Release Your Writing: Book Publishing, Your Way” can help you get published now. Learn strategies to finish your book, write better with your computer, and marketing tricks to ensure sales.
Excerpt:
Getting your book published is within your reach.
I frequently hear people say: “I will probably self-publish if I can’t get a publisher.” Yet, self-publishing is not settling for second best. It’s the right choice if your book won’t likely capture the attention of a large publisher and you don’t want to spend years waiting to see your book in print.
In fact, many self-published authors do attract a traditional publisher, once their book is a success, so you’re not closing any doors by publishing your own books. Authors such as Margaret Atwood, Steven King, Jack Canfield and Deepak Chopra chose self-publishing, even after a long successful career with traditional publishing companies.
We often hear why self-published books and POD are a bad idea: No agent to represent you, no bookstore distribution. We rarely hear why it’s a good idea. You control the production process, cover, pricing and marketing, you can still get agent representation, and your book need never go out of print.
Several mainstream publishers made news recently, promoting the self-publishing and POD concept.
+ Hyperion president Bob Miller said: “We try to keep a book in print as long as possible, and print-on-demand now makes that easier than ever before.”
+ The POD firm Xlibris is a strategic partner of Random House. Amazon owns BookSurge, and Barnes & Noble owns iUniverse.
There are two primary types of self-publishing. It can mean “the works,” where you design and typeset the book, pay out-of-pocket to have thousands of copies printed and delivered to your care. You personally fulfill and ship all orders, receive payment, and do all bookkeeping. Or self-publishing can mean print-on-demand, which is much easier.
If you choose true self-publishing, you can create your own entity, such as Sunny Street Publishing. You’re in charge of the entire production process, finding an editor, a cover designer, obtaining ISBNs (defined below), and getting the book printed to your specifications. You choose the binding, paper weight, cover layout, make page formatting decisions, and order a large enough print-run to be cost-effective. Since you may be ordering 3,000 books, you have to make sure all those details are perfect.
Print-on-demand is the second type of self-publishing, which we’ll explore shortly.
Copyright © 2008 Helen Gallagher. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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