Options for self-publishing your own work

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Now, on to today’s topic; a practical one! How to self-publish your own stuff. I say “stuff” because by that, I mean:

• A book you want to write
• A book you want to translate (with proper rights/permissions)
• A video you want to make and sell
• A business resource that you want to publish and distribute (How I found my first direct client, How I passed the court interpreter certification exam, etc.)

I’ve been self-publishing for a long time (the first edition of How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator came out in 2006, when print-on-demand was a cutting-edge technology). But the options these days have increased exponentially, and I’ve recently attended a couple of webinars and listened to a bunch of podcasts to update my own knowledge of the topic for a few projects I have in the pipeline.

I honestly wonder why more translators and interpreters don’t self-publish their own work. For starters, just about any frustrated literary translator can find a source of books in the public domain and start translating one of them today. All of us have a lot of hard-won knowledge that other people would happily pay money to read about or watch. And it’s really not that hard or expensive to self-publish, at least at the entry level. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Bronze level: Use a digital download service like E-junkie to sell books/manuals in a simple format (Canva even has simple PDF e-book templates) like PDF e-books, or video files. I use E-junkie but this is not an affiliate deal, I just really like them, and the service isn’t expensive. With the $10/month plan, you can sell 40 digital products (PDF files, videos, really whatever you want) and you get up to 2 GB of storage space. You create “Buy Now” buttons for your website and then the person gets an instant download from E-junkie, and I’ve never had someone contact me to say that the download failed. This could be a great option if you just want to get your work out there in a simple, accessible way.
• Silver level: When I started self-publishing, really all of the available services involved an up-front cost and you had to send them formatted files; like your cover file had to be the exact number of pixels that they needed, and the interior files needed to be formatted to their specifications. It’s still true that if you want a really professional-looking book, someone (you or a hired professional) has to do this. I would argue that high-end self-published books are now indistinguishable from traditionally published books, which is pretty amazing. But if you just want a “minimum viable product” book, there are now options that have no up-front cost, the primary one being Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (kind of a misleading name, because they also do print books, not just electronic). Amazon’s own resources are actually kind of confusing unless you already understand what KDP is and how it works, so I would recommend reading this article on the website Self-Publishing School before you dive in. KDP even has a Cover Creator tool, and there are websites where you can get a (pretty generic-looking but decent) book cover for as little as $100. Of course there are downsides to this zero-barrier-to-entry model, specifically that Amazon takes a large cut of what you earn. I personally would not go the Silver route, if you’re looking for a truly professional-looking book, but it’s an option if you have a tight budget and just want to start selling.
• Gold level: At this level, you’re talking about something that will hopefully be on par with a traditionally published book. Thus, you want professionals to design and format the cover and the interior (some book designers do both, some only do one or the other), and you want to sell the book through a distribution service where they’re not getting a huge cut of your royalties and you’re not locked in to selling only through them. For example, you can hire your own designers, then use a service like BookBaby (again, I use them but this is not an affiliate deal) that will distribute your print and electronic books on every major sales platform, and you pay an up-front fee, but you get to keep all of the royalties. This is what I did with the third edition of How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, and it cost me about $3,000 (total) for interior formatting and cover design, and I paid BookBaby about $600 for a distribution package (for print and electronic versions) where I get to keep all of the royalties.  Platforms like SelfPublishing.com will even, for a fee (in this case, $7,000) walk you through the entire process, from writing your book, to editing it, to formatting it, to designing the cover, to selling it.

A couple of other resources: I recently attended a self-publishing webinar by the Editorial Freelancers’ Association, and it was great! And if you’re an extreme DIY-er or you have a lot of time on your hands and you’d like to learn how to do all of this yourself (it’s possible), you want to follow Joanna Penn, a fiction author who learned to do all of her own self-publishing work, and now teaches other people how to do it!

It’s important to think about what you want out of the self-publishing process. In the 18 (!!) years since I started self-publishing, I’ve made over $90,000 in book royalties. I’m not going to retire from translation and interpreting and live off that money, but it’s paid for some nice family vacations! I’m actually really glad that I did not go the “quick and dirty” route with my flagship books, and that I invested the time and money to make them look professional. And, I’m glad that quick and dirty options exist, for when you just want to create something and get it out there!

I hope that these tips are helpful if you have some of your own self-publishing ambitions!