Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: So we're here with Angela Engel, who has more than a decade of experience in sales strategy. She has worked for companies like Chronicle Books. She also has launched the Collective Book Studio, which provides authors with a middle ground between the benefits of self-publishing and the art of the well-crafted book. So Angela has a full-service publishing studio. You're here today to just -- First of all, tell us a little bit about the Collective Book Studio.
Angela: Yeah, so we actually started as what in the book publishing industry we call as a book packager. You create a book and usually try to find another imprint to put it on a list with mass distribution. That's how we started, and we did a project that was on a small independent publisher called Tri Publishing which has distribution was Simon & Schuster. And then we did a big custom project into Costco, and eventually I decided, pandemic hit in 2020, and instead of waiting for packager books to be bought by traditional or larger houses, I decided to launch my own imprint and have full distribution. So we have several parts of our business. We can create a book and someone can do a self-publishing, they can take care of the sales distribution, and we can just make them a beautiful book, or if we feel it's something trade-ready, we will also put it on our own imprint.
Mindy: When we talk about the Indie world and we talk about self-publishing, traditional publishing, indie publishing, partner publishing, I know that it can be really overwhelming for people that are first coming on to the scene. There's so much information out there. And I mean, I know myself that when I first entered the publishing world, indie publishing basically didn't exist and self-publishing was kind of a bad word, and that has changed quite a bit. So if you could just kind of break down what some of those differences are and maybe the pros and cons of partner publishing, self-pub, traditional publishing, like what am I looking for? The similarities and the differences between those things.
Angela: Mindy, it's such a big question, and I actually have over 20 years of experience in the traditional publishing space. Not only Chronicle Books, but I have sold Moleskine, I have worked at Ten Speed Press, which now is part of Random House, done strategy for Abrams, which is an amazing press with Cameron and Company, that's part of Abrams now. So I have a very interesting view. I'm often called a disruptor as an insider. So I'm really not actually familiar with the indie or self-publishing space. What I do know is that it has boomed in the last 10 years, especially in the last eight. I have mixed feelings, to be completely honest, I understand indie publishing, and there are certain genres that it really can work for. I'm thinking of Insta poetry. I'm thinking of romance novels and certain aspects, but when it comes to full color lifestyle, Children's, Food and Wine, I still have a very hard time with the way that the machines work because ultimately, I do believe that a book is a product and a really beautiful one that you wanna make. So I founded the Collective Book Studio with the concept that I heard this sort of need in the market to give access and break through some of the traditional publishing barriers, one being distribution. We just wrote about this on our blog. It's really interesting because I do think that often times what happens is you might create a book, but then you're really kind of locked into a certain distribution, which is really online sales, and the Amazon platform. Maybe you have some incremental sales at Barnes & Noble or target dot com or Walmart dot com, but that's not real sales. I'm also very, very wary of publishing companies that say they can get you into bookstores through IngramSpark. It's still all on the author. So I'm very clear about this hybrid or partnership publishing space to really talk about what is their mass distribution? Do they represent at trade shows? Do they have tables at the Annual Library Association, at the Public Library Association, at the regional independent bookstores associations? Like I would really dig into those presses and understand who's running them, and how deep they understand sort of more of the traditional model.
Mindy: Lifestyle books, particularly like the ones you are talking about, cookbooks, craft, any kind of book that you want to have with you while you're doing what you're doing, I think I agree, you need to have a physical book. I don't think an e-book personally, I would not find that useful. The kitchen is not where I excel, but if I did, I don't want to have my Kindle sitting there. I would very much prefer to have a physical book. And when it comes to the production of that, that gets expensive fast when you're talking about color and page and paper quality and all those things that you mentioned. So yeah, knowing the depth and the scope of a hybrid or an indie publisher that you're working with is super important.
Angela: Yeah, absolutely. And so my press, we do non-fiction and lifestyle and children's books. That's really my expertise, but I'm not actually familiar with the other genres. And I think that indie publishing definitely has a space, but I also am really wary if people say, "Oh, I only am gonna spend $200 on an editor." Are there typos in there? Have you really thought about it? What's really important is still to invest in your work.
Mindy: Your name came up recently on an issue of the Hot Sheet from Jane Friedman, which is a newsletter-style publication that you can sign up for. Listeners, if you're interested, Jane Friedman runs the Hot Sheet, and she's an industry insider, and you can just kinda know what's going on in publishing right now. And there was recently a study about hybrid publishers and possible predatory practices. And this is something that it can be if you're new to the arena, and even if you've been around for a while, it can be difficult to kinda sort out the bad apples from the good ones when it comes to hybrid publishing, and there are a lot of ways to get got as a writer. So if you could talk about some ways that new writers and even established authors can make that distinction between a publisher that is actually grounded and going to be able to help you, or someone that's just kind of trying to take you.
Angela: I saw that Jane Friedman quoted me saying that a traditional contract doesn't mean it's wholesome. I wrote about this actually as an op-ed piece in Publishers Weekly back in September, and that's not pay to play. I literally wrote this interesting editorial piece for Publishers Weekly in our industry magazine on this sort of debate, which is hybrid versus self-publishing versus traditional. It's like wheeling in the universe right now. And I sort of am one of those people, it's like, let's throw this out of the window now, and instead ask truly what is the author's or the entrepreneur, or the restaurateurs or the brand, why. Why are you publishing a book? If you can answer that question clearly as an author, then you're gonna figure out your right publishing path for you. I talk about this because I come from a space where custom publishing or paying into publishing is part of the traditional model. Meaning - Top Chef Cookbook, for example, when that first came out that show, the network bought 10,000 copies of that book. That helps offset so much cost, right? When you have a client that's already buying 10,000 copies of a book, of course, it's gonna be able to get published. Traditional contracts have traditionally always done something - the author, the brand, Disney Publishing - you think about already what they're going to be buying already for their employees or for their corporate sponsors, and so those types of books are always continually gonna be published. If I can just call a spade to spade and launch a company saying basically, the Collective Book Studio, why it's called The Collective Book Studio is that we are from Weldon Owen and Chronicle Books, HarperCollins, Random House. We are from these companies. We understand the art of the book. We understand the trade market. We understand how you look and feel, how you add embossing and foil and glitter, how we do typography. That art form is not something, to be honest, if I wasn't part of the publishing world, you would know. If you were a doctor and you wanna write a children's book, don't say I can all of a sudden become a production artist and an artist and a book designer. And yet self-publishing has towed that line.
What I'm kind of saying it's too nuanced. Brands have been buying into publishing for a very long time. What I'm trying to say is that if someone wants to invest in their work, they should feel entitled to do that, that is what self publishing is, that's what a lot of hybrid models are, that's what partnership - and yet, they should also deserve to get more money from their royalties. So that's the first thing. What's the royalty structure? I would probably be asking, what is their distribution? And it should not be the answer, "I get you on IngramSpark and KDP." The answer should be, what organizations are you part of as the publishing company? Are they part of PubWest and PPN, which is a professional publishing network. Are they members of not only IBPA but some other publishing organizations? Are they exhibiting at trade shows? Reps that actually go out and see book stores? Those are all the questions the authors should be asking, because there are very good hybrid publishers such as SheWrites Press. I'm pretty impassioned about this subject actually, as you can tell.
Mindy: Good, I'm glad. And I think it's important because when you say things like yes, if a publisher says, I can get you distribution through IngramSpark, I can get you on to KDP, the only thing that you need to do to be able to have those things is an internet connection and a slightly functioning brain. Any individual can do that.
Angela: I don't actually know how to do KDP because I've never trained myself. But that's not my business model. So when people come to me and they say, "What about indie publishing?" I'm like, I don't know, I don't know. And so, just like I would expect, they would say to me, they don't really understand how to get books into retail. Which is what I do. Right now, for example, we have a book called The Us Journal. It's such an amazing book, and we're testing the book right now in Michael's Craft stores. Those are things that I've been trained to do for 20 years, and it's not just because I went and called Michaels. It's because the amount of work we did to really make a really good product that can work for a certain customer base.
Mindy: I mean, I can say, because I do write underneath a pen name and I self-publish under a pen name. If anybody, any hybrid publisher says, we can get you distribution through IngramSpark, it simply means that IngramSpark will print that book for you. It doesn't mean that it's going to be on the shelves at Walmart. It just means IngramSpark will print it for you. I think a lot of the times when you're looking at hybrid publishers or indie publishers, you gotta do your homework. There are presses out there that aren't offering you anything you can't do on your own.
Angela: Yes, and I think that is where you need to be careful. Now, I do think it's worth it for all authors, even if you wanna do everything on your own, please, please hire an editor. Hire a book designer. Hire people. Because ultimately then what you're doing is like you could have a fourth grader upload it like you're making a year book. That honestly, to me, is why when people are like, Oh, I have this book and I don't understand, it's not in libraries, it's not in book stores. Imagine this. A librarian and a book seller, they get bombarded by the number of titles. There was over one million titles, including the self-published titles, in 2021. And so you can't expect them to read every book, and so there has to be quality control. I'm a proponent of some of the services that are out there that are providing quality control. So when that report is done, it's just knowing the services because indie publishing has boomed so much. And I don't agree with someone just uploading a PDF. They're not a trained book designer. I've gotten these books from Amazon and they literally have extra white pages in the back meaning that someone's not designing it in a 16-page signature.
Mindy: And there are those things that you do notice if you're in the industry, but also as an author, you can see a self-published book just by the way the barcode looks. You know what the barcode looks like and you're like, yeah, that's a self-published book. And that's like the general readership probably isn't going to know that, but there are different things that you can do to make sure that your book doesn't look self-published, which is important.
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Mindy: So I know that you've got a list of three to five easy things authors should do to make sure their book doesn't look self-published. So what are some tips for that?
Angela: I mean, obviously, I want to make sure they know how to get a bar code and an ISBN. You need to make sure you have a spine. I really, really cannot tell you how many children's books come and there is no spine on them. The title is not on the spine. Really take the time to get a book designer to actually design you a spine, a back cover, and a front cover. There's many levels of editing, and there's a difference between a developmental editor, a line editor, a copy proofer, and a proofreader. And what I see way too often in self-publishing is that you're cutting corners and you're only hiring a proofreader for a few hundred dollars. And that is a mistake because really it's the developmental editor, the copy editors, the line editors that are going to help you with tone and structure. And I highly recommend you do that. You're gonna have a much better book, and ultimately, hopefully, if you look at the success of self-published authors, very few, very few sell more than what, 2,000 copies.
Mindy: Yep. And I think that that is kind of a harsh truth that people don't want to hear. I mean, I know so many people that say, yeah, I'm gonna self-publish, and they think that that's gonna be like an avenue of income and possibly even a job replacement. And it's just like, Oh no, I'm sorry, it's not. It's not meant to deflate anyone's bubble or to break dreams or anything like that. It is a simple, fundamental truth. For one thing in self-publishing you have to spend money to make money, and you also have to just be aware that this is not a you're gonna quit your day job situation. And then as soon as you make a comment like that, you hear, well, but then there's Hugh Howey and they name millionaire self-published authors, and I'm like, yes, that's true, but that's the same experience that you're gonna have in trad publishing too. If you publish a book that does not make you Stephen King. You are not going to be making Stephen King levels of income simply because you got published, and there's no guarantee you're going to continue to get published. And I think that's true across the board, but I think in self-publishing, that's the arena where you can actually lose your shirt if you don't know what you're doing. Because you can trad-pub a book and hopefully you're going to get an advance, and so you're still going to have something to literally put in the bank. Self-publishing, you can bleed yourself dry and not get anywhere if you don't know what you're doing.
Angela: I think that's a really good point, and why I think that report was sort of very one-sided that came out on hybrid publishers as predatory. 'Cause listen, there are so many self-published authors that I have met personally that are spending tens of thousands of dollars on Amazon advertising. And so you're seeing them get number one best seller, right? And they can claim it. So they're basically giving away their eBook. They're spending a ton of money on ads, yes, for what? A number one seller on Amazon. That's not even their physical book, mind you, it's the Kindle. I just ask society to say, what does that really mean? And really sit back from that and say, You know, should I have spent that tens of thousands of dollars that I spent and really work with a company that can make a crafted book try to back list 10 years from now? It's a really good quality book, and I maybe sold only a couple thousand out of the gate but then I went back to reprint for another couple of thousand, and another couple of thousand, and that's where the money really is. Just like in a traditional publishing house, the money is in the reprint. All authors, no matter how you're published, have to do this. I guess that's one of my biggest tips - is publishing even when you get an advance, that is a loan essentially. You have to sell that amount of books to even recoup that advance and then make money. And often, you are asked to use that money often to hire a publicist, create your platform. All authors do have to invest back in themselves. They have to create website, they have to reach out on their social media, they have to think about a blogger campaign, and that is just the way the publishing world is. So it is an investment to become an author. And some of the most successful authors primarily in non-fiction, 'cause that's really my genre space, understand that it's through their speaking gigs, when they have a book, is how they're really gonna make a lot of money.
Mindy: I can say that from the trad point of view, I'd always heard, and I don't stick to this by any means, but I imagine if I broke it down, it's probably accurate that for your advance, you set aside one-third for taxes, one-third for marketing and promotion, and then one-third is which you actually consider profit.
Angela: Probably, but then think about your time, right? 'Cause you've spent a third of that writing and working. Listening to one of your podcast episodes, it was really funny, you brought your writing into your doctor's office as you were getting a pap smear and it's a lot of work to write. Yeah, so it's profit, but it's your time.
Mindy: Oh yeah, I mean, if I broke it down to what I get paid by the hour, oh man, it would be, it would be really bad. I'm talking maybe $2 an hour. That might even be generous. I've never tried to keep track or anything like that, because I think it would just be super depressing. Yeah, I actually, I was getting my oil change today, I live in a really, really small town, and I was sitting in the waiting room working while I waited for them to change my oil, and the lady was like, "Mindy, we just changed your oil, not that long ago, but your mileage - I know we do need to do it again. Have you actually been traveling that much?" Glancing up from my laptop, and I'm like, “Yep.” And she's like, "Are you working right now?" And I'm like, "Yep." And she's just like, "Oh my God, do you ever take a break?" And I'm just like, "Nope." I mean, it is something that you have to be entirely invested in, and it's a joke, but it's kind of not. People ask me all the time, because obviously, I put a ton of time and work into the podcast and the blog and everything that I do for other writers. I write under my real name and under my pen name, and I speak and I travel, and I offer editorial services. And I do all these things just to keep my head above water. And people ask all the time, "How do you do this, you do so much? How do you accomplish all of these things?" And I always say, 'Well, it's at the expense of my personal relationships,' and it's a joke, but it's also not. I mean, I work and I exercise, and then I work. I wake up in the morning. I work until it's time to go to the gym, and then I come back home and then I work some more. And that's just what life is.
Angela: You really nailed it on the head. You've become a professional writer. But it's a lot of work. And you do it, 'cause you love it. It's your art form. It's your calling. I was just listening to one of our authors, Sara Blanchard, she said that she's so lucky because she has a job that's not a job, it's a calling. Right? She's an author and she's a podcaster as well, called Dear White Women. It's unbelievable, both her podcast and the book. What I'm saying to you too is when I hear you talk, when you embrace the fact that a podcast or a writer, a coach, a speaker, that's a calling, that is, I think, what people have to understand often times about this avenue - the Danielle Steels and the Stephen Kings of the world, that is a very small percentage.
Mindy: So how else are you going to make money?
Angela: Right, so I often say, is it because this is gonna elevate your speaking platform? Published a book called 52 Shabbats, we went back to press, we printed another 10,000. As soon as it landed, right away, we get another couple of thousand. I mean, the book is just doing phenomenal on BookScan. It's elevated Faith Kramer as a food writer. I mean, she has been in the New York Times and LA Times and the Washington Post. And she now can get paid honorariums to speak at different places across the country. And so often times what I say is your book is a calling card for you to do cooking classes and other things. So you offer editorial services, that was part of my point with even Indie authors, work with somebody who's a professional. We're not all writers.
Mindy: As someone that does self-pub, you hire an editor, you hire a copy editor. Well, I do the design myself, but I use vellum. Full disclosure, vellum does support the podcast, they are a sponsor of the podcast, but I also use it. So it's like, I love vellum, and I use that to handle all of my design, but, you know, I had to spend money on the program to get it. You gotta be willing to give money, but man, you're right, it's gonna be your time more than anything else, and it is also going to take time. You don't upload your book and post a tweet once and share it on Facebook and then watch your sales come in. No, it's just like it is the constant slog, and it can be miserable. I actually just hired an assistant, just to handle answering some of my emails. That's just where I'm at. She's gonna be answering my emails, 'cause I'll spend three hours a day just setting up interviews like this one, but blogging and doing the podcast transcripts and doing the social media posts, saying, hey, new podcast is up, all that, it takes so much time away from me and I have to write. Like, at some point, I have to write. I mean, you just have to know that there's no guarantee of success.
Angela: Can I ask you a question?
Mindy: Sure.
Angela: How come you decided to become an indie self-published author?
Mindy: Because I am traditionally published and with Harper Collins, I think I have 12 books out now, and all of my books are published under my real name, are really dark and fairly focused on usually some social issue topics. I have written across a wide variety of genres. I've written a thriller. I've written fantasy. I've written historical. I've written all kinds of different genres, but everything that I write is fairly dark. I've done a good job of branding myself, but it also means that the other side of myself, which is humorous and fun and happy-go-lucky, doesn't have a place under my real name. If I published some things that I publish underneath my pen name that are just flat out silly - fun and humorous and nice little beach reads - it would skew my branding so badly. I write fast. I can write a book in two or three months, and even faster if I'm churning. Trad-pub only has room for one book a year. And so I had some friends approach me and they were like, "Hey, we want to self-publish some stuff, and we'd like to have you in on this with us." And so we just started up a little business together and we write to the trends and to what the self-published readers are reading. And we just churn and get stuff out that is humorous, silly, paranormal, not too much on the dark side, not too much with language, fairly clean, the kind of stuff that isn't gonna fit underneath my real name. And then also because I write YA, I write for young adult, if I wanted to write something in a paranormal romance, that's steamier, which is, if you wanna make money, quite honestly, you kinda have to go there, I can't be marketing that underneath my real name as a YA author.
Angela: That's so interesting to me. Exactly what you're saying is exactly why I'm really excited about the company that I've launched. So for example, I have traditionally published authors on on my list. I have Fran Hauser, she wrote The Myth of a Nice Girl. It came out about four years ago with Houghton Mifflin. We just launched her new workbook called Embrace the Work, Love Your Career. She called me, I actually reached out to her about a giveaway on Instagram 'cause I love her, and I had no intention of publishing her book and she said "Angela, can we have a call? I wanna talk to you about this project." And she knew that she could not do that herself, and she wanted a new way. She wanted a book published within a year, and she wanted to own the art work, which also my authors own their RP. So I would say, this is also what I want all authors to hear who are listening to your podcast, if publishing offers you a contract, and has a real submission process, and they offer you, like my company does, or SheWrites Press, or Green Leaf has been around for a really long time, they're another hybrid, that's a real publisher. They're giving you a contract versus there's really no contract. There's money exchanged. That's the people I would really be wary of, and also like, look what other authors are on their list of traditional authors. Like Fran, she knew that it would take a very long time for it to get traditionally published. And all we had to do is have her agent talk to Houghton Mifflin and make sure that it was okay. And they did. They okayed it 'cause it was a workbook, right? That we could do. Again, I have another author on my list, Lea Redmond, who has tons of books published with Chronicle Books, with Work Bin, with Andrews McNeal, she has a deal with Harper Collins. We're publishing two books with her in the fall, and it's because like you, she's such an incredible creative and she runs Kickstarter campaigns. And she runs Kickstarter campaigns even for her traditionally published books, so she makes money to market them. What is a person's why? If your why, right, Mindy's why is to write and fall in love and figure out other avenues to make revenue and like then why not do both? Do traditional publishing and do indie publishing. And for Lea Redmond, it's like, why don't I do both? She understands the limitations of indie publishing in the genre of lifestyle and children's gorgeous books with stickers and die cut board books and all this stuff that really Amazon can't do.
Mindy: Well, with that in mind, last thing, why don't you let my listeners know how they can find you and the Collective Book Studio online and how to connect with you and the company there.
Angela: On Instagram it's just at thecollectivebookstudio. Very easy. I'm Angela Engel on LinkedIn. We have a Collective Book Studio on LinkedIn, but I'm much more active as the publisher and founder. Our website is really easy. It's just the collective book dot studio. Sign up for our newsletter. We do a lot of industry stuff. We are a lot of industry insiders, so if you guys are interested in kinda what's happening, not just with our books and our authors, but within the industry. Mindy, that's how you can reach me. Thanks.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.