Herping in Taiwan - The Book! (HELP!!)

[Twoton]

Hi all,

succumbing to peer pressure over at fieldherpforum.com, I've decided to write a little book about my herping adventures in Taiwan together with my buddy and herping partner Bill Murphy, also a Taiwan lifer. It will not merely be a reprint of my 150+ FHF posts, but we'll expand these posts into more book-friendly, immersive episodes. I'll also rewrite the best of my stories before the FHF crash in June, and add some new material that's never been online. I'm aiming at roughly 200 pages and will structure it into chapters dealing with various critter groups (cobras, ratsnakes, herpers, locals, etc.)

There will also be a chapter about (hopefully by!) an American gentleman who spent his teenage years in the 50's and 60's on a USAF base in southern Taiwan, where he collected and kept many snakes. His accounts of life and herping in old Taiwan back in the day are priceless in a herpetological as well as a historical and anthropological way, and I hope to include as much of that material as possible.

Now, I'm a complete noob to the world of publishing, and I'd love for all of youse to help out by providing tips: what would you like to read in such a book? what should I avoid?

Also, if you have the connections, please introduce or at least suggest publishing houses that might be interested in such a project. Do's and don'ts about dealings with publishers would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much in advance for your support!!

Hans, excitedly

 

[Waterrat]

Hi Hans,
do you want to do it for the love or for the money? lol
If you go to a publisher, they will pay you 10% royalties from sales, which equals a pittance. Unless you have published widely in the past, you wouldn't be able to negotiate better %.
The other option is to self-publish. The production costs are reasonable in these days, provided you have it printed in China, in which case you have to prey a lot so they don't stuff it up. The next step is to get the book on the market and that will cost you quite a lot because book distributors take a fair slice off the price. Assuming that you want a world-wide distribution for such book, you will have to appoint a distributor.
Alternatively, you can handle direct sales yourself and sell your book through internet and other form of advertising. .... a lot of work, packaging, posting, money collection, etc..

Good luck with it and let me know when the book comes out.

Cheers
Michael

 

[Twoton]

Thank you very much for these great tips, Michael! This is strictly for fun, but I don't want to lose money either Self-publishing of any sort sounds quite time-consuming, especially for someone with zero experience. I guess I'll go with the ten percent....

 

[Waterrat]

Since the book will be about Taiwan and Taiwanese snakes, see if you can drum up some local sponsorship. That would help.

 

[Twoton]

Good idea, but that would only work if it's in Chinese...which it won't be, and few people here read English well enough to understand what it's about.