The Tricky Art of Self-Publishing

By Foster J. Dickson

It is commonly said that self-publishing is an option for writers whose works are not up to the caliber of the work published by commercial publishing houses. That rumor is perpetuated by the well-spring of writers who self-publish second-rate novels and little collections of semi-poetical ditties for their own friends and families. However, it is far from the whole truth. Self-publishing is a tricky game and, for some writers, a worthwhile venture to undertake.

There are some inherent difficulties with self-publishing that should be noted up front and most of them have to do with the book business as a whole. The issues with the process require an author’s time and money, and without them the process will more than likely be a failure. The first difficulty is that nearly all of the major retailers refuse to carry self-published titles, which is their own safeguard against being flooded with titles to manage and distribute to stores and online customers, not an effront to the self-published. The second is that reviewers will typically not review self-published books and major media will usually not print reviews of self-published books. The third difficulty is that all of the workload of publicity, shipping, invoicing, accounting, and promotions are all on the author, where commercial publishers have multiple employees each undertaking one of these tasks and thus doing them more effectively. The final difficulty is simply having the money to pay for the print run, which is a lesson to be learned about the printing business.

There is one major reason that major retailers will not carry self-published titles. Booksellers have the right to return unsold books to the vendor or publisher. A private individual who is not savvy in the ways of the book business will be a hassle for the accounts payable, accounts receivable and shipping departments of large companies because every company is different and a professional relationship is necessary to effectively communicate and sell the book, as well as handling returns. For instance, most people are not aware that book wholesalers are entitled to a 55% discount off the retail cover price, which is in most cases non-negotiable. It is hard enough for the big boys to deal with all of the publishers in the U.S. and Canada, so they opt to not deal with private individuals because these relationships would necessitate whole departments of extra employees for relatively minimal profits Self-published books are generally publicized by writers who are moonlighting as their own publicity agent (with little or no experience and minimal success) and who do not have a core audience outside of their own hometown. Beyond that, a private individual will not be reachable during the day for questions or problems, making most of these processes impossible. It is unfortunate but the big booksellers and wholesalers know these authors need them more than they need self-published authors, so they choose not to do business with them. There are ways around this, however; you can start your own “publishing company” and make your book the lead title, but this also requires money and time.

For these same reasons, book reviews will seldom or never appear for self-published books. There are whole departments in book publishing houses with people who send complimentary copies of books to reviewers, some of whom might receive 20 or more books a day with requests for reviews or for blurbs which are the quotes about the book’s content that are available on the back cover. The reviewers and major media receive so many unsolicited books from publishing houses seeking reviews and blurbs that they also opt to not deal with private individuals as a rule.

Once you realize it will be nearly impossible to have a worldwide bestseller with a self-published book you can begin to understand the roles to be played if you are to be successful. The author must become his or her own publicity agent and shipping clerk, not to mention accountant; items like sales tax have to be tallied and paid. These roles, especially publicity, are hard work because the self-published writer must stick to smaller retailers and shops, choosing more non-conventional methods of publicizing, because of the limitations of not being able to work with the big booksellers. In this role, the author must be multi-tasking all the time and willing to work extra hard, treating the publication as the beginning of the road, not the end. This is not to mention author signings, which are the best way to publicize a book. An author’s real work begins after the book comes back from the printer. This is true even for commercially published authors.

The final major obstacle to overcome is paying for the print run of the books. The best idea is to expect to spend between $10,000 and $20,000 on printing the books, in order to keep per-unit cost down. Large printing presses can produce as many as a few hundred unusable books before producing usable books, because of things like color-matching and other design aspects. Thus, a print run of less than a thousand books can cost a printer more than the job is worth if they don’t charge large amounts of money for the job, in order to re-coup their losses. Having thousands of dollars to pay for a print run can be a strain on nearly anyone.

Unlike many people, I always want the bad news first. That was all of the bad news coming first. There is a lot of good news, too. If self-publishing was impossible no one would ever do it. If it was not worth the effort then only a few people would do it and almost no one would do it more than once. The truth is that many people are self-publishing many books every year and succeeding has a lot to do with understanding what is trying to be done and how. Some of the most famous writers self-published first, including D.H. Lawrence, Anais Nin, James Joyce, and more recently James Redfield, with his Celestine Prophecy. Self-publication is an unorthodox method and one that must be undertaken completely differently from conventional publishing and bookselling.

The key to any game is understanding the rules and playing within them in order to win. Just as a 5″5′ basketball player will not try to drive in and slam-dunk the ball, a self-published author should not try to play the big boys’ ball game at all. If the major retailers will not carry a book, then the other option is finding someone who will. If newspapers will not review a book, then publicizing by other means becomes necessary. The self-publishing author merely has to be creative and hard working to do well, and doing well is relative.

Reasonable goals become necessary in self-publishing. I heard through the grapevine recently that the book that won the American Poetry Prize last year has sold about 4,000 copies so far, so if a person self-publishes a poetry book, then a print run of 1,000 is probably far too ambitious. Likewise, just as getting per-unit cost down is advisable, it is not a good idea to have too many printed and get stuck holding the bag. The best advice is to begin planning before the printing begins and get an idea of how many might be sold and buy that many plus a few extras. Being too ambitious on the first go-round is not wise, because a first-time author, unable to use major retailers, and being a one-man show, it is probably best to have a 1,000 books maximum printed, even if there seems to be interest. You may also want to think about taking advanced orders.

Self-publishing can also be an avenue to getting commercially published, as it was for James Redfield. Sending a well-designed book to a publisher’s acquisitions editor rather than a box full of loose sheets may show that the author has enough faith in their own work to put their money where their mouth is. Publishers know what printers cost and seeing a bound books says that the author spent a few thousand dollars getting his or her work in tip-top shape, so it may well be worth taking a look at it. Another way that this may be an avenue into commercial publication is that if the author has a print run of 1,000 books and sells them all, reserving a few copies for himself, then submits it to a publisher stating that the print run of 1,000 is already sold out; it may peak their interest, seeing sales possibilities put right in front of them. Basically, if the author could sell 1,000 with his or her limited resources then the publisher might see it as an opportunity to sell 10,000 or more. The key in this strategy is hard work and a lot of patience.

Publishing is a strange business. It is the only business that I know which has an open return policy, where any quantity of books can be returned by the bookseller to the vendor to ask for and get a full refund. It is a business where wholesalers get a 55% discount and retailers get a 40% discount (these are typical but not an end-all-be-all rule), rather than the standard business practice of mark-up. It is also a business where it is not necessarily better to have more product to sell, but just the good quality. It is a business of reputation.

The things, beside these basic business elements of publishing, that many people do not understand are the details. Publishers set up a niche for themselves and so there is no need to submit a book about World War II to a publisher of travel books, even if they are the only publisher in your area or the friend of a cousin’s uncle’s brother’s friend. The publisher that I work for publishes regional (Southern) fiction, African-American and Civil Rights books. We get, however, submission of all genres, which we reject or divert to another “imprint,” which has a broader range of topics. Some people see this as being put on the second-rate list, but it is not. A publisher must uphold its niche or lose its credibility within the business and that is sad but true. For a self-publishing author, this is an integral fact to know before submitting work or trying to find a publisher. It is best not to waste time — no matter how good the book is — submitting it to a publisher who will not publish it because of its subject.

This brings me to the explosion of self-publishing imprints in the United States and Canada these days, brought on the by the advent of the Internet. There are a lot of honest ones, a lot of scams, a lot of honest ones that look like scams, and vice versa. This was all made possible by a revolution in publishing called print-on-demand, which allows the books to be stored in a digital file (like an e-book) and when 3 are ordered, 3 are printed, unlike printing 1,000 and waiting for orders. Many self-publishers will ask an author to pay for 1,000 books then do print-on-demand which, though not illegal, is unethical. The best thing to do with these is a lot of homework, reading fine print and not signing anything until it is sure that what seems real is actually real. There are of course many companies to be found online, like Lightning Source, which is a subsidiary of Ingram Book Company, the largest book wholesaler in the U.S., iPublish, which is a subsidiary of Time-Warner, and Xlibris, a subsidiary of Random House.

I tell people often — and I believe it — that writing is about art and publication is about money. That is another fact that is sad but true. Publishers care about sales and that is the reason for the difficulty of getting published. Commercial publishers invest huge amounts of money in forthcoming books every year and some flop, so they have to be extremely careful about what they choose and this is what gave rise to self-publishing. The publishers can be wrong, though, and Celestine Prophecy, which I heard was rejected by 27 publishers, is a good example. The problem is that most authors are not savvy business-people and do not want to be, but self-publication necessitates it. It is a choice to be made.

The best illustrations of this may be some stories. The first that comes to mind is the young man who came into my office one day with a steno pad of hand-written poetry wanting it to be published, requesting a very naive way. I talked to him for a while encouraging him to first go type his work and proofread it, then re-submit it, considering self-publication. He did not understand what I meant by self-publication. I asked simply, “Do you want to pay for this book to be produced or are you expecting us to pay for it?” He looked at me as though I was absolutely bonkers and replied, “I want Y’ALL to pay for it!” He could not understand that, just because he liked his own poetry, other people might not buy it. His approach was very naive and irrational and yet he was precisely the type of person who should have considered self-publishing.

Regarding the many online self-publishing companies, beware. It would not be fair to warn against using them at all, but beware of doing business with anyone that does not offer face-to-face interaction and requires large sums of money. I was privy to a conversation about someone we knew who was going to self-publish her full-length novel. One of the large online companies gave her a quote of 13,000 dollars to get editorial services, layout and design, 75 author copies and additional copies at 50% off within the print run of 1,000 books. If she bought all 1,000 books on a full length novel - if the list price was 25 dollars, for example - she would spend roughly 23,000 dollars obtaining them. That would mean that she might make a profit of 2,000 dollars if she sold every book at full price, which would be almost impossible to do, considering giving retailers’ discounts. Read the fine print and understand fully what is being purchased and what rights are being given. For instance, check into whether or not a proof copy is given to review between editing and printing, because if not they will have the right to re-write your book and it will be too late before the author sees the changes. If thousands of dollars are being spent on self-publication, the author should have more rights concerning his or her own work than the company being paid.

Perhaps, I should lay out a few more facts to close things out. Because self-publishing is an unorthodox venture many of the companies’ methods are rather unorthodox. For instance, iPublish requires a submitting author to review three other authors’ work before being allowed to submit any of their own and all submission are subject to the same process. To avoid being sorry later, it is best to obtain price quotes from as many self-publishing companies and printers as possible before settling on one and take plenty of time, even consulting a lawyer with the contract, because spending an additional few hundred on top of a few thousand may save a lot of money and heartbreak in the long run. In many cases it can be better, also, to pay a freelance editor to work on a manuscript before submitting it to be published, because the rates for editorial services in some companies can be very high priced but not very personal, where a freelance editor can work one-to-one.

If self-publishing is an option, be careful and be wise. There are many loopholes, pitfalls and facets of the business that may require creative thinking and extra hard work. However, if the money is available then the venture may be worthwhile. Just like the publishers have no way of being certain of what will be the next blockbuster, neither do the authors. The book manuscript that is collecting dust on the shelf under a pile of rejection letters may be the one that sets a new standard, the way the works of James Joyce or even D.H. Lawrence did.

Foster J. Dickson is the Production Manager for NewSouth Books in Montgomery, AL, primarily working with self-publishing authors, where he is an editor and printer. He has had freelance articles, book reviews, poetry and literary criticism published and is the founding member of a writers’ group in Montgomery.

Community Pricing for on-demand publishing

by Steve Song

Tim O’Reilly points out some very cool publishing models being used by Logos Bible Software. The have a pre-publishing service in which clients commit to order at a discount in exchange for placing a pre-order for a specific product and Logos can guarantee that there costs are covered. Each potential pre-publish book has a meter which displays the current level of pre-orders.

Far more interesting than that though is their Community Pricing model in which they don’t preset the price for a book but lay out the pricing curve for developing an electronic version of the book and invite consumers to bid a price that they are prepared to pay for it.

Once sufficient offers are received to produce the edition are received, the price is fixed at the optimum point and everyone pays the same price. Subsequent copies are charged at a markup. More information on the community pricing model is available on their site.

I think this concept could be developed in a very interesting manner for non-profit publishing, particularly in the education sector in developing countries. Applying this model to print, as opposed to just electronic, publishing could theoretically make it even more effective in driving down costs. Because print costs vary dramatically according to quantity, you could create a sliding scale of costs arrayed against market demand. Consumers would have to bid on both quantity and price and would be able to see what quantities were needed to bring about a further drop in price. It would make it easy to aggregate demand and very transparent in terms what sorts of quantities and costs are involved. This could make for a pretty cool non-profit Lulu-style enterprise model that would help solve a critical challenge, namely getting electronic OER resources in print form into the hands of students.

Source: http://manypossibilities.net

Self-Published Books Need A Professional Appearance To Court Success

Not long ago, I read a self-published book produced by a printing company, where the author was required to furnish not only the manuscript, but the layout and cover. The cover was the best part of this book. The story had potential (although erratic and overwritten) and was compelling enough that, out of curiosity, I finished it. I have read esthetically-rough fiction from traditional publishers, but those at least had a professional layout and had been scrutinized by a copy editor. This one–not.

I have no gripe with the concept of self-publishing, but if a writer wants a book to be taken seriously, some basics have to be considered. Liberal use of Strunk and White (Elements of Style) is a must, as well as referring to Chicago Manual of Style. Be certain punctuation is correctly rendered. Three periods (…) does not an ellipse make. Ellipses are not followed by any other punctuation [ What do you mean…, you have to go? ]. Uppercase letters should rarely be used for emphatic dialogue [ what WE did, did NOT cause what happened ]; description before dialogue should not end with a comma. [Green eyes betrayed her, I’m sure you do. ].

A copy editor would have caught ninety-eight percent of these errors, as well as the character names that changed mid-scene.

Regarding layout, the text alignment in a professional book is justified, with widow and orphan control, usually with 11pt type and type kerning so lines of text have uniformity. Quotation marks and apostrophes must be consistent throughout the text, not curly marks to start dialogue with straight apostrophes in contractions. A disregard (or ignorance) of these basics is what I see most in self-published books.

Self-publishing has a lot of benefits, especially to the environment. With traditional publishers, if they have a print run of 3,000 books, 2,000 of them can set in a warehouse for six months and then end up in a landfill. Most self-published material is print-on-demand, so less paper and printer ink is used. But if an author wants to do more than give away his self-published book to friends and family, the book must have a professional appearance, regardless of the story.

When someone has plans to publish more than one book, having a good product is especially critical. Marketing and hype might sell a decent number of a poorly-produced book, but once the dearth of editing and layout are realized, the reader might not want to chance another book from the same source. More than 5,000 books are produced each week by self publishing. That makes competition stiffer than ever for a reader’s attention. To produce a book correctly is more time consuming, but highly cost effective and can give the edge needed to make a book stand out. Using a professional copy editor and investing in a good text layout program, will result in a finished product on par with traditional publishers.

K Follis Cheatham is a freelance editor, and author of nine books of fiction and nonfiction; she has published numerous articles and poems, and edited for national magazines and publishing houses. Cheatham gives presentations at schools and libraries on writing and the American West; she also develops promotional materials (including web sites) for authors. Visit her web site at www.kaios.com http://www.kaios.com .

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Should You Self-Publish Your Books? Signs That You Should

Are you an author who has a book that you would like to see published? If so, have you received multiple rejection letters from both large and small publishing houses? If you have, your first thought may be to give up. Of course, it is your right to do so, but did you know that you do have other options? One of those options is to self-publish your own book.

Before examining if self-publishing your own book is right for you, it is first important to familiarize yourself with self-publishing, namely what it is. Self-publishing involves writing, developing, and selling a book without the assistance of a third party publishing company. Book authors are responsible for writing a book, editing a book, and finding a company to print the book, as well as selling the book. Self-published authors typically sell their books on their own websites or they approach retailers, both on and offline.

As for whether or not self-publishing a book is the right option for you, there are some signs that you will want to look for. A few signs that self-publishing may be your best option are highlighted below for your convenience.

Sign #1 – You Have Received Multiple Rejection Letters

What it is first important to understand about the publishing process is that few authors receive offers from publishers on their first, second, or even third try. In fact, some authors try as many as fifty times or more to get just one book published before they receive an offer.

As a good rule to set for yourself, be sure to send your manuscript to as many publishers as you possibly can, especially those that are looking for what you have, such as an environmental themed children’s book or a science fiction novel. When there are no more publishers left, consider self-publishing.

Sign #2 – Despite Rejection Letters You Still Believe You Have a Good Book

Self-publishing is a wise choice for many, but for others it can be a costly mistake. Before deciding to go ahead with self-publishing a book, it is important to make sure that you are fully behind your book. Do you honestly and truly believe in your heart that you have a good book on your hands? If you do, self-publishing may be for you.

Sign #3 – You Have a Book with Limited Readers

When many of us think of publishing a book, we automatically think of captivating stories. Fiction books are not the only types of books written, although they do typically tend to have the largest audiences. If you have written a how-to book or a guide on a specific area that is likely to only draw in a limited number of readers, self-publishing may be your best option. Many well-known publishers tend to stay away from books that only have small target audiences.

Sign #4 – You Want to Retain the Largest Profit

Self-published authors stand the best chance of making the biggest profit. This is because publishing fees are not taken out of their profits. With that said, it is important to remember that self-publishing is not free. You will have to pay to have your books developed in print, but that fee is typically smaller than the cut that many well-known publishers take. There are always ways that you can save money with self-publishing, like by printing on demand, as opposed to a large quantity of books on hand.

Of course, it is important to remember that just because you want to make money, it doesn’t mean that you will. If you want to make the most money with a self-published book, you have do to the proper amount of marketing.

As a reminder, it is important to remember that there are a number of pros and cons to self-publishing. With that being said, self-publishing may be the best option for you. If you truly believe that you have a book that will sell, you are encouraged to closely examine self-publishing, as you have nothing to lose by doing so.

from: taykts.blogspot.com

Does Self-Publishing Wreck Poetry Careers?

Posted by Robert

Received this question via e-mail from poet Liesl Garner:

"Last year I performed a poetry show at our local Fringe Festival. I got wonderful reviews, and I am performing a Repeat Performance in October of this year. The Fringe Festival is every Spring, and I plan to participate each year. After my first show, I was asked if I had my poetry printed in a chapbook for sale. I didn't, but for the Repeat Performance I want to have that available for audience members. I'm actually thinking of doing a chapbook for each year's performance. Is it bad for my hopes and dreams of someday becoming a published poet to be doing my own publishing of chapbooks?

"Currently, I just don't have the time to be submitting with the numbers I would have to in order to get noticed by a publisher. However, on my local scene, I have a large fan base that wants to see my work in print.

"Thanks, Liesl Garner"

Before I get into my ramble, you should probably read Nancy's Published Is Published post about what self-publishing will do to those poems that are self-published in the eyes of editors. Then, come back here to read what I have to say.

(Tapping on desk as Liesl reads Nancy's post. Ba-ba-ba. Humming to self.)

Back?

Okay then.

So you now know that self-publishing any of your poems will have editors considering those specific poems already published, right? That doesn't mean your career is over, it just means these specific poems are now only available as reprints. This fact can hurt when submitting to poetry journals and magazines or even chapbook contests. But the publication of some of your poems does not affect what you do with other poems that are not self-published.

If you decide that for the current crop of poems you wish to self-publish that it is okay if they risk being only available in your self-published chapbook format, then you should go for it. More and more poets are doing this. However, if you wish to see any of these specific poems in some journal or future chapbook competition winning collection, you may not want to include in your self-publishing effort.

As far as actually self-publishing, I advise you to either go with a local printer that you can work with directly--or there are some online POD companies that allow you to print and publish only one book at a time, which dramatically lowers the investment you have to make in your self-publishing venture. I'm sure some very nice poets (hint, hint) could even give suggestions in the blog comments below. Even if not, that's why God created Google; just type "POD Publishers" into Google, and you will receive plenty of online resources of how and who to proceed with.

On another note, there's no shame in self-publishing. Through the ages, poets have been especially prone to self-publication. And that trend only seems to be expanding even more with online and POD technologies now available to poets.

Just remember: Self-publishing does equal publishing. So those specific poems that are self-published could pay the price with publishers in the short term. Of course, most poets would agree that you're not risking much financially by self-publishing over traditional publication. For many, the main goal is to just reach an engaged audience.

Best,

Robert


Source: Writersdigest.com

What you Dont Know About Book Publishing Can Cost You

Dream that your book can be a number one best seller? Read books or visit Web sites that say they have your answers? -- All you need to do is get their program, follow their advice, and the world is yours. Or, you think I'll write it, but someone else can market and promote it. And that would be who? Publishers certainly don't promote unknown authors.

Which author are you?

1. Individual dreamer. Naive, you don't know what makes a saleable book, nor want to promote it. You often contact the Print on Demand companies who charge little on the front end, but over price your book and overcharge for your wholesale copies too. They make money. The author doesn't.

2. An unknown seeking prestige writer. You know your book can beat the odds. You write a longer book like winners in your field, chase the traditional publishing dream so you will be respected, get on Oprah, and get a big agent/publisher deal.

Think again. These businesses accept 1-2% of the top submissions. Unless you are famous, you will miss out and spend a lot of time and money trying to get their attention. Check with other authors whose publishing adventure went south. Know that even if you get on the shows, you don't get a guarantee of selling books. In two years, one client went broke getting ready for Dr. Phil's show (printed 20,000 books) and when he got on, he didn't have enough money to write a good sales page for Phil's Web site that was only up two weeks.

3. A businessperson who wants their book to brand their business and attract higher paying clients. You may want a publisher for prestige, but some of you will opt for a self-publishing approach where you will make all the profits. You know no one else will do it for you, so you spend time and money on learning how to write a saleable book as well as promoting it--especially Online.

4. An open-minded savvy person who knows there are multiple ways to write and publish a saleable book. You can leverage your success writing a print and eBook, and learn how to connect with the huge, Online audience, ready to buy books conveniently and fast on many topics.

You don't have to publish the slow, hard, alone way. Educate yourself on self-publishing and its rewards that give many an author/business person like myself a healthy income.

Article Source: Steplerning.blogspot.com

POD is not Vanity is not Self Publish

POD is a technology. It's a way to print books. It's quite useful for printing small quantities, particularly if there is intermittent demand. LOTS of publishers who are not vanity houses or scam mills use POD technology. University presses spring to mind, as do very small limited runs of very tightly focused books. POD is not evil.

Vanity presses can use POD technology OR they can use webfeed technology. Vanity presses are essentially printers with some support staff. They'll help you print up nice editions of whatever you want. You pay for this. It's called vanity because they don't acquire the book. Acquire means there is an editorial staff choosing particular books to publish. Vanity houses do not maintain lists, issue catalogs or sell books in bookstores. Vanity presses are not evil

Self publishers can use POD technology or webfeed technology. Self publishers are not vanity presses in the everyday sense of the word. They are "vanity" in the sense that there isn't an acquisition but the two phrases are used to mean different things in publishing. Lots of people self publish for a lot of reasons. Self publishing is not evil.

POD/scam mills are companies set up to persuade you, the author, that printing your book with their company is the equivalent to having it acquired by a publisher. They charge you money. Unlike a respectable vanity press, they don't copy edit or produce high quality products. They are out to make money on volume. They prey on author's insecurities and lack of knowledge. POD/scam mills are the scum of the earth.

Whether a company is the scum of the earth depends on how they run their business, not how they print their books.

There are several POD companies that do not try to persuade you that you have but to print up books with them to be on your way to fame and glory. Lulu and CafePress come to mind. There are others I'm sure.


There will be a quiz.

posted by Miss Snark at Misssark.blogspot.com

Self Publishing At Speed Of Thought

Publishing, both electronic and hard copy, from articles to books, has come a long way in recent years. I used to be fascinated by anyone who had become a "real" author of a book. For that matter, anyone who had been published in a magazine or newspaper!

The whole thing seemed so validating for authors, yet getting published, so cryptic. How do you become "published?" How did you get someone to take your subject so seriously that they gave you a retainer to finish your project and then published and sold your books for you?

These and many other questions always flew around my head in the years that it took me to figure out how publishing, the traditional kind, worked. Then came the internet. Then everything changed.

And the changes today are more radical than ever before. You can completely publish your own work from the first sentence you write to the first time you flip through the pages of your book, all through the internet.

In fact, self publishing your own book is verging on common place these days. And publishing your work entirely on the web, with blogs or through a regular website is almost old hat to many people.

Some very famous people today are "bloggers." People who have a site that they constantly and instantly update with their articles and blurbs on politics and trillions of other subjects. If you don't have a blog in some circles, you are not even considered worth talking to.

If you are an aspiring writer and are mystified by traditional publishing "rules" fear not! You can take the bull by the horns and publish on the web by choosing from all kinds of software and services that suit you best.

If you want a book you wrote to be published, to hold in your hands and give to friends and family and even stock in Barnes and Noble or sell at Amazon, nothing is holding you back anymore! You can literally control the whole publishing process from start to finish yourself.

There are print on demand services that cater solely to self publishers these days. You can have a batch of books printed in runs as small as 50 books at very reasonable prices. Here is just one source of valuable self publishing information I found with a quick search engine query:

http://www.bookpublisher.com/publish-your-book.cfm

There are myriad free sources of information on the web that teach you how to get your own ISBN and UPC codes so you can sell your book in major and minor bookstores anywhere in the world.

I know people who have taken their self published books and gone to #1 on Amazon with them through savvy, guerilla-style marketing campaigns that really aren't that hard to learn and master.

If you aren't into paper it is even easier to get published and become known through the internet. You no longer have to be a geek to figure it out and there and tons of resources out there to help you figure out which method of online publishing is right for you.

If you are an article writer you can become an almost overnight success just by learning how to get syndicated all over the web, possibly being picked up by a very major online or offline publisher. I know people who's entire lives have changed over night, literally, after syndicating their articles to choice publishing "clearinghouses" on the net.

Below are just a few of the hundreds of sites that can help you get started learning about publishing online and offline.

Tale Chaser Publishing is a self publishing directory and information library on various self publishing topics for people looking into getting published online or off. http://talechaserpublishing.com

EquipMint.com is an online promoter's Valhalla. Although there are many specialized marketing resources there for people to learn about marketing their websites, there are a few gems of information for self publishers including links to places that can have your work in front of every major online publisher you can imagine. http://equipmint.com

You can also find some syndication and promotion tools at Webmaster Traffic Tools. http://webmastertraffictools.com

Want to write the perfect press release for your website, blog, or book? Then take a free press release writing course at http://goodpressreleases.com.

Bottom line is: There are no more excuses for not getting your work published. With some work and research into the new technology and avenues for publishing that are available to anyone these days, you can become known in a very big way without having to pitch to major labels.

In fact, if you really do your homework, you can learn how to have the big publishers pitching YOU for deals!

About the Author
Jack Humphrey is an author and marketing consultant. More information at http://jackhumphrey.com

Source: Creditcardhub.blogspot.com

Theres a Book in You!

Article by: Viojieley Gurrobat

You know you have the skill, knowledge and ability to write a book. But whats keeping you from writing is the problem of publishing it. You dont have a direct line at the editors of some of the biggest publishing house in the country and you certainly cant afford getting rejected for several times by these publishing houses. If this is your dilemma, then maybe it is time to consider self-publishing.

But what is self-publishing? Self-publishing basically allows the author to be in control of the entire creative and selling process of his book. Self-publishing is one of the fastest growing book publishing method in the publishing industry. If you are a self-published author you pay the full cost of producing your book and are responsible for marketing and distributing it. This means that all subsidiary rights, the copyright, all finished copies and all money received from book sales are solely your.

Printing the book is just a small part of publishing your book. Selling it is the most important factor. There are hundreds of printers out there that are willing to print your book. But you must be careful in selecting the right one or it could cost you thousands of dollars in sales.

Profit may not always be your reason for writing a book. Your book may be designed and created to fill specific needs of a business, organization or your family or it may be designed to explore your own interest. As traditional publishing houses prefer books that will interest the mass market, they will not usually accept a book intended for a small audience. Thus, self-publishing may be right for you.

Some of the reasons that people self-publish their work are because of time, control, profit, legacy and locality grounds. Because a book is a reflection of the author, self-publishing gives you the final word on the direction of your work. All decisions are wholly yours and not entrusted to third parties who have interests different from your own. Additionally, as a self-publisher you own all rights to your book. If you use a traditional publishing company, they will own all rights. Thus, if they lose interest in your book you will not be able to print additional copies unless you purchase your rights back. Whats more, people do not only publish their books to make money. They publish to share what they have learned or leave a legacy.

As a writer you would not want your precious books to end up in some dusty garage. So if you think self-publishing is right for you then its time to start moving and polishing your pages to get them snapped up as soon as possible.

For comments and suggestions kindly visit Book Digital Printing Services

What is Self-Publishing?

by Moira Allen
With the proliferation of inexpensive "pay-for-publication" options, this has become a confusing question. Many writers believe that "self-publication" refers to any mechanism by which the writer bears the cost of publication -- including subsidy electronic and print-on-demand publications. Many vendors encourage this belief, as "self-publishing" tends to sound more respectable than "subsidy publishing."

As a traditionalist, however, I intend to stick to long-accepted distinctions between self-publishing vs. subsidy publishing. The self-published author is responsible for a much greater range of tasks (and expenses) than a subsidy-published author -- and it is these additional tasks and challenges that will be addressed in this section (though subsidy-published authors will find much of value here as well).

To offer a quick and easy definition, therefore:


"Subsidy publishing" is a form of publication in which the author pays ANOTHER PUBLISHER to produce a book.
"Self-publishing" is a form of publication in which the author BECOMES the publisher of the book.

This distinction is important. When you subsidy-publish your book, "author" and "publisher" are two distinct entities. If, for example, you publish through Xlibris, Xlibris will be listed as the publisher of your book. When you self-publish, author and publisher are the SAME entity. Your name, or the name you've chosen for your "publishing house," will be listed as the publisher of the book.

Moira Allen, editor of Writing-World.com, has published more than 350 articles and columns and seven books, including How to Write for Magazines, Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer, The Writer's Guide to Queries, Pitches and Proposals, and Writing.com: Creative Internet Strategies to Advance Your Writing Career.

Read the full article at Writing-World.com