If you're looking for more information on self-publishing, grab one of these free guides from FriesenPress:
Intro:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love.
Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state.
Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm so glad you're here. And today we're talking all things publishing with Leanne Janzen of FriesenPress. So starting her journey in the publishing world, Leanne began working as a publishing specialist.
She guides authors through the self-publishing process with care and attention and her ability to form relationships and desire to continually improve and learn letter to the University of Winnipeg.
She completed leadership training there shortly before transitioning to her new role with FriesenPress, and she now leads the sales team and so much more there.
Her passion for educating others on the current publishing landscape and the benefits of self-publishing led her to launching a successful speaking program at FriesenPress, where she and her team present to organizations and groups around North America.
And she's talking to us today. When she's not keeping busy with her children and dogs, she has three of each. You can find her on the beach with a good book and a glass of wine in hand. That sounds pretty good, Leanne. Welcome.
Leanne:
Thank you. I should have shortened that for you. was a mouthful.
Rhonda:
No, that's good. No, that's good. It's good for people to get a sense of like who you are and your background and stuff.
So you're with FriesenPress. Now, I know who FriesenPress is, but why don't you just tell our listeners a little bit about FriesenPress?
Leanne:
Yeah. So FriesenPress, we are part of Friesens Corporation, which is printer in Canada in Altona, Manitoba. They've been around for a hundred and eighteen years. um And for reason we are sort of the self-publishing arm of that corporation.
So we are a service provider for authors who are looking to self-publish. We provide everything from word document all the way to a book in your hand or a listing online and everything in between. And uh we just celebrated our 16th birthday and published our 11,000th title.
Rhonda:
Wow, that's a lot of titles. That's amazing. Okay, so let's just talk generally about, you know, the difference between self-publishing and working with a service provider, because I think one of the things that happens is people kind of have this idea about vanity publishing, which is old news, right?
Like it's, it's how we used to talk about self publishing back in the eighties. can you just kind of give us the landscape of like, if you were going to self publish what that would look like and then what it looks like to work with a service provider?
Leanne:
Yeah. So I like to separate it kind of into DIY self publishing and then service provider self publishing. And so at the end of the day, if you're going to self publish a quality product, it's not going to be free. And I think that's the biggest thing is that when we look at vanity publishing, I agree. It's an outdated term in today's landscape.
The only real place that it would exist to me as somebody who refuses to put any, um, quality assurance or any investment into what they're self publishing. Whether that be, you know, whether you're somebody who has graphic design experience and just needs editing support or vice versa, or things like that.
There's always gonna be an investment of kind, whether that's money or your time uh to self-publishing. And so when I separate it into those two kind of avenues, the biggest difference with do-it-yourself self-publishing, how it essentially works is you learn what you can, and then you hire freelancers for the rest. So you hire your editor or your formatter or someone who's going to support you.
Rhonda:
Cause I'm not making the cover. Like I don't know how. How do you make an EPUB?
Leanne:
Yeah, exactly. with, you know, do it yourself. You're your own project manager, everything, your timeline, everything is on yours. It's on you to produce your book entirely and develop and execute your own marketing strategies or hire a company to help you do that.
The drawbacks to that are it's extremely time consuming to manage every single aspect. And for first timers around, it can be really overwhelming at the amount of information that's out there.
So the biggest thing with uh self-publishing on your own is you are learning to do everything you can on your own and hiring um freelancers and support for the rest.
When you're working with a service provider, want, you're gonna, there are, there's lots of service providers out there, but so the first thing you're gonna wanna do is find somebody that you trust, that you build a relationship with. Lots of conversations are happening.
And you, when you come in and you decide, we've looked at your project and we've said, yes, editing, no editing, this type of editing, oh, like, we've decided what services are gonna be applicable, what's been done and what still needs to be done. We have all of those pre-vetted, all of those pre-interviewed professionals for you. So we have a team of editors that have passed exams to work with us.
We have a team of in-house and freelance designers. We have illustrators um and you have a dedicated project manager through the whole process who will coordinate your editing with you if you choose to do editing. They're gonna coordinate your cover design. They're gonna be your main point of contact. They're gonna make sure that you check all the boxes along the way.
So when you get to the end in your pricing your book, you don't go, oh man, I forgot I had to do this way back here. You have somebody, especially for first timers, that is a big thing because you can feel confident you're not gonna miss those steps.
Both doing it yourself and using a service provider, at the end of the day, you still are maintaining your creative control. um At the end of the day, we're using a service provider. You're still self publishing. If you don't want to do editing, it's not a requirement. If you don't love a cover, you can say no. If you want to price your book a certain way, you can do so. You still maintain that creative control.
But with using a service provider, you have a dedicated person who's advocating for your book, who knows who's having those conversations with you knows things, can quality check things before they send it back to you. So if there's a miss on a design element, they can go, no, no, no, it's not sending that back to my author until you fix it. So you have kind of your own project manager to guide you along the way.
Rhonda:
And they're doing, as you say, they're doing a lot of the quality control before it ever gets to you.
Leanne:
Yeah, and so what are, our authors are still heavily involved in the process because it is imperative because you're self-publishing still that you have eyes on your files at every single stage. We are all human. And so, you know, from editing, like so from word document to your initial layout, you're going to get that initial layout back as an editor.
First, your publishing specialist, which is what I used to do, is going to review it and make sure there's no obvious errors in that document. Then you get to review it and you get to say, don't like that font. Don't like that drop cap. Can we change this glyph at the beginning of these chapters? You get the input and the option, the opportunity to make those changes to your layout.
Then it goes back designers make those changes and you get your eyes on the file again. So before you move forward, so you have someone double checking it before it goes back to you. And then you have the opportunity to review it, to make sure everything is as you want it to be.
Rhonda:
Right. And I mean, you mentioned the professional editors, but when it comes to book design, like the cover and the layout of the book, I'm assuming that, you know, they have experience with book covers in different genres and how those need to look so that if I'm publishing a romance, I don't get a cover that looks like it's suspense.
Leanne:
Yes, absolutely. And so we, our design team, both, have both an in-house and freelance design team. ur in-house team is really well established has been part of our most of our in-house team has been part of the organization for a really long time since early days and has been working in this industry now for many years.
So one of our, one of the things we strive to do is, and if you go, if you go on our website and you check out our book covers, you can kind of see too, we always strive to avoid the self published book cover look. We want books to be on a shelf next to a traditionally published author and you can tell the difference.
Again, at the end of the day, if the author prefers a certain style, that's going to be up to the author, but our designers, our goal is to always have our design work be comparable to every book on the shelf in a bookstore.
Rhonda:
Right. Love it. Yes. So um how do you go about finding a reputable service provider if you don't, like if you're like, okay, I want to self publish, but I don't want to have to lay out my own book and do my own book cover and figure out how to get it up on Amazon. Like I don't want to do any of that. So how do you go about finding someone who is reputable? Like what kind of questions should I be asking?
Leanne:
Yeah, that's great. So first thing you're going to want to do is you're going to want to check review online. That's a really good place to start Google reviews, BBB reviews, and BBB rating. BBB rating is great, but I would look some organizations have a great BBB rating with you looking in the last three years, they've had 300 complaints like you know, so you want to look at the types of complaints, things like that.
Every service company is not going to be a fit for everybody. Youwant to have those conversations with consultants, um which is the team that I run, and really ask questions. Transparency with these companies matter. And the more transparent, the better.
So for example, I always say, read the company or if you're not working with a company service provider specifically, say you're working with an editing service provider specifically or design specifically. Read your contract, read your service agreement, publishing agreement, whatever they call it, before you pay for anything.
Ask them, can I see it? And if there is a lot of red tape to see a copy of it, that's a red flag. So um they should have a public copy available. Say, no problem, here it is. Go through it and ask me questions. So read the service agreement.
Reach out to authors that have published with that company. So you can find, you know, for us, for example, if you go, we have our own bookstore, FriesenPress Bookstore, you can find titles there. There's not author contact information, but you can always ask the consultants you're talking with, hey, I'd really love to connect, you know, with an author who's worked with you to have recommendations. Or you might even find that person online. I'm not sure.
Rhonda:
Yeah, you can find almost anybody on Instagram probably.
Leanne:
Yeah. And you know, and if you're not on our bookstore, if you type FriesenPress into, you know, a retailer, like Chapters Indigo or Amazon, books that have FriesenPress associated with them pop up when you type that in.
So you can find authors that have worked with, with certain companies and you can, you can try to reach out to them and ask them about their experience and how it went and you know, and you know, remembering that if they're saying, oh, the experience was great, but XYZ, the XYZ might be like, oh, that's amazing. That's exactly what I want. Right.
So, know, so like reach out, find out about them, check, check reviews. And the biggest thing to me is ask questions. I think that an informed author is a, is a, is a really great asset during the process. And so if you're not sure why, you know,. If something's on an invoice or an order they've put together and you're, don't know what PCD is, ask, don't just go, oh, I'll figure it out. Ask questions. And how companies answer those questions is going to say a lot about them.
Rhonda:
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. I love that point you're making about transparency. Like if a company is not willing to be transparent with you from the get-go, that should be a red flag.
Leanne:
Yes. Absolutely.
Rhonda:
So one of the things that, when people are considering the indie publishing route, one of the things that often comes up is the expense. Like, oh, I would like to, but I don't know if I can afford it. And um my understanding is there's quite a range, right?
Like if what you want is your book laid out and up on all the platforms you can buy it on, that's one level of service. But then if you want editing support at different levels, if you want marketing support and editing support, you know, that's a different thing as well. So can you talk about like the range of options for people who are key to the service provider?
Leanne:
Definitely. that also speaks to, I also will spring into that is a lot of transparency as well. If you can go to a website and you can see how much stuff costs, that's really great.
Um, instead of call us for a quote, you know, like you can see what's included at the base, kind of the base, um, levels. And so, yes, there's definitely a range because we do have. Every book has different needs. So some, um, of our authors, you know, might have worked with you to edit their book, for example, and come to us and all the editing is done. They don't want any more editing. Well, then when they work with us, it's not, we're not charging, we're not charging for editing and we're not, it's all about, yeah, it's all about those conversations at the beginning, learning what's been done, what hasn't been done, what the authors wants are and what their goals are, and then looking at what investment options they have.
And so it does range. keeping in mind that every single book that goes through our process has a dedicated project manager. So whether you spend $2,000 or you spend $15,000, you have a dedicated support person through the whole process.
And so our base paths that come in that wouldn't have editing support, they include our standard marketing. we have a marketing webinar that's informational and you can come and ask questions and things like that, but it's not full on support or helping create land.
Rhonda:
I'm making my book trailer.
Leanne:
Right. And then we're not, or your website or setting up your social media with you and things like that. So our bait, that kind of base coming in standard layout and into distribution with that project manager along the way is about $2,200.
And then on the other end of the, and there's lots in between too. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have what we call our masterpiece path. And it includes an, um, a specialty cover design service, three rounds of editing. Full promotional coaching along with uh social media content planning, distribution, promotional copies. Includes essentially every service you could think of that one might need. And that's kind of the top or higher and our highest half option at 15,000.
Rhonda:
So that's kind of the general range. And then as you say, there's sort of you know, services that so you could like have the basic, but then also have some editing and that would cost more. A hundred percent.
Leanne:
Yeah. And the average, I think that there was a study done. I don't know if it was the 2025 or the 2024 study. The average person to self publish a quality project was looking at spending between five and $6,000. Yeah. Right. And so working with a service provider, if you're spending five to $6,000, there better be at least one round editing in there. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
Rhonda:
Totally. Yeah, I agree. And I think some of the packages that are some of the folks that are out there are really not that transparent um about what is included, you know, so it is really good to know all of that upfront, so that you can make the choices best for you, because maybe you need editing, maybe you don't. I mean, I tend to think that every book, you know, every book needs editing, whether it's before you contact a service provider or after it still needs editing. And so, you know, and I think that often authors are not aware of the fact that they would, you you're gonna have to spend money on a book cover. If you go out and book a freelancer, that's anywhere from 500 to 800 US dollars.
There are costs involved here. um I mean, you can grab one off the internet for like 35 bucks, but now your cover looks like somebody else's cover. You they don't, you don't get an exclusive cover for $35. So I think sometimes there's a little bit of, you know, not everybody understands the costs that go into publishing a book.
Leanne:
Yeah. Yeah. And that, you know, that is, it's really true. Not, we talk with lots of authors every day who are like, Oh, I didn't know what we'd be that much. And we, we are always trying, we're talking about, you know, these are your wants, your goals, your needs. What does your investment options look like?
We can do our best to match those up, but when I look at budgeting with authors, I say, look at your budget, not only as your financial investment, but your time investment. So if you're not spending the money here, then you're spending the time. Yes. You do that. So it's one or the other.
Rhonda:
Yeah, absolutely. What are the biggest mistakes you see people making when they self-publish or when they go to work with a service provider in particular? What are the biggest issues that come up for you?
Leanne:
Yeah, working with a service provider in particular, we see a lot of authors who get as far into the process as they can on their own and will hire freelancers, which is fun. Like, it's great. If we have...um authors who have gotten pretty far into the process, hired freelancers and have things, then they're like, okay, now I don't know what to do.
One of the biggest things is coming to a service provider to say, I just want distribution. I have these pre-designed files, I have this. And what lots of authors don't realize is it's not just that easy. Each distributor or wholesaler or database or platform or printer is going to have their own set of proprietary in proprietary types of files that you need to prepare.
So if you're working with two printers, it's very unlikely they accept the exact same types of files. uh you know, so for example, know, Friesens versus Ingram, right? There are two, they work with two different programs. So they have two different types of print files with different information in there.
And so um lots of authors will get to the point where I have this fully designed book, it's ready to go but they come to work with a service provider and then realize the trim size that I had them format it to isn't available for print on demand. Or the trim or the file that I had paid for so much money for somebody to design for me isn't compatible with this distributor.
So I would say for authors who are looking to get as far ahead with those aspects before coming and they want to come in and work with a service provider, but take care of as much as they can before. So coming kind of at that base, that kind of base level um would be talk to the service provider, find out what trim sizes, find out what trim sizes are available for print on demand, find out what external design specifications you need.
So every company should have a document or a template email or something they can send you to say, if you're working with an external designer, these are the things we need to be able to move forward. Um, so I'd say that's the biggest thing is, um, it's not necessarily a mistake. I think that it's just the unknown.
Rhonda:
You don't know until you kind of are up against it it's like, Oh no, that file won't go on Amazon.
Leanne:
Exactly. Or, you know, or yeah, or this file is great, but it's, it's formatted to, you know, uh, six and a half by 10 and this is 10 and a half, you know, trim size. And that's not a real print on demand trim size. So it's, you know, it's, I think that if, if you're, know you're going to be looking for distribution support, but want to take care of the rest on your own, before you get to those design phases, start talking to the companies you're looking at for distribution to support to find out what those requirements will be so that you're not coming and going, I just did everything. And then we have to go, sorry. Sorry, we have to go back. Yeah. We have to go back and do it again. Yeah.
Rhonda:
So you guys have um a free resource, right? It's like a free author's publishing guide that kind of walks people through um understanding what's required, uh making sense of different publishing choices, uh pricing tips, distribution tips, all of that, right?
Leanne:
Yeah.
Rhonda:
So I'll put the link to that in the show notes because I think that's a really good guide.
Leanne:
There's a few guides too, we have the author's guide. We have a crowdfunding guide.
Rhonda:
Ooh..
Leanne:
We have a, um, a writing guide, uh, with, know, like submission templates and book proposal templates and things like that. We've quite a few, um, guides that I can, I can follow up and send you.
Rhonda:
Yeah. Send me the links and we'll put them in the show notes because I think I love the idea of the crowdfunding guide. One of the things that I think people can do if they're like, okay, well, I want some support with self publishing because I don't want to do all this stuff myself, but I don't know if I can afford it.
I think crowdfunding is a great idea. I've had a few students who crowdfunded uh in order to be able to do everything they needed to do to publish and get their book out into the world. So crowdfunding is a great option. I love it.
Leanne:
Yeah, really is. We work with lots of authors who will come to us, find out, you know, what kind of things we can do for their printing aspects or, you know, what kind of promotional materials we can make things like that, so that they have a head starting can put together like their Kickstarter bundles.
Rhonda:
Right.
Leanne:
They know what they can get from us. And so we work with lots of authors like that. And also plug, we have a new referral program as well, which allows um authors and and professionals to refer people to work with us and earn FriesenPress credits towards your publishing journey.
So like that's also, I mean, it's a great little program. It's not necessarily a Kickstarter, but it's a great way if you know that if you've decided, yes, I'm going to work with FriesenPress. Yes, I want to do this. It's a great way to just kind of go, okay, I'm going to refer people I know are publishing. I'm going to save up for my own book.
Rhonda:
Right.
Leanne:
Yeah.
Rhonda:
Yeah. I think there's always some options, you know, there's always some options. You can if you decide that you want to go indie, but you need some support. I think there, there you can get creative about figuring out how to cover some of those costs. So I love that you have that. We'll definitely put those in the show notes.
Leanne:
Yeah. And there's also if you go to your local provincial organizations, I know we've got some great ones here in Manitoba and you're interested in like your project to your book might be eligible for grants. you know, like art grants and things like that. So that's always something too, is you can go to some of the programs in your local community and you can ask about that and what's entailed in that and see if you might be eligible for things that way too.
Rhonda:
Yeah, yeah, good point. Especially in Canada where we have arts councils and provincial and federal um grant programs. um Yeah. I'm not sure how many of those are left standing south of the border, but yeah, but I think at the state level, there may be several. So it's always worth sniffing it out just to see. is, you know, any, any option is good. Any support you can get is good. All right.
Well, I'm so glad you walked us through this Leanne, because they feel like there's so much misinformation in the world about publishing and self publishing in particular. Is there anyone that where you would say you know what you're probably not a great candidate for self publishing.
Leanne:
I think, I Think everyone has a as a story behind them. It deserves to be told in some format or another I think anybody that Is of the mindset that okay, I wrote this book and I want to hand it over and have everybody else do all of the work.
That is somebody who should be querying agents and traditional publishers. The publishing process is very involved. um More so when you're doing it on your own, but there's still a high level of involvement when you're using a service provider because this is still your baby.
Rhonda:
This is still your book and you're making all the decisions. Yeah. So it's a high level of involvement for authors. And I think that authors that are of that mindset of, I just want to hand it over and be done with it, self-publishing is not the right journey for you. um And other than that, mean, self-publishing is self-publishing. At the end of the day, again, I think everyone has a story and we want to help people share those with the world.
But there are check when you're looking at traditional publishers or working with service providers, read the submission guidelines, read their service agreements and make sure that anything you're submitting for review doesn't go against any of those guidelines or those agreements.
We've had not many, it doesn't happen often, but we do have a service agreement. So we do have things that we will say no, hate speech, bigotry. We won't publish those things. So if we have authors that come in with books full of that and it's harder to come back to say, I'm so sorry, can't work on this project with you because of this, then it is to kind of look at the service agreement and go, oh, my book might have that in there. Maybe this isn't a good bit.
But I think that the biggest thing is authors that truly don't want as much creative input or as much involvement in the process. Self-publishing wouldn't be the right avenue to pursue, at first, at least.
Rhonda:
Yeah. No, I think that's true. I've worked with authors in my First Book Finish program where like, they know the cover they want. Like they've got the color and like the whole cover figured out. Like at that point, like no, no traditional publisher is going to give you cover control. I'm very sorry, but it's just not going to happen.
So if you're, if you're like, okay, I've written this novel and this is the cover that I want, self publishing needs to be the route that you go unless you're willing to negotiate that.
Leanne:
Absolutely. I, you know, and when I say, when I talk about traditional publishers, lots of time, I'm talking about the big guys, but there are smaller and medium traditional publishers that take on solicited manuscripts, do allow authors a little bit more creative input. But at the end of the day, every traditional publisher has final say in those aspects.
Rhonda:
Yeah. Totally.
Leanne:
So there might, there is sometimes, depending on who you're working with, a level of creative involvement, but at the end of the day, that final decision isn't yours.
Rhonda:
Yeah, I can remember for one of my books, the publisher sent me the cover and I was like, oh, no, I don't like this cover. And I tried to negotiate a different cover and they were like, well, the marketing people think it'll sell. And that was the end of that conversation, you know, so you really just if control creative control is important to you in terms of the object of the book, I think self published and possibly working with the service providers the way you have to go. Cause you're not going to get that in the traditional publishing world. So.
Leanne:
No. it's, um, service providers to one thing I'll kind of just like PSA before I know we were short on time here. One thing I was kind of PSA too is when you're talking to potential publishing partners, make sure you know what type of publishing partner you're talking to because there are service providers and there's hybrid.
And so the conversations with service providers, if you're comparing service providers to hybrid, those conversations look different and your contracts and agreements are going to look different. And so, you know, one might look better than the other because of XYZ, but you don't realize that you're talking to this type or this type. Make sure you always know if you're talking to a hybrid or you're talking to a service provider, make sure you have that clear distinction of what type of publishing partner you're talking to.
Rhonda:
Now, my understanding is that a true hybrid publishes some of their own titles. They curate some of their own titles. This is the definition of the independent press, you know, and they also offer publishing services. And then there are companies that just do publishing services. So, you know, it's you have to know what you're dealing with. I agree.
Leanne:
Yeah. And it's different to hybrid versus a service provider. Hybrid has different distribution channels. And so the royalty level, the royalty uh formulations are going to be different than with service providers and content ownership is probably likely different between hybrid and service providers.
So you want to make sure you're looking at all of those aspects, especially content ownership or maintaining the rights is something that's really important to you. Make sure you're reading that before you hand over any money.
Rhonda:
Yes. Amen. Amen. All right. Thanks so much for this, Leanne I really appreciate it. And folks can go to the show notes to get some of those free guides we were talking about earlier.
Leanne:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Outro:
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