Monday, November 26, 2007

Anybody Can Self-Publish Nowadays?

The other day I was at the library and by chance ended up at an event hosted by independent presses "How to become a citizen journalist".

Well, it's so easy nowadays and anybody can self-publish through blogging, self-publishing books and there they were talking about self-publishing online and offline newspapers.

There was a university professor teaching journalism among other speakers. During the discussion period I had a chance to ask her a question that is always on my mind: "Don't you think that this huge amount of writing/publishing amateurs is diluting PROFESSIONALISM in writing?"

I'm one of those bloggers you know ;-)

She said that this was an important question and in her opinion there were two sides to it: from a reader's point of view we have to be patient and keep reading the amateurs if the topic is interesting to us; from a self-publishing writer point of view we have to do our best if we have something important to say on the topic we know and master.

I like it!
So, folks, let's keep doing our best in writing and reading ;-)








Monday, November 19, 2007

Making Money in Self-Publishing

Are there money to make in Self-Publishing?
Absolutely!

Who is the sure bet to make money in Self-Publishing?
The Printer, the Manufacturer of books.
That's why all self-publishing companies like Lulu, etc. first of all provide their printing-on-demand services (POD) to authors and anybody else whom the author manages to direct to his/her listing on the self-publishing company's website.

Who else is making money in self-publishing? Quite possible that nobody else if the book doesn't sell... The author buys some amount of copies to send as vanity gifts to their family and friends, and possible some more review copies to make reviewers interested in the book. This is the end of story - the printer got paid by the author and nothing happened after that. The POD won't cry over that, they just sign up more new authors and repeat the cycle with them over and over again...

It's a much more cheerful picture for the author if the book sells in some quantities.

So, here we come to the core question - how the self-published author can make sure that the book sells? Book Marketing and Promotion would be the only answer if you want to sell your book to the public. It's not easy or cheap and there is no guarantee that you'll have some positive ROI (return-on-investment). It's quite possible that you'll never return the money spent on marketing and promotion of your book... There are happy endings sometimes too... Depending on the book and promotion efforts...








Monday, November 12, 2007

Selling Self-Published Books

When and why should you, the author, take care of your own book marketing and promotion?

Has your "child" been born? Is your book printed or your e-book created in PDF? It's beautiful, of course, isn't it? Now what do you do to bring it to people, to let them read and enjoy it? In other words, 5% of work - writing - is behind you, but 95% of work - book marketing - is still ahead.

What's the most common mistake new authors make? They start thinking of selling their book only after it's printed. There are a lot of activities that could and should be done prior to publication date, but we'll talk here now about book marketing and promotion after publication.

Marketing and promotion go hand-by-hand; sometimes it's difficult to distinguish which is which. We can put it this way: marketing concentrates on bringing your book to places where people buy books, and promotion concentrates on making people become interested in buying your book.

And you, the author, are the one who is in charge of book marketing and promotion, as a responsible parent of your brain child, your work.

If you were published by a big publishing company, the company takes care that your book appears in big bookstores, and that's the end most of the time. It's mostly your own problem from then on, as little promotion is often done for new authors by big publishing companies.

The shelf life of a book in a store is often very short - typically about half a year. After that it'll be "remaindered." No more promotion. No sales. That's how your book can breathe its last breath in silence on a store shelf.

If you are self-published, you have much more control of marketing and promotion, and you can sell your book happily for years if you yourself are able to create the demand. Then the issue of getting your book to bookstores becomes subsidiary or even unimportant at this stage.

So, your need-to-do-list in book marketing and promotion will include the following:

-selecting right markets for your book;

-finding ways of reaching them with an offer;

-listing your book in all book industry sources available;

-making your book available through online and offline stores;

-letting the buying public know about your book through published online and offline press releases, reviews, articles, interviews, advertising, etc. etc. etc.;

-getting your book reviewed, yourself interviewed, articles about yourself and your book written, sales copies prepared, etc. etc. etc.;

-creating your book online presence - that's last, but not least - it's getting more and more important as more and more people get information and make purchases online.

The exact course of action depends on your book, its topic and aiming, of course.









Monday, November 5, 2007

Publishing, Self-Publishing, Print-On-Demand

There is a lot of confusion between the use of these words: publishing, self-publishing and print-on-demand.

Here's a definition of Publishing and Self-Publishing from Wikipedia: "Publishing includes the stages of the development, acquisition, copyediting, graphic design, production – printing (and its electronic equivalents), and marketing and distribution of newspapers, magazines, books, literary works, musical works, software and other works dealing with information, including the electronic media. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers."

Any time there is a question on LinkedIn "How to publish my book?", there is an answer "Use Lulu.com and you are okay"

In reality, no, you are not okay yet, if you are going to sell your books to the public. Yes, the process of uploading your manuscript on Lulu is a snap. Yes, Lulu will print and ship a book in a snap IF and WHEN there is an order placed. BUT where will the order come from?

The business model of POD (print-on-demand) is selling printing services to the book authors/publishers who are supposed to order books for their own sales or somehow send their book customers to the ordering page. So, printing-on-demand is actually the process of manufacturing books, not selling them. Uploading your book to Lulu means that you covered just the first part of the publishing process - production.

More on SELLING books later.