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Jeremy Boraine and Lood du Plessis of TFS have some valid points regarding imported books.
I can only speak from experience from a South African author's point of view, or at least of my wife that is the author.
My wife, Hanneli Gibson, has written and self-published four isotheric science fiction books thus far (Chronicles of Han Storm), all in excess of 600 pages with three more in the series, currently in the process of being written.
She did not self-publish because she wanted to, she self-published because she had to.
After completing the first two books she attempted, like many aspirant bestselling authors, to get an agent and publisher to take her on board.
After a year of not getting ANY response (not even a common courtesy email) and many requests from friends that had read the first book in electronic form that wished to have the book in hard copy, Hanneli approached an independent printer for a quote for 10 books.
Her fans promptly pooled their money and had 10 books printed at a cost of just over R120 per book of 777 pages. This was in 2011.
A good samaritan then assisted to have 100 books printed, as this brought the cost down to even less per book and allowed Hanneli a good margin of profit. Presently she sells her books at R300 on average, with the cost of printing having risen to about R130.
Now compare this to being taken on board by a publisher. It seems each South African publisher has its own criteria, first and foremost demanding a "Truly South African story", which disqualifies many brilliant authors immediately.
Many then demand that you pay up front for editing (280 000 words at R0,45 per word = R126 000), layout and all kinds of other fees. In my wife's case this would have amounted to in excess of R140 000.
And IF you are so lucky to be published, the burden still falls on you to do the marketing yourself, while only receiving a pittance in royalties. This is the reason why so many authors are self publishing, be it in hard cover or electronic form, using platforms like Smashwords, Amazon and Createspace.
To sum up, presently it costs Hanneli R130 per book when she has 100 printed, which includes the printer's profit, and sells the books at average R300 per book. Compare this to the 5 to 7% that authors receive as royalty, or R21 maximum in Hanneli's case, despite the fact that the largest part of the marketing falls on the author.
In three years she has sold in excess of 2000 books (according to the Publishers Association of SA the average number of sales per title, between two to three thousand in SA), including readers the UK, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Swaziland and the USA.
Another troubling development in South Africa was the recent publication of proposed laws where the copyright of authors would revert to the state upon their death, which would normally have belonged to the beneficiaries for a period of 50 years after death, with all proceeds going to the state.
Do you think that any publisher would take on an author if this would become law?
