Not so long ago publishing a book intended for a limited audience of family members and friends was an expensive proposition. Today, technological changes in the world of printing and the evolution of the publishing industry have given authors an opportunity to dramatically reduce the cost of publishing books like family histories and memoirs. Here are four ways to save money when publishing your book.
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As authors grow close to finishing the writing of their book they are also often anxious to get it into print as soon as they can. The impulse is easily understandable, however rushing to publication can not only result in a book of lesser quality than the author hoped for, it may actually result in higher costs, and cause the process to take longer than it needed to. Successful self-publishing is not a process of doing multiple things simultaneously; it is a process of following a simple plan one step at a time.
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Most authors in today’s marketplace don’t know how to write books that will sell, nor do they know how to effectively promote. Profitable Authors Institute was created to change that. We are profitable authors. We want to show you how to be one, too (without wasting time spinning your wheels and still not selling books.)
12 industry professionals, including Stories To Tell founder Nancy Barnes, offer forty-eight video courses online in three tracks:
- Writing
- Publishing
- Book Promotion
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An author phoned us recently with good news. We had worked with him last year to self-publish his book. Now, he was very excited to tell us, a New York publishing house (not one of the big 5, but a New York publisher, nevertheless) had offered him a contract to purchase the rights to his book and publish it. He wanted to know if it was a good deal.
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Who should publish your book? Every author faces the same choice. Increasingly the choice is between “assisted self-publishing” and becoming an “indie” who truly self-publishes.
Before you sign up for an all-inclusive package with a heavily advertised giant like Author House, Xlibris, or Outskirts Press it’s important to understand that when you choose one of them you will pay an inflated price for every book they print for you.
Let's see how it works.
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Nonfiction, whatever form it may take, is built on a foundation of facts. Whether they present an account of actual events, as in family history or biography, seek to prove the validity of an argument, or demonstrate the correctness of a method of doing something, as in a how-to book, an author’s words are judged by the quality of the facts on which they are based. A nonfiction reader is likely to ask, “What’s the evidence for this?” Generally that evidence is based on documents, research, or accounts written by others and used by the author. So it behooves the nonfiction author to include references to allow the reader to know and evaluate the quality of the sources from which that evidence is drawn.
Let's look at how to do it.
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Wouldn’t it be great if there was a social media website just for book lovers? Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a place where people can recommend your book to their friends and you can post the books you’re reading in order to better connect with your readers? This describes a website called “Goodreads” and I highly recommend you join if you’re an author.
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Have you ever been talking with someone about your writing and have to scribble your website on a piece of paper so they can look you up later? Or do you ever get home with a scribbled e-mail address from someone but don’t remember why you have it and what you’re supposed to do? I’ve been in both situations and it’s embarrassing. One of the best things we can do for ourselves as authors is to create business cards to hand out the next time someone asks us what we do.
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Are you thinking about publishing a family history, photography or children’s book on CreateSpace or Lightning Source? Have you thought about what size the book will be? Before you start working on illustrations or editing your photographs, it’s important to decide what size of book you’ll be printing and where you’re going to print it so the illustrations fit well on the page. You don’t want to have all the art finished and then find parts of the illustration are going to be cut off or you have to leave empty space at the top or bottom of the page to fit it all in.
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One of the easiest and the hardest aspects of self-publishing is having no one to report to. You are the organizer, the lead, the boss. When you publish your own books, you are the one who calls the shots. This can be a wonderful gift as well as be frustratingly difficult, especially when it comes to deadlines.
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Frustrated by the lack of opportunity to display and sell her children’s books, Patti Brassard Jefferson, an award-winning independent author and illustrator, decided to change the rules of the game.
This summer she opened P.J. Boox, described by Publishers Weekly as the “first bookstore dedicated to self-published authors.”
P.J. Boox only sells books published by independent and self-published authors.
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Most people who read books have no idea of the lengthy discussions held about the tiniest little details. Do you capitalize the L for emphasis or will the reader think it’s a typo? That comma—is it in or out? Is it two sentences or one? Each of these questions can take several minutes to a good half hour to discuss, I kid you not. By the time the final edits are done, you are ready to scream and pull your hair out but you don’t because you care so deeply about your manuscript, instead, you take a deep breath, sit down with a bowl of ice cream (because by this point you need it), and take one more look before sending it to the printer.
With all these tiny and seemingly miniscule edits one after another, how do you know when your book is done and ready to send? When do you leave well-enough alone and click the “submit” button?
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As authors, we typically prefer the writing aspect of our job over other areas such as marketing and selling. We love the creative process but aren’t big fans of selling the results. The ins and outs of taking payment can seem particularly hard to figure out. How do you take a credit card payment? What about keeping change? What do you do about making sure you have inventory around when you need it?
There are some simple things you can do in your day-to-day life to help make selling your books easier.
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When you’re getting ready to self-publish your first book, you have to decide whether to publish under your personal name or whether you want to create a publishing business. If you do create a business, do you choose to register it and go through the legal process of setting one up? Is that even necessary?
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Beta readers are an invaluable part of the publishing process and one not to be skipped over. Though it’s tempting to publish your manuscript as soon as you’ve edited every line within an inch of its life, handing your work over to beta readers to hear what they think before going to print prepares you for a wider release in a way nothing else does.
Here are some tips on how to use beta readers effectively.
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Looking at your Facebook page can be like staring at a blank canvas. What content do you post so you gain an audience and they stay interested? What do you share first?
Here are 12 great post ideas for your page.
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Any savvy author knows that Dana Lynn Smith was absolutely correct in her post Seven Reasons Why Reviews Sell Books on the Book Buzzr Blog when she said,
Book reviews are a powerful marketing tool for books of all types. Not only do they bring books to the attention of people who might never have heard of them otherwise, but they provide “social proof” that the book is valuable, and help the reader determine if the book is a good fit for them.
The question is, how do you get good reviews on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Good Reads, and influential blogs?
It’s as easy as 1-2-3.Here's how to do it.
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This is the second in a series of posts by Stories To Tell editor and book designer Sarah Hoggatt, an experienced self-published author herself, on how authors can best use social media to promote their books. This post traces the 10 steps you can use to create a Facebook author page.
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This is the first in a series of posts by Stories To Tell editor and book designer Sarah Hoggatt, an experienced self-published author herself, on how authors can best use social media to promote their books.
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Jane Green is not someone you would think of as a self-publisher. She’s the author of New York Times best-selling novels The Beach House and Second Chance and is generally considered, along with Helen Fielding, one of the founders of the Chick Lit genre. But when Green, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, wrote Good Food, drawing on stories from her life and the food that runs through them. filled with recipes and photos, she decided to publish it herself.
The experience taught her some lessons that are important for all self-publishing authors.
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