Self-Publishing: Finding Your Way Through the Maze

So you want to write a book. Most people automatically think they need to publish their book with one of the big five publishers to be successful. Not so. Self-publishing has become easier than eating a bowl of ice cream, mostly because of the preponderance of print on demand (POD) companies today.

When people come to us and say they want to self publish their book, we won't automatically push them towards an agent with a hope and a prayer. What we recommend depends substantially on their primary intentions.

For example, who's going to do the book marketing? Some authors believe that their publisher will market their book. Unfortunately, even in the best of cases, the author has to do the majority of the book marketing for the book.

Then there's the bigger question of how to publish a book. There are so many print on demand companies today that one of the biggest questions we get is, "Which one?"

That's not an easy question to answer, and as I said above, it depends on your intentions.

In this, and five subsequent articles, I'll give you some tips on how to select your self-publishing, print on demand company. Part of the answer, of course, lies in who will do the book marketing. But, if you want to write a book, publish that book, and then sell the book, you can't just sign up with the easiest route, as many people do. As you'll see, the easiest path isn't always the best, and in many cases turns out to be the worst case!

Let me give you an example. I recently received an email from a small-time author who wanted to know how she could get more than 50% of the cover price of her book into her pocket. Now, that's totally unheard of in the traditional publishing world, where the author might expect to get 5% of the NET (after discounts, etc.). But, in the print on demand world of self-publishing, 50% is possible.

How? Stay tuned for the further adventures of a Self-Publishing junkie to find out!