If you have the talent and sheer determination, you might wish to try first getting published by traditional, commercial publishers. They’re the ones that charge you zero for publishing your book, offer you an advance on your royalties, agree to spend $5000 or $500,000 on promoting your book, etc. But you’d better have talent and a fine literary agent or else skin thicker than an elderly elephant and the iron determination to possibly weather multitudes of rejections for years before you (hopefully) get a contract. If you choose this route, more power to you.

A nickname referring to a publisher who will issue you a contract regardless of the quality and marketability of your work is vanity publishing. They have that reputation because they’ll appeal to your vanity—your deepest yearning to become a published author. They charge a lot and make the majority of their money from fees rather than from sales. Vanity presses may call themselves joint venture or subsidy presses, but in a vanity press arrangement, the author pays all of the cost of publication and undertakes all of the risk, and the publisher does no promotion whatsoever. Many authors end up with one or two thousand books molding in their garage.

A publisher that distributes books under its own imprint is usually termed a subsidy or “joint venture” publisher, and is therefore a little more selective in deciding which books to publish. Subsidy publishers, like vanity publishers, take payment from the author to print and bind a book, but contribute a small portion of the cost as well as adjunct minor services such as editing, distribution, warehousing, and some degree of marketing. Often, the adjunct services provided are minimal. As with commercial publishers, the books are owned by the publisher and remain in the publisher’s possession, with authors receiving royalties for any copies that are sold. Most subsidy publishers also keep a portion of the rights from any book that they publish. And, generally, authors have little control over production aspects such as cover design.

True self-publishing involves a ton of work for the writers and it probably involves procuring things that you have no idea how to do. It means authors choose a printer, get an ISBN number from Bowker, get copyright forms and register with the Library of Congress, get a bar code for the cover (for scanning price, etc., in bookstores), make sure all the right pages are in the right place and order (copyright page, preface, etc.), arrange for the book’s cover design (one of your most important investments), arrange for endorsements and testimonials to go on that cover, develop a marketing plan, arrange for publicity (free coverage as opposed to paid-for advertisements, which are seldom worth the investment), arrange for radio and TV appearances, book signings and other public appearances, make sure you’re listed in all the right online places, and so on. So what I’m saying is, you must undertake the entire cost of publication yourself, and handle all marketing, distribution, storage, etc. All rights then remain with the author, the completed books are the writer’s property, and the writer gets all the proceeds of sales.

Print-on-Demand has gotten some bad press, but it has come a long way and has become a quite competent and successful means of publishing for many writers. Technically Print-on-demand is a technology: a way to print books. Print-on-demand (POD) is also called short run printing or Print Quantity Needed (PQN). But many think of POD as a type of publishing because POD publishers have build an entire industry around the technique. Some POD publishers are not terribly picky about what manuscripts they will publish. However, most of them will not publish soft or hard porno, gratuitous violence, racist, or extremely profane manuscripts. PODs are sometimes web-based and, thus, use a digital form of printing that is cheaper and faster than the traditional press form. Most often, print-on-demand companies say that they print only the books you need.Instead of purchasing several hundred or thousand books beforehand, you order books as you need them. For example, if your book is listed on amazon.com, they will print only when a customer buys your book. You will be paid a royalty on your books, or a percentage of each sale. Many print-on-demand companies now function on the model of leaving all book rights with you, the author. This means, for example, that if your books sold exceedingly well and a commercial publisher wanted to give you a contract, you could accept at any time without being under obligation to the POD publisher.

Writers can then select from a selection of publishing packages or design a unique one for themselves. Most POD publishers include ISBN number, bar code, typesetting, inclusion of your book with online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and other details as part of every package. However, you may pay additional fees if you need extensive editing, custom book cover design, and an active marketing program for your book.

Subsidy or Self Publishing (Offset press)

High quality from a good printer
Low unit cost if printing in large quantity - F.O.B.
Tremendous flexibility in cut size, paper weight and color
High storage cost
High distribution cost
High initial investment
High prepress cost, errors extremely expensive

Print on Demand

Lower quality relative to offset printing
Uniform unit cost at all quantities
Limited flexibility in cut size and paper
No storage cost
No distribution cost with Lightning Source, Replica or BookSurge
Low initial investment
Low prepress cost, errors easily corrected

I want to give you the straight truth about what’s best for you. If you want total artistic and production control, then self publish. If your topic is too controversial or obscene to be accepted by POD or traditional publishers, you may choose to self publish. If you are printing a memoir or something you just want for family and friends, then self publish. If you want to publish at an overall lower cost, then self publish (do not subsidy publish). If you have a ready-made publicity platform such as being a celebrity, being a public speaker, being a well known musician, etc., then you may want to either self publish or subsidy publish. Self publish if you don’t mind taking the time and effort to do everything listed above yourself; subsidy publish if you just want a whole pile of your books produced in a hurry.

There is also definitely an ideal situation for using print-on-demand. If you’re short on time or don’t possess the know-how to do all those details involved in producing your own bona fide book, then you may want to consider Print-on-demand. If you don’t want thousands of books in your garage you may want to go POD. If you want ideas for things like book cover design that you can just pick and have implemented immediately then choose POD. If you don’t mind taking a smaller profit per book, then POD might be right for you. If you like the idea of having marketing methods available right now for the choosing and you’re willing to pay for them, then go POD. If you want your book automatically listed on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers, go POD. If you want your book distributed by one or two of the giant book distributors, then go POD.

Print-on-demand publishers are sharpening and expanding their efficiency and their publishing packages more every year. Just be careful and shop around very astutely and thoroughly before you select one. I know of one POD that can provide a complete publishing package as well as a seriously crucial marketing program to kick off your promotion for about $2000. But I also know PODs that charge upwards of $10,000 for the same services. So do your homework! And let me know if I can help.

For starters, four factors are extremely important in drawing people to your book: the cover design, the hook paragraph on the back cover, book reviews, and word of mouth. I will expand on these factors in some of my points below.

1) Months before your book is published, you must send out galleys to book reviewers. Find them on the internet. You can also send out galleys to well-known individuals, experts in your field, people you respect, even friends and relatives if you can’t find anyone else. For book reviewers, make sure you send exactly what they ask for. You can put the positive reviews on the back cover of your book, on the first few pages inside the front cover, on fliers or post cards you send out, even on blogs and emails.

2) Invest the time to think of the perfect title and invest the money to acquire a custom-designed book cover. Experts say that the book title and cover design sells a book 80% of the time. Also, work hard on your back cover blurb about the book. It needs to hook the potential reader and make him or her really want to read it!

3) You now need to create a buzz about your book. This is easier said than done, but other authors have done it and you can too. People telling people is a huge secret to selling lots of books. Even the huge commercial publishers will only promote a book for a couple of months before they move on to the next book. If that first push doesn’t create some serious word of mouth sales, the writer is in trouble.

4) Study the internet. Find all the magazines, websites, and ezines that reach your target audience. Then begin publicizing your book to them. Send galley copies to them and ask them for a review or a plug.

5) If you’re a public speaker, you’ve got a huge advantage over the person who doesn’t speak to groups. But your book basically has to relate somehow to your audiences. In other words, you may be a fine speaker, but if you’ve written a literary novel you’ll have more trouble grabbing an audience than if you wrote a book about “how to turn your part-time job into a very profitable enterprise.”

6) If you’re one of those writers who loves writing in various genres and takes pride in just writing from the heart, then this point may not apply to you. However, the sad truth in the book market is that if you don’t write about something people really want to read, you may not earn much income as a writer. Sorry—I don’t like it either. But, if you can, write books that have a long shelf life. In other words, a cookbook will have a much longer shelf life than a book about Obama’s Afghanistan policies. Also, if you write a series of cookbooks, you’ll have a better chance of building a readership than if each book is on a totally different subject.

7) It really helps if your publisher gets your book listed on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. Then participate in methods on these sites of letting readers know that your book exists. (Check a book like Brent Sampson’s Sell Your Book on Amazon).

Explore the possibility of offering your book as an e-book. Find e-bookstores that will offer your book, and then put out key chapters of your book as ezine articles to attract potential readers. Again, you will have more success with this if your book is a how-to title as opposed to a romance novel.

9) Think big. If you can create enough of a buzz and several thousand copies of your book sell, you may get a larger commercial publisher interested in acquiring the rights to sell your book. Then they will help promote the book and it could really take off.

Above all, don’t give in to discouragement. Okay, so after two years of promoting like crazy, let’s say your book only sells 100 copies. Don’t worry about it. That’s at least 100 people in this world who cared enough about your book to devote precious hours, days, even weeks, to reading a piece of your heart and soul on paper. And that makes you pretty remarkable. Believe it.

1) First, if you aren’t registered on Amazon, do so—then set up your profile. You can place your photo, your interests, your background, and, of course, your book title and an attractive, concise description of the book. You’re off to a great start.

2) I’m assuming that your publisher has placed your book for sale on the site. Nowadays, even most self-publishers or print-on-demand publishers include this in their sales package. Most publishers also include the book detail page. This tells readers the book price, number of pages, publisher name, book summary, and reviews/endorsements if you’ve received any. However, ask your publisher to also include the Search Inside option. This allows interested parties to check your back cover, your table of contents, etc. If your publisher doesn’t do this, you will have to mail Amazon a copy of your book so they can copy some pages out of it for the Search Inside option.

3) Amazon has a feature called Listmania. This offers individuals like yourself the opportunity to put together a list of some of your favorite books on different subjects or genres. For example, you might make a list of some of your favorite novels. If your own book is a novel, you would want to place your book somewhere on the list. That way, when readers read through your list, they will see your title and maybe order a copy. How’s that for crass self-promotion?

4) Fill out some So You’d Like to…Guides. On your profile page you’ll see a place to do this. On Amazon, people write brief articles like: So You’d Like To Be More Popular or So You’d Like to Learn How to do Plumbing or whatever. If your book is about becoming more popular, you’ll write a short article about popularity, including your book title and some other book titles about the same subject. When interested parties see your So You’d Like To… page, they’ll click on it and read it. Then there’s a fairly good chance they may click on your book title. Then, wonder of wonders, they may even buy your book so they can learn how to be more popular! Cool, huh?

5) You will get a lot more attention and action on Amazon if you review books. You can write a review for any book. One hundred book reviews seems to be a magic number for grabbing significant attention on the site. Don’t be overwhelmed by that number. Just set a goal of, say, reviewing 5-10 books per week and you’ll soon reach the 100 mark.

6) Again, this may seem like embarrassing self-promotion, but you might want to ask friends and relatives to write a positive review about your book and give it a five-star rating. You should probably just ask them to write a review of your book on Amazon but, hopefully, it will be understood that you expect a good review and a decent star rating.

7) There is a wiki or dynamic book encyclopedia on Amazon too. The Amazon people call it Amapedia. You can use this to describe your book. Remember, this is not a review where you express opinions—just the facts, maam (or sir). It’s a dictionary-type description of your book and its contents. This is another way to get your book out there for people to see.
Amazon also has a blog and here you can say almost anything about your book or what you’ve been reading. Just make sure it’s in good taste and doesn’t contain inappropriate language. Maybe you’ll pick up some bloggers who are interested in what you write.

9) A major objective of your profile, your book reviews, your listmania lists, your blogging is to build a reputation as an expert in some area or areas. Once people begin to see you as an expert, they’re more likely to buy your book. Don’t expect to be tagged an expert within a few weeks. It will likely take some hard work and some time, but it’s worth it in the end.

10) The last suggestion can really result in some sales but you’ve got to shell out some fairly serious money. It’s called BXGY. What it does is pair your book with a top selling book. Customers are told, “If you buy this popular book, you should also consider buying this one too” (your book). The catch is that pairing your book with a winner costs $1000 per month. If you’ve got the extra money and believe your book has enough merit to sell well with a companion book, then try it out for a month. Who knows? You may earn more than the $1000 in royalties on your book sales. (Remember that you won’t see this royalty money until your publisher pays you for that quarter).

So dive into the Amazon site and begin learning the ropes. It will take some time to navigate the site and find the various opportunities described above, but it will be worth your time. I wish you the best in selling your book. It may not be a New York Times bestseller, but if you can sell a fair number of copies you can be proud as an author and gain some financial profit along the way. I wish you the best.

Self-publishing is becoming a popular option for writers, especially since it is so difficult to get your foot in the door with mainstream publishers. Now, more than ever, only a tiny percentage of writers are published commercially, so thousands of writers are being pushed to check out other options.

Self-publishing can be a wise strategy, especially for some non-fiction books and especially if teaching or public speaking provide you a platform to promote your book. Personal memoirs, local histories, poetry, children’s stories, special interest subjects — all are well suited to following this route as they often have relatively easy-to-reach markets, or are intended for personal use only. As has been noted, publishers now allow you to print just one copy of your masterpiece for personal use or, perhaps, 20-30 copies to give to family and friends.
However, writer beware! There are many companies out there that ask huge sums of money for a vast array of unnecessary or ineffective author options. Writers are encouraged to search what is on offer from print-on-demand publishers—their prices, their reputation, their customer service, and the true value of their options.

Don’t think that self-publishing is an easy option. Without forethought and planning, the odds against success for the self-published are high. Self-publishing is a great hobby, but unless you have a passion to write and enthusiastically promote your own book, you will not be able to succeed. Commercial publishing is preferable. However, contrary to what some think, commercial writers still have to promote and market their books tirelessly. So, do expect some very hard work along the way…and if you want your book to be more widely read, do accept that there are advertising factors involved in publishing.

Can authors then persuade bookstores to carry their books? Probably not—stores get many self-published authors pitching books to them that don’t sell and are often non-returnable that they have learned not to stock them and won’t order them except for a paying customer. Your book can be listed with such retailers as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but people must be told that it exists. My advice is that you do not consider self-publishing until you have spent at least a few years working on your writing, making submissions, and learning about the business of publishing. To compare publishers, see this author’s website listed below.

You’re Not Just a Dollar Sign When it comes to great customer service, again, it pays to ask former authors about their experiences. Also, note carefully when you ask questions on a publishing site or mention interest in filling out an application—what kind of attention do they promise? Too many publishers are wonderfully attentive until you sign on the dotted line and send your money. Then, suddenly your manuscript is just an item on an assembly line. Will they offer you a real live author rep to accompany you patiently throughout the entire publishing process? Can you actually reach the rep by phone or email or do you have to wait hours or even days on end for a response?

Their Prices Are Reasonable Isn’t “reasonable” a very relative term? After all, to some people $100 is a lot of cash and, to others, $1,000 is pocket change. However, perhaps we can at least settle on a happy medium. Tate Publishing’s lowest priced package is about $4,000. Dorrance charges you $7,500 but you get 550 copies of your book. Book Pros charges $13,000 and that’s their low-end price. In spite of all the book copies, Dorrance offers the least bang for your buck. And, admittedly, Book Pros includes a huge publicity punch with their package. There are probably some writers who’ve had good experiences with these publishers. However, there are print-on-demand (self publishers, by our definition) companies that offer packages ranging from $199 to $1,500. Of course, for $199, you’re not going to get much more than your book in print. But for $1,000-1,500, a number of publishers custom-produce your book with a surprisingly impressive list of perks to go with it.

They Offer Genuine Publicity Five hundred bookmarks and a few postcards does not a PR campaign make. Does the publisher help you get your manuscript out to book reviewers? Do they give you a custom book cover that will really grab readers? Do they help you advertise your book to targeted blogs, ezines, and directories that cater specifically to your topic or genre? Do they set up your book for Google searches and do they include benefits such as the “Search Inside” feature on Amazon? Do they have an active distribution program through a reputable distributor such as Baker & Taylor? Do they offer such features as the religious publisher that offers contact information to thousands of pastors and churches? These are truly valuable publicity methods that can really help.

They Coach Authors Long-Term The typical commercial publisher tends to push a book hard for 1-3 months. Then they have to move on to other books. Most print-on-demand publishers don’t individually publicize a book for much more than one week. They primarily set certain features in place that enable the author to help publicize it. However, there are a few publishers that truly assist authors for months or even years after they’ve published. One such publisher is Outskirts Press, which offers an email coaching program that continues for at least two years after publishing. This is invaluable to not only inform writers but also motivate them toward success in a very tough and competitive field.

Author Copies Offered at a Significant Discount For a 200-page book, a Dog Ear author will pay $5.28 per copy, and an Outskirts writer will pay $6.16. For the same book, an Xlibris author will pay $13.19, and a Publish America author will pay a whopping $15.96. Now that’s a huge variance, and guess who pockets the extra money in these little transactions?

Retail Book Prices Are Not Inflated Let’s stick with our handy 200-page paperback book and see what several different publishers charge in the retail market. Aventine charges $12.95 per book, Xulon charges $14.99, Trafford charges $17.59, and Universal charges $19.99. If the retail price of your book is too high, even your most loyal fans may flinch when they go to buy. So make sure your book is going to be affordable in the marketplace.

ISBN, UPC Bar Code, and Distribution Through Retailers The ISBN and UPC bar code are required if your book is going to be offered in bookstores or online outlets such as Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Most print-on-demand publishers include this, but you may have to pay extra if you’re using a “desktop” publisher such as Lulu or CreateSpace. It’s also nice if your publisher registers your book with R.R. Bowker’s Books in Print and at the Library of Congress (LCCN). As I’ve mentioned before, it is also a sign of professionalism if the publisher offers distribution through one of the biggies such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor, or Spring Arbor.

Fair Return of Book’s Original Production Files If you ever decide to switch publishers or, for some other reason, you wish the return of your book’s production files, how easy or difficult is it to obtain them? If you terminate your contract within 18 months, iUniverse makes the author pay $750 for the PDF press-ready book cover file and another $750 for a press-ready PDF book interior. That’s a lot of money. BookSurge refuses to give departing authors their production files. And Aventine gives authors a digital copy of cover and interior production files as part of their package. Go figure.

Lastly, it’s nice if your publisher offers extras such as an editing service. A select few publishers do offer free light editing, but it may well not catch all errors. If you need editing, it shouldn’t cost more than $.01 to $.03 cents per word. If it’s much above that, you might consider finding someone on your own. Some publishers appear to make more money editing authors’ manuscripts than they do publishing them. So, my friend, if a publisher checks out to your satisfaction in these ten ways, you have found yourself a darn good company, and I would stick with them.