How to Self Publish Your Book

The self-publishing industry is booming. It has become simple to take your words, send them to a printer who specializes in Self-publishing and wa-la you are a published author. You have become an authority, an expert and made your mother very proud. So how do you get in on this? Well, there are a variety of choices when getting your book published.

E-publishing

The least expensive alternative is to offer your book as an e-book. This is a downloadable electronic format- usually a Portable Document Format or PDF. You can purchase programs to turn your text into a PDF. The most common PDF software is Acrobat http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/index.html.

If you have a strong marketing list it will be more likely that you will find buyers for your e-book. My e-book Navigating the Grant Writing Maze (availalbe at www.4fundingsuccess.com) has been included with my tele-class. It is easy to send this format to participants via email. They choose to read it on their computers or to print the text and put the pages into a notebook. Amazon and a few others will accept e-books. For a while e-books were all the rage but currently marketers have had a difficult time selling them.

On-demand printing

On-demand printers accept your digital format and turn it into a real hard or soft cover book-one book at a time. You pay a small one time set up fee that ranges from $350 to $1,200. The printer can assist with creating a cover and set up of your book. Some will assist with obtain a bar code and ISBN number. Others will ask that you have those ready to go.

Bowker is the company designated to give out the ISBN numbers in the United States: www.isbn.org , Remember that only your publisher is authorized to apply for your ISBN number. If you choose to not apply for an ISBN number yourself, you may be giving some of your rights to your materials away.

With an on-demand printer you typically receive one hard cover copy and one soft cover copy. Every time a book is sold and ordered you receive a small royalty. If you have very little capital and plan to only sell a few books then on-demand printing may be the way to go. Be sure to read the contracts and choose the one that will give you the best royalty.

Vanity or Subsidy press

In this case the author pays the publishing company to print a set number of copies for a fee. You generally receive only a few copies of your book. The publisher adds your book to their lists and will pay you a royalty as the remaining printed books sell. If they sell. The downside is that the printing costs may be expensive with no guarantees of sales or royalties.

Book Packagers

This is a printing house that will print your book. You pay for a certain number of copies; you determine how the book will look. Selecting the type of paper, cover and binding. Finally all of the books are yours and all of the marketing. The upside is that you get to keep all of the profits.

A Cooperative publisher

This is a joining of the book packagers and the subsidy publishers. You pay up front for a certain number of books to be published. The cooperative publisher handles all of the printing concerns. A percentage of the printed books are to be jointly marketed and sold. If the printing runs out the cooperative publisher will print more at their expense. The author receives a royalty.

Printers

The final choice is to find a traditional printer and pay to have the job done your way. The book is entirely yours, marketing costs are yours, and the profit is all yours. There are several printers who specialize in book printing and who offer less expensive alternatives to the local print shop.

Select the method of printing/publishing that will best fit your needs. Things to consider are your experience with marketing books or your willingness to learn a new industry. Who will be the purchasers of your new book? If it is only a handful of friends and relatives then you may wish to choose an on-demand printer but if you expect this to be the next best seller then look for a printer that will give you the greatest profit and control. Consider reading books by Dan Pointer as a reference guide www.parapublishing.