The Historical Influence of Writing
The practice of targeted communication has been as essential to mankind’s sanity as it has to our survival for as long as we have been social creatures. By putting our ideas about the nature of existence into words and images, we can create agreement among our tribes about our shared values. We can collaborate on projects that are beyond the scope of a lone actor (whether it be toppling a mammoth, erecting a skyscraper, or instigating a social revolution). Effective communication gives people a shared sense of identity.
It’s easy to forget that for most of human history and prehistory, the only way to communicate was through primitive sounds and pictographs. Absent the aid of electronic amplification, speaking was limited to listeners within natural earshot of the speaker. Any information accumulated across more than one human lifetime would be passed on through myths and stories, from older generations to their offspring. Such enormous amounts of talking constituted a large demand on time and energy.
Early societies maintained their cultural identities through the values practiced among their inhabitants. Parents repeated to their children the wisdom of their parents before them. Political and spiritual figureheads commanded attention and dictated the lifestyle choices of their tribes. Such was the power of their words to influence those who would listen.
Throughout our history, writing has proven to be our most influential communication medium. It is because of the written word that we have been able to draft a history and a narrative for humanity. Our story maintains its continuity across moments, generations, and ages. Primitive cave paintings, the development of the printing press, and the rise and fall of mass market bookstores have all played vital parts in shaping society’s cohesion.
Influence does not work differently in our world today, despite the many modern trappings that we think differentiate ours from the primitive eras of the past. The difference today is that our technology for transmitting ideas and their associated values is greater than ever before and still growing. Through sounds, words, and moving or still images, we are better able to convey to other people what we know, believe, and care about. With modern power to influence come modern responsibilities.
If you choose to enter the role of influencer through the dissemination of information you care about in the form of a book, it is wise and worthwhile for you to understand the historical context that has allowed you to consider the path before you. Knowing where things came from and where they may next be going gives context to your role as an author. The right context will make the lengthy endeavor ahead of you all the more rewarding.
The Social Power of Reading and Writing
The advent of the written word forever changed the way we communicate and, thus, changed all civilization. Writing made keeping a record of history possible. On a local level, it allowed groups to maintain an impartial account of information beyond the biases of human memory over time. On a global level, writing has allowed anyone who can read to access information produced thousands of years before them or oceans away.
Because of writing, no longer did communication rely upon the double coincidence of both parties offering and desiring the same information, in the same place at the same time. For the first time, speaker and listener could be separated by time and space. Writing allowed information to spread independently of the mind of its originator. Writers could send out as much information as they wanted, but readers could only receive it at a different time from a distant source. Regardless, the written word has been the primary catalyst for the evolution of human society, understanding, and technology.
In the modern age, where it seems everyone in the developed world owns a personal computer and maintains an online persona, it is humbling to remember that for thousands of years literacy was quite rare in the world. Both reading and writing have almost always been available only to the wealthy and educated, not the common people of any given society. Writing was power. Anyone who could write held more social influence than anyone who could not, for their ideas could spread to more minds. Those who could write persuasively held the most power of all.
Social Thought Policing
The written word has been so important to society (even before widespread literacy), that cultures throughout history have imposed approved thought patterns and barred incongruous ones by destroying books, scrolls, and other forms of documentation. The most powerful institutions on Earth have always been terrified by writing that contradicted what they wanted the people under them in their social dominance hierarchies to believe. For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church maintained their domination by approving for publication only books that would not "harm correct faith or good morals” with a special Imprimatur (“let it be printed”) license.
Within the modern Chinese government, the General Administration of Press and Publication can imprison anyone who publishes or imports books or other written materials (whether physically or digitally) that contradict their officially sanctioned version of Chinese history or promote unapproved cultural values. Classics ranging from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss have been banned within China for the dangerous effects they might have on impressionable Chinese minds. To this day, public book burnings remain an accepted practice. You’ll learn more about how this affects you as a self-published author seeking international distribution when I discuss foreign promotion strategies in part six of this book.
Because the world changes so quickly now, there is more wisdom to pass on with each generation. More is written than will ever be widely read. The more quickly information evolves, the harder a person must work to keep up with the standards of their culture. Without the aid of modern communication technologies, a single mind can only take in or put out so much knowledge. Left only to our organic faculties, we would never be educated enough to live a modern life. A child today consumes knowledge at a rate that would seem impossible to their ancestors.
Consider that before the printing press, books were treasured possessions. Each one had to be written painstakingly by the hands of professional scribes. The only book most people ever saw in their lives for most of history was the Bible. It’s no accident that the text most available to people for so long was the one that acted as the primary source of their worldview, identity, and social values. The Bible and other religious texts like it are living demonstrations of the power of written information to shape societies.
Social Power Expansion
When Johannes Gutenberg introduced a superior version of the printing press to the world in the 15th century, he revolutionized book production. Mass printing dropped the consumer price of books and other printed materials. For the first time in history, written information was becoming affordable and accessible to the masses, not just the elite. Economies of scale emerged in the information market. An original work could be reproduced countless times for nominal extra cost.
Though he likely could not recognize the importance his work would carry, Gutenberg’s printing press had opened the door for the common person to adopt cultural influences from endless new sources. The exchange of information was now limited only by the transportation technology for physical pages. A global integration had begun. Then Samuel F.B. Morse introduced the telegraph and Morse code to the United States, revolutionizing long-distance communication. By the mid-1800s, the transatlantic telegraph wire would send the first messages to Europe without the months-long journey required by boat.
Through Thomas Edison, we received the phonograph, the first portable sound recording device. By the 1920s, music was being pressed into vinyl records and transmitted through radio waves across America, allowing over two million homes to listen to what they wanted on demand for a marginal cost. It’s rather telling that throughout the Great Depression, despite a general decrease in consumer spending, the popularity of radio grew as people craved more entertainment in uncomfortable times.
In the late 20th century, widespread use of the telephone would replace the telegraph. Real-time auditory reproduction of the human voice allowed conversations to occur in two directions across any distance. New technologies captured more of the nuances of communication, closing the intimacy gap in a world that grew more detached from its close-knit tribal beginnings.
Today, ordinary people rely on handheld electronic devices for written, audio, and visual communication, surpassing the options of all prior generations. We take for granted invisible communication networks like cell towers and satellites that grant instant access to nearly the entire portion of civilization that participates in these networks. Communication interfaces like social media platforms have sprung up to facilitate humanity’s identity transition from the physical to the digital realm. Film, television, and recorded music can be streamed online to hungry minds around the world. Real-time local phone calls across town have evolved into live global video interactions in high definition.
We have all but erased the gaps that distance and culture once held over humanity. Culture can be dispersed geographically and intermingled in countless unpredictable ways because of our advanced communication technology.
Books as the Gold Standard for Ideas that Matter
In 1686, at the insistence and expense of his friend, astronomer Edmund Halley, physicist Isaac Newton agreed to write and publish his three-book series, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (which, in English, translates to “mathematical principles of natural philosophy”). Newton’s work began simply as a discussion with Halley about the laws that govern planetary motion. It would go on to become what many consider to be the most important scientific text ever written.
Principia, written in Latin (a language known largely by academics at the time) and in a dense mathematical style, was never meant to be a bestseller. It was never even popular in Newton’s lifetime. It was meant to disclose his theories about what he called “the frame of the system of the world.” We know it today as the laws of classical physics: the axioms of mass, force, momentum, and universal gravitation, proving that the written medium ensured that the influence of his ideas would go on to matter after his death.
Less than a century after publishing, Newton’s laws became directly responsible for the technological and economic boom of the Industrial Revolution. Every subsequent breakthrough in chemistry and biology is possible because of the publication and eventual spread of Isaac Newton’s Principia. Had Edmund Halley not convinced him to proceed and himself funded Newton’s book, we would live in a much less developed world today, and it would not be technologically possible for you to be reading this right now.
In January 1776, an anonymous pamphlet about the philosophical basis for American independence was published in Philadelphia and disseminated throughout the 13 colonies. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense challenged the institution of the British monarchy and became the bestselling book per capita in American history. Perhaps most impressively, because it was anonymous, Americans were able to evaluate Paine’s ideas on their own merits, not on any perceived authority of the author.
Because its language was clear, purposeful, and persuasive, Common Sense accomplished an amazing feat: changing the minds of millions of people toward an unprecedented cause. It made the American Revolution (and all social progress that followed) a desirable outcome instead of an obscure fantasy. Less than six months later, the Declaration of Independence would be signed by Paine and his contemporaries. Their change in the structure of society would inspire similar advancements in nations the world over.
If there were any doubt about Common Sense’s contribution to independence, fellow founding father John Adams had this to say about the matter: “Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.” Paine demonstrated that the right idea presented to a ready audience could change the world.
Affluence of Opportunity
As there are now more communication channels available than ever before, people have too many ways to make their voices heard. We tend not to appreciate such power because it’s what modern generations have always known. We forget that when we strip away communication technology, our ability to be heard drops to only whoever is within earshot. Our influence then is the same as that of our primitive ancestors.
Every communication medium that has come in and out of fashion throughout history has done so for specific reasons in the context of the time that they were popular. Each medium offers unique advantages and disadvantages. Modern social media platforms give us the ability to create facsimiles of ourselves online. Blogs serve as written collections of experience or expertise on a subject. Video channels rocket ordinary people to minor celebrity status by displaying their personalities on camera for all the world to see.
Though the methods for producing books have improved, their fundamental function has not. Printed books have remained popular in the digital era because they have symbolic importance beyond any other medium. Books are the gold standard of communication that matters. Sitting down with a book in hand is an intimate experience that we have romanticized and adored across countless subcultures. The sacredness of books in human minds is incomparable to other forms of content. There’s a reason the idea of burning a pile of DVDs isn’t nearly as traumatic as the idea of burning a pile of books.
Long-Form Communication
Books also persist because they serve long texts of tens or hundreds of thousands of words better than any other medium. They provide the space needed to elaborate on every relevant angle of a subject in a logical progression. By the time the reader reaches the final pages, they should feel that their knowledge of the subject is complete enough to be applied in the world. Such a comprehensive education is not possible with snippets of ideas trimmed down for virality and digestion.
Interconnected Ideas
The structure of books enables writers to cover multiple complex, connected ideas. Different sections, chapters, and subheadings make it easy for readers to categorize the information in front of them, skimming back and forth between concepts as needed for reinforced integration. Readers can take notes, mark pages, and refer to earlier passages whenever they need to. Books, more than any other medium, make it convenient for consumers to navigate information at their own pace and in their own ideal way.
The evolution of communication standards and technology is a double-edged sword. Every new medium suffers from rapid self-obsolescence. The way people watch videos or listen to music changes within several years, as generational trends and portable storage technologies move on. Audio and video content have inherently shorter shelf lives (recordings of major historical events notwithstanding). Vinyl records, 8-track tapes, cassettes, CDs, Betamax and VHS tapes, and DVD and Blu-Ray discs are subject to a decline in accessibility from the moment they are created.
Timeless Appeal
More than any other medium, paper books subvert the effects of entropy and obsolescence. In fact, many timeless books just appreciate with age. Books today are still made roughly the same way as hundreds of years ago. Binding techniques and the composition of paper may change with the generations, but the information in old books is as convenient to consume as it is in modern ones. The consistent standards of books make them more collectible than any other medium, either privately in homes or publicly in libraries, stores, and museums. Despite the advances of the digital era, there is no reason to believe that the timeless appeal of books will wane anytime soon. It remains to be seen how the digital evolution of e-book distribution will change how we treat physical books. My belief is that it will only increase the total demand for books, not consume a larger fraction of a fixed number of possible readers.
On the personal level, readers can return to the books they owned when they were younger throughout their lives. Our favorite books become a part of us, as we have put a little bit of ourselves into them. Modern homes proudly display large collections of cherished books. These personal libraries are shrines to the values that have taken hold in our minds. An old book is a renewable spring of positive influence, maintaining the same personal resonance it did decades prior.
On the social level, books from ages past help us appreciate the eras of their authors. Writing styles change. Values shift with the generations. Cultural touchstones go in and out of relevancy. Reading Common Sense, we can imagine what life in the American colonies must have been like for Paine’s words to spurn such strong support for independence. Books offer a static recreation of the minds of human history, beyond the mere facts and statistics about their existence.
Cost-Efficient Transmission
Without relatively cheap and efficient book publishing, the revolutionary ideas of the Newtons and Paines of the world may never have taken off. Long-term transmission would have been too difficult. We will never know how many other great minds have had ideas of equal worth but lacked the opportunity to publish a book and harness such influence. Books and the information they carry can literally outlast empires.
For almost four centuries, it has been difficult for ordinary people to become published authors, as even small publishing contracts required enormous faith and investment in the author. Only a few organizations had the production, distribution, and marketing capacity to turn an unknown author into a success. Many of the most successful authors today only got their big breaks after struggling for years, penniless, to find someone willing to take a chance. If a writer did not already have a connection to someone in a position of authority at a publishing house, their chances of even being considered were slim.
If you understand the unique and important advantages afforded to you by the creation and distribution of your own books, you only need to determine the best way to harness them.
The Evolution of Traditional Publishing into Self-Publishing
The mass publishing of printed books in America began in 1638, when a printing press was imported to Cambridge, Massachusetts from England. Since then, it has grown to over 2,500 publishing houses and billions of dollars in revenue each year. In Philadelphia, founding father Benjamin Franklin maintained a print shop, authoring and publishing countless books. By the 19th century, New York City had become the publishing capital in the United States, seeing the rise of such prolific publishing houses as Harper, Scribner, and Putnam.
The 1970s brought about big chain bookstores, such as Barnes & Noble, who established deals with publishers allowing them to sell books cheaper than independent bookstores. From there, it was only a matter of time before Amazon and other online book retailers would prevail as readers realized they would rather browse and order books from home. E-books likewise rose to prominence when it became clear many readers preferred them to the physicality of paper books.
When self-publishing became commercially viable, it was because technology entered the market to replicate what, previously, only large publishing houses could do. Print-on-demand services now make processing print runs of many thousands of copies of a single title irrelevant. Authors working on a shoestring budget do not have to invest thousands of dollars up front just to stack copies of their work in their garage. Now, authors can order as few or as many copies of their professionally bound books as they want for just a few dollars each (plus the cost of shipping).
To the dismay of many large publishing houses, online marketplaces like Amazon.com have democratized book marketing and distribution. Authors with only a basic knowledge of internet marketing can find creative and inexpensive ways to get their book in front of their ideal readers. Amazon and its affiliated companies take their cut of the purchase and automatically send the order to be printed and shipped, or delivered instantly over the internet in the case of digital formats like e-books or audiobooks. The barrier to entry for aspiring authors is all but gone.
Self-Publishing Challenges
Still, self-publishing is the most recent industry change for books. It has not been perfected or fully embraced by readers. Self-published authors can carry negative stigmas of amateurism that traditionally published authors do not. The common perception is that any book that a “real” publisher wouldn’t pick up is not worth reading. Without a barrier to entry, the seal of quality offered by large publishers is absent. Anyone, no matter how terrible or revolutionary their message might be, can sell their book on the same platforms as War and Peace or the Harry Potter series.
What all this means for aspiring authors is that if they are willing to deal with the stigmas and difficulties associated with self-publishing, they no longer need to search for years or know people in the right places to have their book published. Everyone has an equal opportunity at making their voice heard, so long as they learn to make use of the resources available to them. For better or worse, the doors have been opened permanently. There is no turning back from here. No longer do a few ruling minds determine for everyone else who or what can be presented to the masses. Overcoming these hurdles is what I will show you how to do if you believe your message is deserving.
Traditional publishing appears appealing to authors who strictly want to focus on writing, though even this is misleading because large publishing houses still expect the author to assist with the marketing of their book. Publishing houses do, however, have professional sources in place for professional editing, graphic design, and copywriting. Authors who choose to go it alone will have to either handle all these supplementary tasks themselves or outsource the parts they don’t like to professionals. The self-published author necessarily wears many hats.
Trаdіtіоnаl рublіѕhеrѕ may take over most of the heavy lіftіng, but their involvement carries great соѕts. Not only will the author’s book royalties be of a significantly smaller percentage than they would if they self-published, but the author will not even retain total control of their intellectual property. The рublіѕhіng соmраnу they sell their rights to decides how or when they rеlеаѕе and promote the bооk. Additionally, the author’s agent mаkеѕ their mоnеу as a реrсеntаgе оf the аdvаnсе (if аny) and royalties for the bооk (typically 15%).
Creative Control
When a writer signs a deal with a publishing company, the company owns the print license, while the writer owns the copyright. Giving up the print license means the рublіѕhеr has control over thе tіtlе, cоvеr, content, рrісіng, рrоmоtіоn, and distribution of the book. They may require substantial modifications to the content and tone of the work, diminishing the authenticity of the message.
If an author’s point of view is unconventional, they may have a hard time convincing a traditional publisher to leave it as is. Just like big Hollywood movie studios, publishers take a risk every time they purchase the rights to a book and expend their resources producing and promoting it. They aren’t in the business of gambling on unknown authors who don’t fit the mold of what they know turns a profit. Publishers will likely require significant modifications to an uncommon book (if they are even interested in publishing it), unless the author has somehow proven their work’s saleability.
The thought of someone else having the final say on what will go in their book is unbearable for many authors. Their name and face are going to be associated with whatever ends up in print. If their publisher doesn’t understand the unique, personal appeal the author intends, they will tarnish the message. The revisions could be minor and valuable, like the fixing of problematic punctuation and superfluous vocabulary. They could also be large and deconstructive, like an overhaul of order, theme, title, style, and cover design. Traditional publishers may be right and they may be wrong about their revisions, but they’re going to have final say even if the author disagrees.
Traditional publishers tailor their books to the standards they can predict a large audience will respond to. They don’t care what an author thinks their book should look like or the philosophical implications of the message. Many publishers are willing to sacrifice artistic integrity and risk misleading buyers if they believe that doing so will create greater intrigue. The publisher is happy with the higher sales, but disappointed buyers can destroy the author's brand.
Royalty Splitting
A trаdіtіоnаl рublіѕhеr pays its authors 7–15% royalties on book ѕаlеѕ (minus the lіtеrаrу agent's 15% оf the author’s 15%, typically a total of 2.25% of the sale price). Through self-publishing, authors keep most of the royalties from each sale. When an author enters into a private agreement with a retailer like Amazon, the retailer keeps a portion of the book revenues for the privilege of listing the book on their site, allowing users to leave reviews and adding the book to their category rankings. If an author publishes their e-book through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and prices it between $2.99 and $9.99, they will receive 70% royalties for their book. For any retail price outside this range, author royalties from Amazon drop to 35%, which is still vastly superior to the maximum 15% that traditional publishers offer.
For physical books, KDP Print (Amazon’s department for print-on-demand paperbacks) charges a printing fee of one and one-fifth cent ($0.012) per page for black and white books and seven cents ($0.07) per page for color books. They also add 85 cents for the printing of the cover of every book. Authors publishing paperbacks can expect a 250-page black and white book of any page size to cost less than $4 per copy to print. Amazon then keeps 35% royalties of the retail price of KDP Print paperbacks when sold on their platform, leaving the author with a profit of about 50% of the book price in royalties (which is, again, far better than the 15% or less available through large publishing houses). The exact amount will depend on retail and printing prices of the book.
These are the same rates and policies once implemented by CreateSpace, Amazon’s former print-on-demand subsidiary company that was integrated with Kindle Direct Publishing in late 2018. Other print-on-demand companies like IngramSpark and Lulu have their own pricing structures, which sometimes allow the author or publisher to set their own wholesale discount rates.
Publishing Timeline
A trаdіtіоnаl рublіѕhеr may rеԛuіrе 12–18 mоnthѕ tо publish a bооk from the time they acquire the rights to it. In fact, a book project could get саught in development hell and be delayed for years, if not abandoned altogether. If a book’s subject is topical and timely, its content may be outdated by the time the gears of conventional publishing finish turning. If a book is tied to other aspects of its author’s professional life, delayed release could mean the loss of new business and opportunities. Book marketing efforts will be fruitless if an author cannot predict when their book will be available. Through self-publishing, an author can have their bооk on Amazon within days from the time the final draft is ready. It is seldom desirable to rush a book’s release so much like this, but it’s always an option. The self-published author will not beckon to anyone’s timetable but their own.
The burden of self-published authors is to achieve the same level of professionalism as their traditional counterparts. Self-publishing, therefore, requires authors to be responsible for much more than writing. They must aspire to conquer the many responsibilities of publishing if they are to achieve success. Even the world’s most skilled writers cannot handle cover design, formatting, editing, presentation, or sales and marketing with the same effectiveness. They will need to outsource at least some parts of the process. It is the only way to produce a book approaching the standards set by traditional publishers that readers expect when they pay $20 for a paperback or $30 for a hardcover.
Many aspects of the book refinement, presentation, and promotion processes are difficult to predict for self-publishers. Editing can happen in one quick round of feedback from a critical mind, or an author can belabor it for months on end, with dozens of readers pointing out ways to improve individual sentences or alter the structure of a book’s message. An author can cut entire chapters. They can move the end to the beginning or the beginning to the end. They can even end up rewriting their book from scratch once the first draft has been thoroughly eviscerated.
Then there are all the skilled creative decisions that go into cover design, title selection, and interior formatting. Assessing all the creative alternatives, finding and paying the right talent, or putting the many required hours of their own labor in could extend their book’s release date by weeks or months, even after the content is finalized. To self-publish, an author must get comfortable managing these kinds of decisions, as though they were the architect and foreman behind the construction of a house.
The challenges that govern both traditional and independent publishing will change in the years to come. It will gradually become easier for communicators to release their messages as profitable books without sacrificing the integrity of what they intend to communicate. The unrealized societal potential of these shifts is massive. Now it’s time for you to realize it with your book and your message.
Summary of Chapter 1
· Reading and writing have played immensely important roles in maintaining a progression of culture and knowledge across generations and communities for all of human history, even in the face of recent technological advances in audio and video communication.
· Books have organically emerged as the standard for transmitting important ideas due to their durability, portability, low-tech design, ability to accommodate long messages, social perception of authority, and inexpensive cost of production.
· For centuries, the means to print and distribute books profitably was held by relatively few major publishing houses. In recent decades, self-publishing technology has made it easier and cheaper for independent authors to produce, publish, and promote their own work without giving up the royalties or creative control for their work.
