Self Publish Book
From Idea to Published Book … How to Self-publish the Easy Way!
Author: annaya rana
I’ve been involved in publishing for over a decade now as an author, editor, and project manager; however, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I decided to move into self-publishing. Indeed, my first few projects involved consulting for others and, now, I am involved in my own, personal projects. It has taken a while for me to come back around to my own works, but in the process I learned how to minimize time and expenses in producing a book and getting it to market.
This short article will not try to explain every aspect of book publishing in detail, but it will brush on a few of the important topics. I have a few other book projects in the making that will detail the book self-publishing process; however, in the mean time, this should give you a good basis of understanding.
— The Idea —
The most difficult part of creating your manuscript is deciding on the topic. We all have ideas. It’s part of our being. Ideas pop in and out of our heads all day long; however, we usually dismiss many of them as useless or too simple to be of use. You would be surprised at how many people want “simple” and easy-to-understand information! Readers want books that teach, inform, and entertain.
When you sit down and really think about all you’ve learned throughout your life, you’ll be amazed at how much you really know! Your life experiences alone could fill a library! Even if you feel that you don’t have any knowledge that would be of interest to anyone, you can start small. Research a market that interests you, find your competition, learn all that you can about a specific subject, and then write about it. Your ideas are important, as your knowledge and point-of-view are unique and of interest to others.
— Planning the Product —
I always suggest keeping your book concise and informative. This provides a small footprint, yet it also allows your readers to purchase your book at a reasonable price. Keep it around 100 pages, which, once in book format, equals about 50, two-sided pages.
The core content of the manuscript consists of a title page, copyright, table of contents, figure and table references, acknowledgements, forwards, content, appendices, index, and back page. This list is the basic minimum requirements to support the information necessary to present your book and its content. Of course, you can add other items such as a glossary and a preface, but such inclusions are at your discretion.
It is best to produce your book in the standard 5.5″ by 8.5″ format in both print and PDF. I always suggest PDF to my publishing clients because it is one of the few cross-platform (i.e., Mac, PC, PDA, and UNIX-based machines) document distribution products available today and it is the most popular.
— The Manuscript —
Once you’ve focused on an idea, you’ll have to create an outline or table of contents to define the content. The best way I’ve found to do this is to break the idea down into blocks of contiguous information — similar to assembling a pyramid. Step through your idea and ensure that you are building from, for example, the most general information to the most specific information. Check the outline several times, and have a friend review it, to ensure that gaps are filled in appropriately.
You can actually over-rewrite your work to the point of frustration and burn-out. Ensure that you’ve planned and researched appropriately to provide a solid foundation. In this way you can develop a first draft and then perform substantive and grammar edits. Then, perform a technical edit and a second draft. Once the second draft is complete, move into a final copy edit then, once you produce galleys or a sample version of the finished book, perform a proof read. Don’t rework any of the core steps of document development, but ensure that each step is completed with quality in mind. This ensures a solid product in a short amount of time. If you would like to update or add to the information in your first release, provide a follow-up revision.
— ISBN and Copyright —
Once you’ve started your manuscript, order your group of ISBNs. You can sign up for your ISBNs at http://www.isbn.org for about 0 for 10 ISBNs. However, additional fees can be imposed based on express orders. This is why I say, order the ISBNs while you’re writing the manuscript so that you can afford to wait the 10 days for standard, free, delivery.
You will have to convert your ISBN numbers to EAN barcodes to apply to the back page of your book. The barcode must consist of the ISBN you assigned to the book as well as the coded pricing of the book. You can have a vendor generate the barcodes for between (http://www.toupin.com/serv_writing.asp) and per barcode or you can download and use the Barcode Maker (http://hem.passagen.se/sams/barcode.htm) to generate your own barcodes. For the price, it will pay for itself in just a few ISBNs for your books.
Once you have assigned one of your ISBNs to a book, you can register it in Books In Print (http://www.booksinprint.com/bip/). This is how booksellers are able to access your information and sell your book through their outlets. Additionally, you’ll want to register your manuscript-in-progress with the Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication (http://cip.loc.gov/cip/ecipp14.html). This registers your book for access by libraries and government archives. You will be e-mailed the “CIP data” to be printed on the copyright page following the heading “Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data”.
To protect your work and ideas, copyrighting your book is a simple and inexpensive process. There are actually several different methods of protecting your work including government and commercial organizations. The primary sites are the government copyright office (http://www.copyright.gov/forms/) and WriteSafe (http://www.writesafe.com/).
— Production —
There are many different ways to produce your books; however, costs range from a ,000 initial setup plus the purchase of a few hundred copies down to no setup fees and pay-as-you-go. The final choice is yours, but my direction involved a local printing company and a pay-as-you-go scheme. With this approach, reduced initial costs are reflected back to the readers and your profit potential is seen immediately.
Three places that I’ve experimented with to print some of my books include Kinko’s (http://www.kinkos.com/), InstantPublisher (http://instantpublisher.com/pricing.htm), and Mimeo (http://www.mimeo.com/). Of course, use these for starters to experiment with your books. Eventually, you’ll find the right bindery for your needs. You can locate many publishers via Google.com or AllTheWeb.com using keywords such as “online printing”, “book printing”, and “print on demand”, but once you get some experience behind you, the choice will be much easier.
— Marketing and Distribution —
Once you assign and register your ISBN for your manuscript, it becomes available to the multitude of book stores around the globe including Amazon, Borders, Barnes&Noble, and various other major book sellers. Now that you have your book out there, the trick is to have people purchase the book and have book stores stock copies on their shelves.
To have the book stores purchase in quantity, you’ll have to devise a solid marketing plan to their acquisitions personnel. In many cases, book stores will simply sell your book to their customers as it is requested, but if you can get them to buy in bulk, that’s greater exposure and sales for you!
You can also license out the content to various professional speakers. Speakers are always looking for ways to provide quality information specific to their presentations. They might use your content in a handout, or perhaps for sale in the back of the room. Locate those speakers that fit within your audience and contact them. Find out their needs for their next presentation and work out a deal for them to resell your books. I’ve had many speakers use my articles in their presentations and the exposure and feedback has been overwhelming.
Of course, you should always locate affiliates to help sell your books. One way is to offer them a percentage of the gross sales or sell them copies of the books at a discount. Either way, you will have “agents” out pushing your books for you to make money for them, as well as for you.
Always provide a web site that boasts the benefits of your book. Use a book cover maker to create a book image on the web site. One quality book cover creator is called CoverFactory (http://www.ans2000.com/a2k_coverfactory.php) and provides numerous capabilities to generate professional looking covers for books, software, and services.
Free content is an important way to bring people to your site and let people know about your book. You can provide rewritten excerpts from your book as articles and submit them to various article announcement lists, press release sites, zines, and directories. I’ve been able to locate and associate with over 1,000 sites and lists that accept and publish my articles. This provides outstanding coverage for my sites, services, and products.
— Sales and Returns —
Since you are the publisher, you now have to determine how to handles sales. It’s important to define how you will handle direct sales and shipping, bulk sales, and affiliates. You want to ensure that your sales go smoothly as well as provide enough of a margin so that everyone profits.
When collecting funds, it’s important to accept credit cards through one of the popular merchant vendors. To minimize expenses and provide a common and secure payment mechanism, I use StormPay (http://www.stormpay.com) and PayPal (http://www.paypal.com). Since people have their likes and dislikes of online payment vendors, using both allows many different types of users to submit payments. Of course, you must always determine how to handle returns as part of a quality customer service program.
— What’s next? —
Obviously, the information provided here is merely an overview of the entire process. However, I am working on a book that provides all of the details of producing your own book under your own imprint. Publishing provides excellent return monetarily as well as through enhanced self-esteem. There is quite a feeling that comes with getting your message out there and having people return positive feedback. Perhaps, once you self-publish a few of your own titles, you can work on publishing other authors and open a full-fledged publishing house. In this day, such a venture is not unheard of!
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/from-idea-to-published-book-how-to-selfpublish-the-easy-way-359576.html
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No. You will be using up first publication rights, and publishers don’t buy second rights.
Be aware, too, that even if you’re really pleased with your book, you are finishing your first draft of your first novel. I guarantee it can be made better with a rewrite.
Hmmm.. good question. Check out Dekker Books:
http://www.dekkerbook.com/?gclid=CJ6AqIyG6Y0CFTyKOAodBj_s0A
This guy looks expensive, but he definitely does cloth:
http://www.sawyerbinder.com/
So do these people:
http://www.blissetts.com/glossary.asp
These people specialize in cloth-binding newspapers, but they might do regular books.
http://www.mdowniebookbinders.com/news.html
Have you asked all of the publishers you’re used to dealing with? They might be willing to specially cloth-bind for this one author. But definitely shop around first.
That’s awesome that you run a self-publishing company! Good luck.
Christopher Paolini’s “Eragon” was originally self-published. So was “Shadowmancer” by G. P. Taylor.
It really depends on the publisher and the book. I would suggest getting an agent, though. Find someone you trust (and who is trustworthy – do your research) and get their advice before you commit to anything.
A word of caution:
Self-published books have a stigma. And don’t count on getting your book into Barnes & Noble or Borders bookstores. First of all, many self-publishing companies will not allow stores to return books if they don’t sell. Second, buyers for large booksellers have to buy thousands of books each year and they don’t have time to read them all. They have to be able to rely on the publishers to ensure that a particular book is written and edited professionally. Only a very tiny percentage of self-published books have undergone an independent editorial review.
To put it bluntly, the burden is on you to show your book doesn’t suck. Otherwise it is assumed that if your book was good enough to be published conventionally, it would have been.
If you are looking to have a book published to share with family and friends, then self-publishing is a good idea. If you actually want to be taken seriously as a writer and perhaps make some money, self-publishing is an extremely long shot. If you self-publish a book, the burden is on you to promote it and market it, which will be very time-consuming and expensive.
I work in one of the big bookstore chains and we do not stock self-published books unless there is a great demand from customers for it—which very, very rarely happens. So while self-publishing will get your book into print faster, it will hurt your chances to become a successful and profitable writer. In the long run, it’s not a good idea. Do some research on self-publishing for more details.
Going through a conventional publishing company may take more time, but it is worth it because your book has a far greater chance of selling well because the publisher will handle the marketing and distribution.
It all depends.
If it is a book of fiction then you should try everything to get it published at a real publisher because self-pub fiction rarely makes it. The only way would be if you are a VERY good social networking-relationship marketer and can create a buzz.
The marketing packages from iUniverse etc. are ripoffs. A poster in a book store might do something if a bookstore will carry your book but the personalized pens and mugs will not — who looks at a pencil and says “I think I will buy that book“?
And press releases do not go anywhere generally either. Newspapers and other press outlets get dozens or hundreds of press releases every day and unless it is the unlikely case that your book is newsworthy they will probably give it a pass no matter how fascinating you make it sound.
BUT
If it is a nonfiction book and you can find a niche market for it through social networking and a website. If you wrote a book on coping with a certain medical condition and can get it high in search engines for people searching for that condition and you have a Myspace page and group and a Facebook page and group then you might have a shot there.
Does anyone make money off their first book? Well that all depends also.
My friend got a 3 book deal selling her first novel to what used to be called WarnerBooks but she had an agent who believed in her book and had some uncontrollable things fall into place. She is also very talented at telling the story.
Also…it was not her first novel. It was her fifth. She still has four unpublished novels sitting around that may never see the light of day or she may have taken some material from them to use in her other novels.
That is what often happens with fiction — your first novels are an experience that helps you perfect your craft and only after you reach that point as a writer are you in a league where a publisher/agent will take notice.
First, it’s hard to give any specific advice without knowing the exact nature of your book.
It’s very difficult to get a self -published book into the big stores. Traditional publishing is the way to go if you want broad range exposure.
I think self-publishing usually makes sense for small niche-market books where you have the connection to reach your audience and the potential readership is small enough that a traditional publisher probably won’t be interested. Realize, with a small niche market you are not going to sell a lot of copies, but publishing doesn’t have to be about volume.
My expenses were $17 each for two proofs and a whole lot of my time. Self publishing means you need to be able to do all the layout, editing, marketing and distribution yourself. My book was of regional interest so I peddled it to regional bookstores. Sales to date are 220 for a full color book. Not a lot, but I’m happy with it and would do it again. It’s a POD. To the best of my knowledge, none of those sales were friends or family. Another self-publisher in my area did a traditional run of 1000 and sold them all over a 4-year period. (Also full color). Traditional layup allowed him to have lower printing costs and more profit, with that came more inventory and risk that the inventory might not sell.
While I think self publishing is best for niche markets but obviously books like: “A Time to Kill” and “The Celestine Prophecy” show that some can do well pitching novels originally self published.
Try the search engine. I really don’t know much about this thing(actually, I know nothing about this). I search in the search engine(yahoo only) and use “how to do regular publishing/self publishing” as the search term for you(I don’t have anything to do at the moment 😛 ).
Websites
1) http://www.booksurgepublishing.com/
2) http://www2.xlibris.com/
3) http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1860.asp
Book
1) The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter
http://www.quotelady.com/reviews/self-publishing.html
Blog
1) Self Publishing-How to Publish a Book
http://www.fonerbooks.com/cornered.htm
I’m not imterested in book-publishing so you have to check it out yourself. Sorry bout that. Anyway, have fun publishing your books! 🙂
self publishing… I want to self publish my book, how do i get started?
I recently wrote a childrens book. how do i self publish? any links or tips or advice would be great!
Book publishing: If you self publish can you go with a publisher later?
If I self-publish a book, Can I also submit my manuscript to a publishing house?
If no, why not?
My goal is to get exposure through self publishing while trying to find a traditional publishing house, then signing publishing rights to them and ceasing my self publishing efforts. Has this been done?
More info:
I know that it would decrease a publisher’s interest, but why couldn’t I sign over my “first rights” to them if I did find an interested party?
I’m not asking about probability but whether it is at all possible.
An example I’m thinking of is a book written by a fellow in L.A. on driving shortcuts. It became a cult classic, and I’m sure any publisher would love to snatch it up. It would be a win-win if he could sign it over because he’d get broader interest and they could provide more publicity while taking a cut.
Does anyone know where I can self-publish a book that is totally made of cloth?
I have a self-publishing company and one of my authors wants to publish a cloth book. We need to know of any printers that print books on cloth. These are children’s books.
Should I self publish my first book or should I should I seek a book deal?
I am in the process of completing my first book? Should I take the self publishing route or seek a book publishing deal? Does anyone make any one make any money off of their first book?
How long would it take for me to self publish my book?
I heard going through a publishing company can take a long time but what if I tried self publishing my own book, about how long would that take?
How do you self – publish a book?
I wrote a book, and I’m so proud of my work, because I really don’t ever finish anything. But I was thinking about Self-Publishing my book. But I have no idea how to self publish my book. How do I get started? And if I self publish my book, how do I get my book into different stores, like, Barnes & Noble, CVS, Boarders, Etc. Please help me out here.
Can I self publish my book while searching for a publishing house?
I am going to finish my first novel soon. I was wondering if anyone knew if I could self publish to get my book out there while I sent the manuscript out to publishing houses?