This weekend marked the 150th anniversary of the book binding company where my father-in-law works. For over 30 years, he has operated a printing press as large as a two-story building, binding book copies by the million to be distributed all over the world.

This is the first time it’s been open to the public since 1999, and even so I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures. It’s no surprise why—high profile books bound for the best seller list are routinely cycled through.

The plant is in a rural area of Virginia, spanning a mile wide on the inside. Outdoors, cows graze in the valley below the Blue Ridge Mountains. When they opened the plant in 1980, my father-in-law applied for the same job he works today, manning a printing press.

Apart from a smaller new “digital ink” press and some renovations, little has changed today. My favorite part of the tour were the industrial robots who use dextrous metal arms to perform jobs at which humans used to lose their fingers, but my father-in-law just scoffs. Where I see innovation, he sees former teammates who were laid off.

Inside the plant, towering stacks of half-finished books line the warehouses, while millions of tons of 9-mile-long rolls of paper are poised to print more. There’s a use for every type of paper and every paper byproduct, from defunct book prints to even paper dust.

Near the end of the tour, I got to shake hands with the plant manager. He and my father-in-law both started the same year in the plant’s apprenticeship program, and know each other well. My father-in-law told him that I’ve started writing books. “But she’s mostly an Internet writer, you know, the kind we don’t like!” he joked.

The manager asked me who was publishing my books, and I told him about Carlton as well as the publisher I worked for in the spring (I’m optimistic, I guess). He frowned thoughtfully, and said he wasn’t familiar with indie publishers. He was standing in front of a building-sized stack of partially bound copies of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars.

It was a real change of perspective for me. For me, self publishing is indie. Digital publishing, where I can’t afford to do a print run, is indie. Working with publishers, albeit small ones, is akin to working with corporations in my world. But for the old school printing establishment, which has the capacity to churn out millions of books in a day, the print runs I am considering are indeed “indie,” even if they’re a tier above what I usually do. The plant now has a digital ink printer for smaller print runs, though I can’t even image how staggering those are in comparison to how many copies of my books will be printed.

I have read 34 books on Kindle this year, compared to 3 in paperback form. In my life, print is hardly relevant. But standing below the buildings made out of books and bindings, in the midst of a mile-long space that smells like nothing more than a freshly cracked novel, it’s hard to argue with the still intimidating imperium of the print publishing world.

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 6

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 5

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 4

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 3

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 1

Above: the field outside the plant. Middle: a modern color printing press. 

Over the next seven weeks, I will be writing the book I mentioned earlier. Obviously that’s going to cut into my blog writing time, so I figured, why not write about the book? Tune in every Monday to hear about how it’s going.

This week, I want to tell you about the differences between writing a book for a publisher and publishing a book yourself, like I did with Otaku Journalism.

Negotiating the contract

When I wrote Otaku Journalism, I didn’t have to answer to anybody. I could change the scope of the book, or deliver more or fewer words, and name it anything I liked. The result was that I had to create it, fund it, and publicize it entirely by myself.

A book contract takes off some of the pressures of self publishing while adding new ones. It (usually) guarantees that you will be paid for your work, no matter how the book does. It provides some ground rules for the book subject matter and how long it should be. It outlines your responsibilities and the publisher’s responsibilities so you can work well together.

I am extremely gunshy about contracts right now. I contributed a chapter for a book in May, for which I signed a contract. I cannot say anything else, but you may have noticed I haven’t blogged at all about having a chapter in an upcoming book soon.

Contracts have a lot of legal jargon in them, so it’s best not to be the only one reading it. This time, I had my sister, who is a lawyer, and my friend, who is a law student, read it over. I also found a book agent over Twitter to review it. I also contacted Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, a local organization that provides legal assistance to artists and writers.

Ultimately, I’ve realized the best thing to do is get a literary agent. An agent can tell if a contract is typical or not, and you only pay them if you accept the deal—they take a cut of whatever the publisher is offering. I’m starting my search here.

Should you self-publish or not?

When I first started putting Otaku Journalism together, my first thought was to look for a publisher. If a publisher likes your book idea, they can pay you an advance, provide you with a good editor and illustrator, and help you publicize it or go on a book tour.

Well, that’s what I thought. Publishing isn’t the sunshine and rainbows industry it used to be. As print book sales go down, today’s publishers are more risk-averse. They would never accept a book with “otaku” in the title, much less something as niche as a journalism textbook (already fringe) aimed at a select set of geeks who are into writing. And if they did accept my book, they might suggest changes to make it less nerdy or obscure.

In the end, it came down to that question, posed to me by a traditionally published author: “Why do this as a traditional book? It’s for a very specific niche and it’s something you would know way better than any publisher would.” He had a point. And in the end, I had a great time self-publishing and it will continue to be my preferred method for any ideas I have myself.

I have never traditionally published a book, so I don’t know yet if there are hidden advantages I don’t know about. Certainly it’s helpful to have access to a printing press. I could only afford to publish Otaku Journalism digitally, but I’m pretty sure the book I’m writing now, full of glossy cosplay photoshoots, will only be in print form.

Is there anything you’d like to know about writing a book? I’ll do my best to answer as this series progresses over the next seven weeks.

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 6

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 5

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 4

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 3

Writing a book in seven weeks, part 2

Photo by Dawn Endico