How Daniels Professor Stephen Haag navigated a new self-publishing frontier
After writing nearly 50 books over the last three decades, Stephen Haag rarely runs into situations he hasn’t already experienced as an author.
He’s penned works with titles including “Management Information Systems for the Information Age,” “Business Driven Technology” and “Studyguide for Information Systems Essentials.”
But his most recent book, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution 2022: What Every College and High School Student Needs to Know About the Future,” presented a unique challenge for Haag: navigating the self-publishing landscape.
Stephen Haag
Haag shared his learnings during a recent self-publishing workshop he hosted at the Daniels College of Business. More than ever, Haag leaned on one piece of publishing advice he learned over the years, asking himself, “What is your motivation?”
“Why are you into this? That’s going to drive a lot of the money you’re willing to spend and the time you’re willing to put in,” said Haag, a professor of the practice in the Department of Business Information and Analytics.
In embarking on the self-publishing journey, Haag said he was looking to retain as many rights and decisions for his book, while also maximizing his earning potential and setting his own prices. By going this route, Haag was responsible for much of the heavy lifting in preparing the book for sale.
After writing and editing “The Fourth Industrial Revolution 2022,” Haag still had to obtain a copyright, find someone to create design elements for the cover and inside, and post it to Amazon, among a variety of other smaller tasks.
Some of this can be done for little or no money, but the editing and design accounted for much of Haag’s spending. For authors using traditional publishers, this cost is baked into their services and, as a result, the publishers own your book, Haag said.
Haag’s new book focuses on the many new technologies that have become part of our world, from artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles to cryptocurrency and quantum computing. Haag aims to help readers learn the tech and develop an understanding “for how you can use those technologies to shape the future.”
Explaining the new technology is complex, requiring pages filled with tables and diagrams. As a self-publisher, he had to outsource the interior design to a freelancer. His freelancer was able to complete that task as well as cover design, image development and file preparation for Amazon. Once that was done, Haag was left with two files to upload to Amazon, the exterior and interior of his book.
Haag also recommended that serious self-publishers organize their finances before they begin selling their books, separating personal and business accounts. This way, he said, you can track expenditures and profits more simply.
“If you want to be a real business, you need to go through the process of setting up a separate bank account,” he said. “I think intermingling your personal and business finances is a dangerous thing.”
In total, it took Haag nearly eight months to write, produce and post his book for sale on Amazon, with much of that time spent on the writing and editing process. Ultimately, Haag chose the self-publishing route for “The Fourth Industrial Revolution 2022” due to the autonomy and his vision for the book to become part of a series.
As he reflected on self-publishing this book, Haag said the atmosphere around high-profile publishers’ prestige is shifting.
“If you’re talking about the top five publishers there’s definitely a perceived difference, but that is definitely fading,” he said. “It helps to have a name, but that is pretty quickly going away and that dynamic has changed.”