Self Publishing - Truths and Lies

By Terence Tam

Favoured Group Ltd

Are you anxious to get your book published?

Being anxious to see your work bound and printed is a feeling that all authors have experienced at some point or another, but being too anxious may result in poor decisions that you'll regret later. So before you join the bandwagon in self publishing your book, let us consider the truths and lies about self publishing.

Lie: Self publishing is expensive. Some writers and authors say that starting with your own cost too much financially.

Truth: Self publishing is easy and affordable. Contrary to the popular belief among new authors, self publishing isn't hard to break in to and cost little too. Since self-publishing is an evolving industry with lots of competitors, publishers are continually upgrading their facilities, offering higher quality services, and affordable pricing at your convenience.

Here's how it works. You select a size for your book, format your Word manuscript to fit that size, turn your Word doc into a PDF, create some cover art in Photoshop, turn that into a PDF, and upload it all to the self-publisher of your choosing. Depending on the level of service you choose, it can be as easy as uploaded an unformatted word document to the self-publishing service provider, and voila! They produce a completed book for you!

Lie: Self publishing companies offer low-quality services.

Truth: Self publishing firms are here to stay. They have been in business for quite sometimes now and are continually changing for the better offering high-quality services for new authors like you. The standard of many self publishing companies are quite solid. The sole giveaway that you are offering a self-published book would be if the cover were poorly designed so you have to make sure the company you work with has a great track record to back them up such as testimonials/ feedback from their clients.

Lie: All self-publishing companies don't care whether you believe they're your ticket to instant fame and fortune. They will make you believe how easy it is to make it to Oprah's book club.

Truth: A reputable, honest self publishing company will tactfully attempt to manage your expectations. They will inform you that it's nearly impossible to make Oprah's book club even if you're traditionally published. They'll explain how much sweat and toil it would take to sell any copies of your book at all once it's published but will assure you of their support and assistance in marketing your book.

Lie: Your book will sell right away as soon as it's off from the printing press.

Truth: Even if your book is great, there's a great chance it will not sell.Book sales will be slow at first which is very common among new authors. This is where your marketing plan comes into effect. Don't give up, persistence is the key to sales when you self publish a book.

Lie: Only use services of big publishing companies.

Truth: Should you elect to self-publish, you're encouraged to shop around. The big guys aren't always your best bet. Many smaller publishers offer excellent service at affordable prices. It all depends on your needs and how much assistance you are looking for.

Self publishing is easier to learn than you may think if you take the time and do your research and take things one step at a time.

2010 Bookpal Australia Pty Ltd - All Rights Reserved Worldwide

http://www.Bookpal.com.au/ is helping self publishers all around the world to successfully self publish and market their books with cost effective solutions to create bestsellers. The website offers a free book for budding self publishers, and many other free resources.

Terence Tam is the founder of Bookpal, he previously spent 6 years as an academic and was a contributing author for several academic books. Frustrated with the level of service he was getting with traditional publishers, he set up his own self publishing company to help other authors publish and market books with cost effective yet efficient solutions

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Terence_Tam

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The 4 Different Ways to Self Publish a Book

By Ruth Barringham

Authors have been self publishing their own books successfully for over one hundred years.

Just look at this list of just a few of the well-known authors who all began by self publishing their own book -

• Oscar Wilde
• Rudyard Kipling
• George Bernard Shaw
• Mark Twain
• Beatrix Potter
• Deepak Chopra
• Virginia Woolf
• John Grisham
• Christopher Paolini (Eragon)

ALL these authors began their careers by self publishing their own book. And you can do the same. All you need is access to a computer and an internet connection.

There's never been a better time to easily publish a book and sell it internationally. And the really great thing about being a published author is that it never has to end. Not only can you utilize modern publishing methods to keep your book 'in print' for as long as you want, but you can expand your writing talent and publish more and more books every year - or every month if you've got plenty of time to write.

But publishing books isn't just about writing them, you have to sell them too.

But you need to know where to start and how to do it.

Different Ways to Self-Publish

The problem with reading anything about self-publishing is that there's conflicting statements on almost any website and it's all written in so much jargon that the more you read the more confused you become. But I will cut through all the technical terms and publishing jargon and help you to understand the different opportunities open for you to self-publish your book.

There are 4 different ways to publish a book:

• Traditional Publishing
• Self-Publishing
• POD Publishing
• Vanity Publishing

Traditional Publishing

With traditional publishing there is no cost to the author. You can pitch your book to an agent or directly to a publisher to try and encourage them to publish your book for you.

Currently only about 1 out of every 50,000 books submitted are successful. But if your book is accepted for publication it will probably be 18 months to 4 years before your book is in print and you will still be expected to market and promote your book yourself for a royalty payment of around 10% for every book sold. It can be 10% of the net amount, which is what the publisher actually sells the book for, or 10% of the price on the cover of the book.

Vanity Publishing

This is sometimes called Subsidy Self-Publishing but whatever you choose to call it, it means that you, the author, pay a vanity publisher to do all the work that a traditional publisher would have done. You do get paid higher royalties, usually from 25% to 40%, but it can still take quite a while before you break even, depending on how much you paid to have your book published in the first place.

POD Publishing

Print On Demand publishing lets you self-publish your book with minimum expense. POD books are individually printed when an order is placed which means no warehousing costs and this dramatically reduces production costs. But Print On Demand companies are usually only printers not publishers, although they can offer some publishing services. And so it's still up to the author to market and sell their own work.

So before you approach a company, your manuscript must be what they call "copy ready". This means that your manuscript must be formatted correctly, all the necessary pages are included (e.g. copyright page, disclaimer page, etc) and you have a book cover ready for printing.

Self-Publishing

When you publish a book yourself you take on all the work that a traditional publisher would have done for you. This includes having your book printed, shipped, distributed and you also have to take care of all your own paperwork.

Which is best for you?

As we are dealing here with self-publishing, we'll only be discussing the latter 3 ways to publish a book, that is, Vanity, POD and Self-Publishing. Which of these ways you choose will depend on several different factors.

Firstly your choice will depend on how much of the work you want to do yourself. If you just want to get your book published and then carry on with writing the next one, then you may opt for vanity publishing.

On the other hand if you're a bit of a control freak and like to be in charge of the publishing process, then you may decide to go the whole self-publishing route yourself and deal with every company and every aspect of publishing personally.

But whichever way you choose, the choice is now entirely yours.

Ruth Barringham is successful writer, author and publisher and runs two web sites for writers. Writeaholics.net is a web site for freelance writers and Self-Publish Worldwide is a website full of information on all areas of self publishing. So if your interested in writing or publishing, or both, visit these two web sites. You can also sign up for the free monthly newsletter at Writeaholics.net and receive the free eBook 'Become a Freelance Writing Success' when you subscribe, or download a free self publishing report at Self-Publish Worldwide. Or why not do both? After all - they're free!

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Publishing Choices For Writers - Self-Publishing - Part Two

By Candace C. Davenport

In Part One of the Self-Publishing review, I discussed the background of self-publishing and brought up many retained prejudices which authors must consider prior to self-publishing. In True self-publishing, where an author does everything and actually forms their own publishing company, one of the largest negatives is that an author invests all their own capital to publish their work.

However, and this is the huge benefit of being their own self-publisher, in return for their investment, the author owns all the rights to their book and has all the freedom they want when dealing with content, editing and cover. They have the final say in what their book looks and sounds like. They have control over all the production and how their book gets out into the world. True freedom!

Also, having full control of their work means the author has full control over all the profits from the sale of the book. There is no share of cost to an agent or publisher because the author is the publisher. The author can choose what to sell the book for and how much in discounts they are willing to give. Generally, the goal of the self-publisher is to make money on their books and they will make money on every book that they sell.

The author also has control over the timing of their book. With traditional publishers, it sometimes can take up to two to three years to get a book out. Depending on how persistent an author is, it can take just a couple months to see their book if they are self-publishing. This timing aspect can be very beneficial to the author if, for example, they want to use their book in their business immediately such as in back of the room sales.

Unfortunately, for marketing purposes, it is very difficult to get self-published books into regular brick and mortar stores as those stores buy through wholesalers who rarely carry self-published books. Also, and although this is slowly changing, it is difficult to get a self-published book reviewed by well known reviewers. Despite that, a true self-publisher is willing to put the time, effort and money into their book. In return they get to keep control over their creativity and style. They do not have to conform to the standards of others. For some authors, that is well worth their time and money and marketing limitations. It is a choice they make, not because they could not get published elsewhere, but because they want to keep control of their own success.

For some people, self-publishing is the only viable option. Despite the negative bias against self-publishing, authors who choose to take the responsibility and risk of publishing their own book under their own publishing company, can realize their dream the way they want it to be. As the publishing world evolves, there may come a day, that self-publishers will be looked at for their quality of work and not dismissed just because they self-published.

Although there are semantic arguments over names, there are several other types of self-publishing included under the self-publishing umbrella where an author does not have to do everything completely on their own. In other articles in this series, I will discuss these different types of self-publishing, such as the various forms of vanity publishing, POD (print on demand) and e-books.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books (http://www.ourlittlebooks.com) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report. Enjoy!

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Publishing Choices For Writers | Self Publishing, Part One

By Candace C. Davenport

As discussed in other articles in this series, the act of publishing comes in two basic forms- traditional and self-publishing. While traditional publishing is pretty straight forward in that the author exchanges their rights and control over their work for money, over the years and with the advent of new technology, a myriad of different ways to self-publish have evolved such that now, traditional publishers are having to change their business models to reflect these changes in order to stay in the publishing game. The publishing industry, including traditional publishers, have had to undergone a paradigm shift in order to keep up with the times and the advent of the many different types of self-publishing.

Self-publishing is really a generic word for any work not published by a traditional publisher. In the past, the term self-publishing was always looked at pejoratively. Traditional publishers, reviewers and critics looked down their noses at these self-publishers, primarily because there was no editorial screen of the work prior to publishing. Therefore, there was no control over the quality of the work published. As a result, a lot of work was published that was trash, both in style and content, bringing the bad reputation to self-publishing.

However, because of this paradigm shift in the publishing world, self-publishing has gained a modem of respectability while still retaining some of the same negativity. (Actually, there have been many famous authors who self-published at one time in their careers, e.g., Ulysses, by James Joyce; The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter; A Time to Kill, by John Grisham and of course Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson who were laughed at during their self-published lives and loved by all after their deaths). While there are some purists who will always believe that you have to be published by someone else, in truth, the publishing industry is evolving. Writers are choosing to self-publish great writing. People who might never have had the opportunity can now become a published author. And that is a good thing if you are a writer.

At the very basic level of self-publishing, which is commonly referred to as True Self-Publishing, an author is in charge of doing everything themselves including starting their own publishing company to publishing their book. The author is responsible for the content of the book, the editing, the content editing, the cover design, ISBN, copyrights and the printing. Once printed, the author is responsible for the storage, marketing, sales, distribution and any other aspect of publishing their book.

With this kind of self-publishing, an author will not get an advance against future royalties. In fact, the author will find they have to invest their own money, generally thousands of dollars for all the different services. Unless the author knows every aspect of the publishing business, they will have to hire editors, copy editors, designers, printers, and marketers for their book. And of course, the author takes on all the risks of not having a successful title.

Finally, a self-published author is not likely to be reviewed by the mainstream nor carried by distributors. This relates to the negative stigma attached to self-publishing, i.e., that it is only for those authors who can not get their work in print otherwise. Although now some reviewers are recognizing self-publishers as being great contributors to our world of literature, it is still rare that a self-published work is even given a chance to be reviewed.

These are basically the cons of self-publishing, although not everything is negative. In Part Two, I will discuss the positive aspects of an author publishing on their own and why it may be the right option for an author to take.

Candace C. Davenport is a retired attorney and published author whose love of writing led to co-founding a small independent publishing company, Our Little Books. Our Little Books ( http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ) is dedicated to publishing inspirational, educational and fun little books for pocket or purse. Candace encourages all people to find their inner muse and become published authors with their own little book, either for pleasure or for their business. Sign up for a free report on how Becoming a Published Author Will Improve Your Credibility and Make You an Expert in Your Field at http://www.ourlittlebooks.com/free-report/. Enjoy!

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Self-Publishing | Author's Experience

By Cliff Ball

I'm a relatively new author and I decided to go the self-publishing, print-on-demand route because it takes forever to get published with a traditional publisher, and I thought I'd rather have more control over what happens with my novel. It can be pretty expensive depending on who you use, and I've tried two different POD publishers, iUniverse and Virtualbookworm. Self-publishing requires lots of patience and money, so this shouldn't be taken lightly, so I thought I'd write an article on my experiences so far.

My very first time, I used iUniverse, but, it was really expensive even for a basic package. I didn't get my novella into the Library of Congress, so I didn't get a Library Card Catalog Number (LCCN) because it was an add-on that I really couldn't afford, along with the marketing kit. They gave me bookmarks and a real basic press release template. I work in a library, so I scattered the bookmarks everywhere I could, but it didn't help any. I utilized as many social networking sites as possible, including author sites such as Goodreads, but my visibility was still really low. I even created my website, posted a few blogs about my novella, but very few people visited, so I tried traffic sites, which just increased traffic, but no one clicked on the links to the novella. After a while, I quit trying. At the time, I didn't think to use a press release site or offer giveaways for my novella.

This year, I finished a novel, so I went with Virtualbookworm. They offered more for much less and were easier to get into contact with. The package I bought included a LCCN, which got me into the Library of Congress, so it should be easier to get into libraries around the country. My novel is also supposed to be listed in Books in Print. This time, I used three press release sites, including paying for one that gave me greater visibility. 

That seemed to work, because I was contacted by a seller for the American Library Association, a major press release agency, and I found some more promotion websites that helped me get even more visibility and offered professional book reviews. So far, with this novel, my experiences are much more pleasant and I feel encouraged.

In general, if you're thinking of going the self-published route, take the time to do plenty of research and find out if you're budget can handle the amount of money you're probably going to spend. Find out if you're friends and networks will help you with word of mouth and posting their reviews on Amazon and maybe you too will end up being the next J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer.

Author of Don't Mess With Earth
and Out of Time
Cliff Ball - Author website

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