor, and maybe you are just starting out in the field. Maybe you are the major/sole breadwinner in your family, or maybe you just want to create some supplemental income. You see, we all come from different places on the experience-expertise-compensation-need spectrum. So, comparing your rates to other folks is not particularly useful. There is a rather large range of actual hourly rates for publishing services, a large enough range that your needs can probably be met somewhere along the range.

Setting Standards, Setting Boundaries

The key to success is to know your value. You may start out a bit lower than some average hourly rate (I normally charge by the page or word and track my hourly to make sure that rate is working for me, so if I can go faster, I make more anyway, and the client has a fixed fee to budget for), but one key is to not be afraid to raise your rates as your expertise and reputation grow. And also to not be afraid to drop a client if they insist on remaining too cheap after you have moved on to better rates with others.

That’s been the pattern of my experience: finding returning clients willing to pay higher rates and letting go of early ones who want to pay the same rate they did twenty-five years ago (yep, it happens!). Those clients I’ve kept know my value and will pay a small premium for it. Letting go of the matches that don’t work for you can be just as important as getting that client match you’ve always been looking for. No point in wasting your time with a rate that won’t pay the bills.

Your client match (for content, personality and payment) is definitely out there. Go be irresistibly attractive with your excellent value as a publishing services provider, and they will find you.

I’ve noticed a certain amount of angst as well as some misunderstanding of the American fee-based method for obtaining an ISBN (that 13-digit number for your book), and figuring out what the barcode does for you and where to get that to add to the back of your book.

So, here’s the current truth that my research and experience have uncovered.

ISBNs

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) keeps an eye on all kinds of standards to keep things predictable, from bribery prevention to clean rooms. They also sponsor informational standards, like the ones used for book indexing, actually, and also the International Standard Book Number (ISBN). Since 1967, published books have had ISBNs, although now they have thirteen numbers instead of  nine or ten (e.g., ISBN 978-3-16-148410-0). If you want to get geeky with it, check out the article on Wikipedia.

Required, or Not?

An ISBN is required for every edition of every printed book distributed by agents and organizations that sell books (this means Amazon, Lulu, Barnes and Noble, etc.). And this requirement applies to online print-on-demand and brick-and-mortar book sellers. You won’t go to jail if you don’t have an ISBN, and no one will bother you if you don’t have one and are giving your book away on your website. But if you are selling your book through any kind of distributor (like Amazon, IngramSpark, BookBaby), that distributor will require one.

For ebooks, it’s yes and no, depending. If you sell an ebook on your website yourself, or if you sell only through Amazon, you don’t need a separate number for your ebook. Other distributors may require one, though.

Cost of the ISBN

Each country has its own set of numbers to hand out, so the cost of getting an ISBN varies from free to fairly expensive ($125 from RR Bowker in the USA for a single number) depending on the originating country’s setup. In the U.S., as with lots of other things, ISBN assignment is a privatized effort, and so the fee.

The important bit to remember, and something one of my clients didn’t know, is that it costs a whole lot less to get ISBNs in bulk than to buy them individually. So, if you know you’ll be doing a series of books, take heed, because 10 ISBNs will only cost $295 total. That’s a huge discount per number. My client was publishing an updated edition of his book every year, and paying for one ISBN each time. He was quite pleased when I let him know that he could buy them in larger quantities and save quite a bit of money.

Also, if you do want to distribute your book from different sources (Amazon and IngramSpark, for example), you will likely need multiple ISBNs to cover ebook versions, and what if you want to publish a color printed version and a black-and-white version? They have to have separate numbers.

Where to Get Your ISBN

To register an ISBN in the USA, head on over to Bowker’s Identifier Services site and they’ll take you through the process. They also sell barcodes to put on the back of your book that have the ISBN embedded in them for scanning at checkout and keeping track of inventory, but there are cheaper ways to do the barcode thing once you have your ISBN.

Barcodes

So, now you have your ISBN number, which needs to be pasted into the copyright page of the inside of your book as well as on the back, but a barcode would look kind of cool, official-looking, and useful for our heavily “scanned” consumer world.

You can pay all kinds of fees (at Bowker and elsewhere) to get the barcode printed (with or without a price included in the code), but I found this nifty site where you can get one generated for free (at Bookow.com). Now, if you want a bunch of barcodes, there will be a fee, which I think is fair enough, but as Bookow says, it’s worth it to them to provide self-publishers in particular with a free one for the occasional book project.

The image file that you get from the barcode can be either a PDF (better quality for print) or a PNG file (better for ebooks), or you could get one of both. I thought the instructions were simple and the product worked just fine.

Then just add it to the electronic version of your cover (back bottom right corner) (or give it to your book designer to add), and you are set.

Now back to the more time-consuming part of finishing writing the book and getting it properly edited!

Yep, I can do it all (well, almost), but having me carry out all the production tasks for a book is not necessarily in the author’s, and therefore, the reader’s best interest. Definitely more money for me if I do everything, but there are drawbacks to putting one’s book production tasks all in one basket.

Proofreading and/or Editing

I love proofreading, for example, but I am not the best candidate for your proofreading need if I’ve also been working with you on developmental and copy editing. We often say that it’s not a good idea for the author to do all the editing of their own work, and this advice also applies to the editor doing proofreading. I don’t care how awesome your critical eye is, fellow editors, another pair of eyes (preferably professional ones, though), will always catch errors you’ve missed from reading through the material too many times. With my book shepherded authors, I always recommend using a different person for proofreading.

Book Design

In book design, I am mostly an interior girl. I like doing interior layout, getting fonts right for the author’s style, the trim of the book, the content itself, for headings, titles, and regular text. I like checking page flow and image placement to create the best use of space and continuity with the story or information (=fun!).

I can also lay out the book’s cover, but I definitely need a detailed checklist to get everything right (image resolutions and spacing in particular). I am also not a skilled visual artist. And that’s all OK. If the cover is simple and the client wants me to do it, I can pull it off, but I do need to be firm that original illustration, and possibly the entire cover layout, may best be done by someone else, depending on what the author needs. It’s very important to make sure that as a book shepherd, I help the author find the best combination of my skills and the skills and perspectives of others in order to create the best book for them and their readers.

Distribution, Printing, and Marketing

And then there’s printing, distribution and marketing. I don’t have any of the tools necessary to print books, of course, but I do have experience with setting up books at providers like Ingram Spark and Amazon/KDP. I also know the procedures for getting ISBNs for books.

Although I do keep up with some aspects of promoting one’s book, a large-scale book launch or a niche audience will require input from other experts.

It really does take a village to create a book.

I recommend that book shepherds keep contact info for any of the publishing production tasks that are better done by others and not get hung up on doing everything themselves.

Yep, I can do almost all of it, but that doesn’t mean I should do it all.

Nonfiction writing that’s successful is usually used as an accompaniment to something else, like your travel agency business, your spiritual workshops, your academic career, your charitable cause, or your business service. Books then become an investment and possibly additional small profit center for your core business.

So, if you want to publish that book, great, but here’s what I’ve gleaned in the cost area from providing some of the services  involved in getting published. Short-change these services and, yes, you’ll save money and get that book out the door, but you will be unlikely to develop even the hundreds of readers that may give you a tiny profit over time, as well as the sense that you have an audience for your work.

Writing

Remember that your labor is part of the cost equation. If you want to make a living as a writer, then your labor should be billable. If it’s not, then you aren’t making a profit on writing. I’m not saying you should sit down to write with the idea that it’s just to make money, but there is both tangible and intangible value in your time and talent. Make sure you are doing it for true love if you are not making any money at it.

Substantive Editing

Decent substantive editing or ghost writing/coaching (really helping you with the whole structure and storytelling from the beginning) is probably the most expensive investment you’ll make. Good editors and ghost writers will charge $60 to $80 (USD) an hour for their time and talent.

Line or Copy Editing

If you know writing already and are good at it, you may be able to skip step 2 and just get your grammar and consistency checked. You can send out your manuscript to friends and relations for a free look-over, but there will be no guarantee that they’ll know what to look for. Decent editing at this level runs from $35 to about $60 an hour, although I like to charge for the manuscript page (about 250 words per double-spaced 8.5X11 page), and I charge anywhere from $3.00 to $4.00 per page depending on how much work it looks like I’ll have to do. So, for a 250-page manuscript (which will be a fairly short trade (9X6)-sized book), you’re looking at $750 to $1,000.

Interior Design

This one is quite variable because it depends on how fancy you want to get. Just text and no variations like sidebars with images will be the cheapest, with lots of different-sized images to place being most expensive. Discount places offer interior design (not the cover—that’s separate) for $3 a page, but serious professionals doing design with lots of images run up around $6 a page or more. So, say that 250-page manuscript turns into a 200-page book with pictures, and you’re looking at $1200.

Cover Design

Again, this one depends a lot on how fancy you want to get with imagery and fonts (really good pro fonts cost the designer money), which will translate into more Photoshop or Illustrator work, etc. And you’ll want to decide how much to invest for talent as well. It’s not just about time or tools for any of these steps. Depending on complexity, you can end up investing anywhere from $350 to over $1000.

Proofreading

After the book is laid out, you’ll want a last proofread to catch both any leftover typos and any glitches in design (paragraphs not indented properly, headings gone awry, etc.). I’ll charge anywhere from $2.00 to $3.00 per page for proofreading depending on whether or not I was the editor to start with and how complex the design was. For your 200-page book, that’ll come to an average of $500.

Printing

This one all depends on what kind and how many. I went over to Ingram Spark just now and used their calculator for 100 copies of a 6X9, 200-page paperback with no color stuff, and got a quote of $332. But you can get much cheaper or more expensive depending on a lot of factors, including whether or not you need color, what weight of paper, trim size for the book, etc. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP, an arm of Amazon.com) is really cheap, but if you have an art or photo book, you might want to investigate Ingram Spark or even Lulu.com.

Distribution and Marketing

Some of this may end up being your time again, setting up a website, etc. . Or you can invest in help with this as well (professional site design from $500 to $5000, depending). Keep in mind that the distribution cost will come out of your sales gross by making a deal with Amazon.com or another distributor. You’ll end up with a percentage of each sale (can be 15 percent or up to 70 percent depending on the distributor’s deal with you).

Totals

Here’s a rough average total for services rendered if you have some writing skills already: $4500. Not pocket change, but not totally out of the realm for a middle class person to invest (much less than a newish car, for example, but more than a good entertainment system). If your book is in support of a business consulting operation or a series of workshops or courses, etc., then you may very well find it profitable in the long run to have your writing be another access point to your message for your audience to take home with them. But before you decide to make a living as a writer, make sure that you are cool with the investment or your books will simply collect dust on your own shelf.

I know that we have a strong do-it-yourself theme going on these days in everything from plumbing (read Home Depot) to publishing, but if you really want to make sure your plumbing doesn’t leak and your book has the quality to find a good audience, you need to invest in professional services, and this expertise will incur a significant investment.

So, get real about the investment needed before you try to get published to make the most out of your story or message.