Starting a Publishing Business? Here Are 7 Tips for Success
In 2017, it was estimated that the revenue in the U.S. for the publishing industry was $26.2 billion.
The publishing industry just keeps growing, so if you wanted to get into the industry, now is the time.
However, starting a publishing company has never been so easy. Discover the best tips for starting a publishing company.
1. Know Why You Want to Publish
First off, you should decide why you even want to get into publishing in the first place.
It takes a lot of work to start a publishing company, so you need to make sure you really want to commit all that time and money into it.
You may have gotten into publishing by writing and self-publishing some of your own work. It could be a great way to offer the same opportunities to others who may want to publish and share their work.
You should also figure out what types of books you want to publish. Do you want to publish nonfiction? Poetry? Self-help books? Young adult? Narrowing down the type of books you want to publish will help you sell books to your audience and also get submissions from authors.
2. Set a Budget
Once you’ve really decided on starting your own publishing company, you should set a budget.
As we said, it can be really expensive to be an independent publisher.
You will have to pay for things like designing, editing, and printing books. You will also have to pay for shipping and marketing. Another cost added to that is having to buy ISBNs for all the books you plan to publish.
However, while you are spending money on all of this, you should also be figuring out how you can sell books so that you can earn all your money back.
Before you can start selling all these books, you may need to put some of the money upfront. That is why it’s important to make a budget; you don’t want to overspend and be bankrupt before you can sell your first set of books.
3. Consider Printing on Demand
Once you’ve set a budget, you should also figure out how you are going to distribute the books that you do publish. Publishers normally print several hundred copies of a book and hope that all of them sell.
However, with printing on demand, you can order the number of copies that you know will sell. That way you don’t have to store unsold copies anywhere and you save money by printing exactly how many books you need.
4. Put Quality Ahead of Quantity
When it comes to publishing books, you want to make sure that you’re publishing ones that have quality. It is better to have high-quality books rather than a lot of bad books.
With digital publishing, poorly written content is even more available.
When publishing books, you want to make sure that you are giving your audience the very best that is out there. This will really help your publishing company succeed because your audience will appreciate the quality.
5. Start Marketing Your Books
Once you have printed a few copies of a book, you should make sure that you have a plan to market them. If no one knows about the books that you’re about to sell, chances are that they won’t end up buying them.
Regardless of whether they’re books that you wrote or someone else wrote, you need to make sure that you do some marketing. If your company is small, you could do this on your own, but in the long run, you probably want to hire a marketing expert.
A marketing specialist will know just how to create ads and how to get them to your target audience.
Marketing doesn’t have to cost that much though. Many readers are active on social media, so you can start by publishing your book on there.
There are all different types of advertising options that you could use to help promote your books.
6. Network
Another tip that will help your publishing company is to make sure that you network.
Having connections and contact is never a bad thing, and you never know when you might need someone to help.
You should have all kinds of contacts in your back pocket. This could be someone who specializes in marketing, authors, editors, and even people who work at competing publishing companies.
Seeing how other publishing companies run and operate can be a really helpful way to expand your company. For example, you could check out this printing service.
7. Follow Your Passion
The last piece of advice is to follow your passion.
If you really love the world of publishing, just go for it. If owning and running a publishing company is a passion of yours, the rest of the logistics will work out. As long as you have a passion for it, then it may not feel so much like a chore.
In fact, you may even be excited about it.
You could have a passion for finding good books from authors and connecting them with readers around the world. You could want an outlet to publish your own books as well.
This enthusiasm will help you get over a lot of obstacles in the process of starting the company.
Learn More About Starting a Publishing Company
Starting a publishing company can have its challenges, but as we said, if you’re passionate about it, it will work out in the end.
If this is your dream, make sure that you don’t give up.
To help you with any challenges that might arise, make sure that you check out some of our other articles about publishing!