How to Create a Publishing Company
Creating your own publishing company isn't really that hard. The challenging part of the process will be writing or finding work worth publishing. In the end, for your publishing company to be successful, you have to offer a product people want to buy. This article will show you how to make it easy from them to buy it by having a publishing company that seamlessly interacts with bookstores and distributors.
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Things You'll Need
- Computer
- Printer
- Word Processing Program
- Desktop Publishing Program
- Web Page Design
- Program
- Paper
Instructions
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How to Start Your Publishing Company
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Have a publishing project ready to go. Don't start without knowing what you are going to publish. Make sure it is something that has a market.
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Know how you're going to pay the bills until you start selling your publications. You will have expenses, like printing costs, before you ever earn a dime from your business. How will you pay for it? The easiest way will be to have a bank account with enough in it to pay the bills. Other options could be home-equity loans, small business loans, money from investors, borrowing money from friends or credit cards.
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Get the business set up by choosing getting a business address, phone number and e-mail. You also need to choose a name. Will it be one that reflects what you are publishing (Mysterious Press) or something more general (J.C. Collins Publishing)? You will need a way to accept credit cards. Credit card merchant accounts can be costly for a small business. PayPal.com offers credit card services that I have found to be affordable for a small business and don't require you to rent a special machine. Where will you store the publications? Make sure that it's a clean and dry place.
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Is your business a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company or corporation? A sole proprietorship is the easiest, but you consult a tax expert or your local small business administration office for more details.
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Set your terms and conditions to reflect what businesses expect. You will need to accept returns, but you can insist that they be returned in saleable condition. You can also offer bookstores a better price for purchasing non-returnable books. Publish Your Own Novel by Connie Shelton offers great examples for setting up you terms and conditions.
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Find a printer. Once you have a project in mind and your business details established, solicit bids from printers. Get at least three bids and be specific as to what you want. The more books you print, the cheaper the unit cost will be but the higher your total cost will be. Don't print more books than you honestly believe you can sell. You can always to a second printing. Make sure your printer is reputable. I would also recommend staying away from print-on-demand companies. Most don't accept returns or offer discounts that bookstores expect. The retail cost also tends to be higher than similar books, which will hurt your sales.
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Find a distributor that will make your books available to any bookstore. The two most-popular distributors are Ingram and Baker & Taylor. Ingram tends not to work with small presses unless you have 10 publications or more. Baker & Taylor is willing to work with small presses.
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Tips & Warnings
While it might be tempting to get fancy on some of these items, with a small business, the key word is: Economize. Why pay top dollar for an office no one will visit or pay for storage space when your basement would work just as well? You can grow into fancier things later. Your goal is to make your business profitable and one of the ways to do that is to keep the bottom line low. The only thing you shouldn't skimp on is your publication. That is what customers will see. It will be their first impression of your company. Make sure that it's a good one.
Resources
- Photo Credit Courtesy of James Rada, Jr.
