Self-publishing in New Zealand

The stigma, the reality, and what we actually do

If you found us by searching 'self-publishing New Zealand', you are in the right place. But the label deserves some unpacking, because what we do sits in a space that did not really have a name when we started doing it.

Where the stigma came from

'Self-publishing' used to be scoffed at, and for some good reasons. It conjures up images of badly designed books, unedited text and poor quality printing and binding. Or even worse — covers that look as if they were produced on a Mac in the good old days of 'Desktop Publishing' using clip art, or these days a low-resolution phone photograph, and set in Times New Roman or, horror of horrors, Bookman or Hobo. These are all transgressions against what makes a good book, so we understand how self-publishing earned its reputation.

And that is without considering the writing. Not all writing is good writing. We read manuscripts every week. Some need a great deal of work, some are good and some are gems. But even the gems are difficult to get published commercially, because things have changed. Having a book published by a trade publisher is now afforded to very few writers. The number of publishers, particularly in New Zealand, is getting smaller by the day, so even if the remaining publishers keep their lists at the same size, there are fewer books being produced.

Which is why so many wonderful people walk in our door. People with great ideas and a well-told story, who have often tried every publisher going and collected rejection after rejection. They have worthy books, interesting books, books well written and with a clearly defined audience. Somebody should be publishing them.

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

So what are we, then?

For a long time there were only two options. There were trade publishers, who take the publishing rights and pay the author a royalty, and there were self-publishing and vanity outfits, who take the author's money and hand back a box of books. There was nothing in between, which made us difficult to describe. We have spent years explaining that we are neither.

We are an independent publisher working to a hybrid model. You keep your rights and your profits, and we bring the full commercial publishing process to your book, from assessment and editing through design, typesetting, print management, distribution and publicity. Nothing about the standard is different from a trade book. The only difference is who owns the outcome.

It also means we will tell you the truth. If the numbers do not stack up, we will say so before you spend the money, not after. A vanity press has no reason to have that conversation with you. We do.

We are a small family team, so you are not uploading a file to a service and hoping. You are working with Mary, Anna and Sophia, and you will hear from us at every stage.

And we are not new to this. Mary Egan Publishing began in 2010, but the story starts in 1991, when Mary and Gerard Reid founded Egan-Reid Limited. Egan-Reid held the exclusive contract for 75% of Penguin New Zealand's book production, produced all of Oxford University Press's Australian and New Zealand dictionaries for a decade, exported to Australia and the UK, won the Minister's Scholarship export award and spent five years as one of New Zealand's top 100 exporters before it was sold. So while the name above the door is relatively young, the standards behind it were built inside the traditional trade. Mary has written about those early days in 'In the Beginning Was the Word', and it explains our values better than any services page could.

Doing it properly means doing it the same way

The goal of every author is for their book to reach readers. For that to happen, the book has to be good enough to earn its place on the shelf.

There is really only one approach to getting it right, and that is to follow the same steps a trade-published book follows. Assessment. Editing. Design. Production. Marketing. Otherwise, how can the book compete in a crowded market? The same holds true for ebooks.

We do this by working closely with authors, corporate and business clients, publishers both here and overseas, editors, printers, distributors, publicists and social media specialists. The result is a book that holds its own in a bookshop, rather than one that quietly announces it was made at home.

There are too many good books that could have succeeded, if only the author had invested in the design. It is why design and typesetting are a priority for every book we publish, and Anna's portfolio is the best argument we could make for it.

If you want a professional book, hire professionals, just as you would if you were building a house. A power tool salesman is not a builder, an art teacher is not an interior decorator and an engineering student is not an electrician. Translate that to publishing. An author is not a designer, an English teacher is not an editor, a retired accountant is not a typesetter. We could go on.

Just as having your house built by a registered builder protects your investment, having your book professionally produced gives it the best possible chance of selling.

Niche is not a limitation

The first book we produced as Mary Egan Publishing was Caught Between Sunshine and Shadow, edited by Georgie Tutt, a collection of stories about living with bipolar disorder. Georgie printed 1000 copies with us and the print run sold out before the books had even landed in New Zealand. It went straight to reprint. It would have been a hard book to place with a trade publisher, particularly as Georgie wanted to keep creative and editorial control. With our guidance she achieved exactly what she set out to do, which was to demystify bipolar affective disorder and be commercially successful while doing it.

Historic Homesteads of Hawke's Bay by Angus Gordon is a $50 hardback about the grand pastoral houses of one province. We published it in 2021, it sold out quickly, went to reprint, and it is still selling years later. A well-made book on a specific subject will find its readers, and it will keep finding them long after publication.

Thinking about return, not just cost

We understand this is a real investment, and it is not the right choice for everyone. But it is worth thinking about return rather than cost alone. You may sell 50 copies of a book you produced yourself, or 500 copies of a book that was produced properly. We will help you work through those decisions honestly.

A book with a well-defined market has real commercial potential, and sometimes the best route to that market is selling direct. A busy café publishing its own cookbook already knows exactly who its buyers are, because they walk through the door every day. With no distributor margin and no retailer margin, 1000 copies at a margin of $25 leaves $25,000 with the author. Other books belong in bookshops nationwide, which is where our distribution comes in. Part of our job is working out which of those yours is.

Self-publishing is not failure

Our aim is for people to understand that publishing your own book is every bit as legitimate as being published by someone else. The old stigma came from books that had not been edited, designed or printed properly, and the only way to remove it is to raise the quality of the work, one book at a time.

It is also the whole point of how we work. When a book has been properly assessed, edited, designed, printed and taken to market, it stands on the shelf on its own merits. A reader choosing it is deciding whether they want to read it, not who published it. The difference is that you kept your rights, your control and your profits.

So call it self-publishing if that is the phrase that brought you here. We would call it independent publishing, and we have been doing it for decades.

Self-publishing is not failure. It is the future of publishing. And if you are going to do it, do it properly.