From Monday’s question pile reader Gutenberg Neto, who has one of the best names ever for questions about publishing, asked:

After releasing books both with a publisher and also independently, do you feel like one of the approaches is overall better than the other one? These days, with so many distribution platforms available, it’s easier than ever for anyone to self-release a book.

But for a first-time author do you think that it’s still valid to look for a publisher, or releasing independently is the best option even if the writer has no previous experience and audience to leverage initial sales? Thanks!

My experience self-publishing Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds was excellent and I wrote about the experience in detail here. There are many pros and cons and much depends on the author and the book.

Publishing a book, regardless of how you do it, is best thought of as a entrepreneurial experience. You have an idea for a product (in this case a book): how much of the work of making and selling the product are you comfortable doing on your own?

From this view a publisher is a business partner. They provide funding, expertise, co-ordination and guidance. They have in-house editors, designers and proofreaders who will help you. For those things you will pay them a fair share of the possible income the book generates. This is a good deal if you don’t want to find those experts on your own, or have no interest in co-ordinating the entire project yourself.

If you can find a good publisher to work with, and plan to write many books, it is absolutely valuable to work with a publisher at least once. You will learn from experts and have a safe framework to learn from, a framework you can choose to ignore if you self-publish in the future.

On other hand, if you’re someone that’s a natural self starter, love to learn, and are good at finding and leading talented people who have expertise you don’t, self-publishing makes sense. You’ll have more control over the book and get more of the rewards. But you’ll also have significantly more work to do.

Common mistakes authors make when working with publishers:

• Believing the publisher will do all the marketing for you. Many authors assume the burden of marketing is on the publisher but that has never been true (unless you are Stephen King or J.K. Rowling). The author is always at the center of marketing and PR for books. It will be up to you to find speaking engagements, to be available for interviews, and to use your networks and connections to promote the book. Good publishers assist you, but the burden is always on the author. If your book is deemed more important than others you will get more support, but the author is always central to marketing.
• Assuming you are a rock star. It’s exciting to have a publisher make you an offer, but remember, to them your book will never be as important to them as it is to you. To them your book is likely #56 of 100 (or more) they will put out this year, whereas to you it might be the only book you will ever write. Publishers rightfully prioritize among all of their books each month to decide which will get more of their marketing and PR attention.
• A published book won’t magically get you a following. Earning an audience takes time and effort. The book itself only helps grow your reputation if people find out about it and read it, which requires marketing. A book can help you grow a following,  since it gives you something to talk about and share, but a book doesn’t do the marketing work itself. Publishers often prefer authors who already have large followings, as it provides a “platform” for marketing the book.
• Dismissing your editor.  Editors lead the project that is your book. They attend meetings you can’t and and fight on your behalf for resources inside the publisher. Good editors give you tough love, feedback you need to hear that improves the book. Mediocre editors don’t do much at all. Of course your book might be a low priority project on the desk of a great editor, which is why the editor’s interest in your project is critical too. I’d rather have a great editor at a mediocre publisher, than a mediocre editor at a great publisher.

Common mistakes with self-publishing:

• Authors are naturally arrogant and assume they know everything. When self-publishing it’s easy to assume you are right about everything since there is no one arguing with you, even when you’re dead wrong. There is deep expertise in the tasks of choosing the theme, title, outline, cover, and style of a book. At a publisher there would be a specialist in each of these roles working with you. If you fail to avail yourself of experts the quality of the book will suffer.
  
• It’s easy to be cheap and it will show. From the cover design, to the interior, to the index, many authors don’t understand the impact of making the cheapest choices. It shows. Books are extremely competitive. It’s a hostile and unforgiving landscape. The details matter.
• You must be your own marketer. At minimum  publishers announce your book to the world through their mailing lists, websites and catalogs. If you self-publish you are entirely on your own. If you are serious about sales you need a marketing plan and a commitment to invest even more time marketing the book than you would if working with a publisher. Marketing is hard: it’s an entirely different kind of challenge than writing a book. And marketing a book starts long before the book releases.
• It’s natural to write a book only you want to read. Few authors do market research or solicit feedback from smart colleagues to define the market for the book. Writing a book proposal, something required to work with a publisher, forces authors to think long and hard about what the book is and who will buy it. Simply because you want to write it doesn’t mean anyone will want to read it. Working with a publisher ensures dozens of questions are asked about who the book is for and that the answers make sense.

There are too many variables to give a single answer. If you can find an editor and publisher you’re happy with, and they believe in the specific book you want to write and how you want to write it, all other things equal I’d say go with a publisher for your first book. It will let you focus on writing a great book, and if the first book does well you’ll have more flexibility in what you do the second time.

More than anything, my advice is this: write the book and publish it. Don’t let this decision be the one that holds you back for year after year. If you can’t decide, self publish. No one can ever stop you from self publishing. And there is always the possibility you can release the book again with a publisher later. The real challenge is the book itself and don’t let this decision stand in it’s way.

Related:

• Is your book idea good? (Yes, I promise)
• How to get from an idea to a book?

From my Monday question pile, my friend Angela asked:

As an active blogger and communicator, I’m curious your setup. Obviously love your content, but I’m interested in your process. I assume you’re a one man show, so I also assume you’ve got your process locked down because you’re soooo smooth, man! :) xoxo

My answer is a ramble. I tried to write this in an easy to follow way but had to scrap it because it was a lie. It turns out an honest description of how I blog is not easy to follow. Moreso, for blogging alone I’m not convinced I’m a good example for emulation. I have good basic self-discipline for writing and that’s what explains my productivity more than anything else. Part of why I enjoy blogging is freedom. I deliberately don’t approach it with the same procedural rigor other bloggers do.

For more useful advice: when I worked for WordPress.com I studied their data on which blogs were successful and studied how popular blogs worked. I wrote up two summaries of what I learned and that’s the advice I still point bloggers to: How To Get More Traffic and How To Get More Comments.  It’s good, simple practical advice.

For any regular readers it’s clear I don’t have a strict process. I don’t publish on a schedule (although I’d get more traffic if I did) and I don’t post about specific topics on specific days. It’s chaotic and I don’t advise bloggers copy this, but it works for me so far.

If you forced me to shape it into a process it’d look like this:

1. Wake up – be glad I’m not dead
2. Write something (could be in my private journal, a draft blog post, part of a book…)
3. Work until I run out of steam, or it’s finished
4. When stuck, go to the gym (do something physical)
5. Write again later in the day
6. Do other life things
7. Sleep

I realize this list has dubious merit. My central habit that makes it all work is the discipline of writing. It’s an internal discipline that isn’t generated by following a list of rules or magic steps. I write something nearly every day simply because I want to be a writer and writers write. There is no other way. My income comes from book royalties and speaking fees so I don’t stress about blogging schedules and such in the way many pro bloggers do.

Schedules: Sometimes I finish a post in one go. Most often I get to rough draft quality but can’t go further. But in all cases I show up the next day and either start something new, or progress something old. If I’m working on a book most of my creative energy will go towards progressing that before I’d think to blog. But sometimes the pleasure of writing something quick and publishing it instantly is just what I need to break up the long cycles of working on a book.

Roughly I post something new once or twice a week. Some weeks I do more, other weeks it’s less. But on average it’s a post or two a week. I’m more interested in creation than curation, but I see the value of both. On the curative side I often write book reviews and have had phases of posts that are mostly links or reports from events or places I’ve visited.

Posting new posts in the morning (PST) and early in the week seem to generate the most traffic. Twitter is a huge asset and drives a large part of the traffic my posts receive. I still have thousands of RSS subscribers but we’ll see if that matters anymore once Google Reader is gone. I often use the schedule feature of WordPress to plan when a post will launch days in advance. The Publicize feature, which I worked on while at WordPress.com, ensures even scheduled posts will be seen by my twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn followers.

Drafts: I have a large number of drafts in WordPress: 400+ (and a total of ~1500 published posts). Some are just a one sentence thought, or a link I want to comment on. Others are half written and a few are mostly done. I believe it’s healthy to be inefficient with writing. It’s ok not to finish many of the things I start provided I finish many too. I like having an inventory of posts in various states of completion. It means I can pick and choose based on the mood I’m in on that day and how much energy I have. I don’t see high draft counts as a waste, it’s an asset. I’m free to experiment and try crazy things with no fear. It’s my scrapbook and all creators need safe places to experiment.

Topics: I avoid writing about trends. By avoiding trends and picking timeless themes I don’t have the pressure to post this hour or this day, or to worry about who else said what already. And I know that the time I spend writing will still likely be relevant in a year or a decade, which won’t be true if I’m writing about something only relevant to the world for a week. I suspect this generates less traffic per post in the short term compared to people who chase trends, but probably more traffic in the long term (scottberkun.com has a strong long tail of old posts that generate significant traffic). Sometimes I do pick a hot topic as the hook to write about a deeper issue, but even then I know I can reuse the same post a year later when a new, but equally relevant hook, comes along.

Audience: Many of you readers found me because of one of my books. I try to make at least 50% of my posts related to the topics from those books: creativity, management, speaking and philosophy. The other 50% follows what I’m passionate, angry or curious about. This balance is reflected in my 50 best posts of all time. The mix has worked and I plan to continue (please advise if you don’t like the mix). There’s short term value in specializing more, but I plan to write until I die and I see the long term value in earning reader trust for my ability to write and think well on anything. That’s my ambition as a writer: that people want to read me at least as much for their interest in the mind doing the writing as they are in the particular topic.

Ideas: I always carry a moleskine or notepad wherever I go and I write down interesting things I hear. It’s a primary habit for finding ideas: listening, looking, experiencing and capturing. Opinion are easy to find if you’re curious and paying attention. Sometimes I just start a draft post in WordPress instead of the moleskine. I don’t care about losing these moleskines and the ideas I wrote down, but the habit of listening and writing in them is critical.

As a supplement to my habits, some readers do email or tweet links to articles they know I’d be interested in, or want me to comment on. This helps and I’m grateful to be popular enough that people care to know what I think about something.

Writing: To see how I actually write, I made this timelapsed video of me writing a 1000 word post. It explains most of the important things discussions of writing process never express well as we learn more by watching things first hand than nearly any other way.

Was this ramble of a post useful? I hope so. If you have other questions about process, leave a comment.