Self-Publishing

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Created on 17 October 2007 22:03 | Add a comment
You do not have to build your own print room, or even pay enormous fees for large print runs, to publish your own material. There is a great article on self-publishing by PCPlus.co.uk which looks at the harsh realities as well as the opportunities. It introduces the term 'Print on Demand' (POD) which refers to the process of your book being printed only when somebody orders a copy.

A good example of a POD company is Lulu.com which allows authors to sell books on-demand. Its Paperback Section has a handy cost calculator which shows the manufacturing cost of a single copy (perfect bound, 100 pages) to be almost £4. A print run of 1000 is still over £3 per copy, but a batch of 8000 costs £1.50 per copy. Economies of scale obviously help, but the point is that it is possible for you, the author, to promote your material without having to stump up thousands for a batch of books that might never sell. You can control the print volume according to your sales, allowing you to benefit from volume print runs when you know they will sell.

Lulu.com claims to attract over 100000 visitors a day, and 15000 signups a week. The CEO is Bob Young, co-founder of RedHat and co-founder of the Center for Public Domain.

Lulu.com makes things convenient for buyers, too. A book may have a preview, allowing you to get a flavour. You can also simply download the book, at a much reduced charge, instead of ordering a paper copy.

A very similar outfit is CafePress.com which actually provides a much wider printing service - mugs, T-shirts, posters, etc. They also have an affiliate program through Commission Junction, which gives you more marketing opportunity.

Amazon has a couple of services of its own:

  • BookSurge with publishing and print-on-demand programmes
  • CreateSpace which offers on-demand production of Books, DVD, Digital Content, and CDs.

The IET recently reviewed Lightning Source which offers print-on-demand. The IET article contains various claims from the company about being unique, which of course they are not. Also mentioned in the article, a publisher that uses them is Packte Publishing.

Book Promotion

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Created on 20 October 2007 13:43 | Add a comment
Once you have successfully constructed a sales platform for your book (by creating/utilising a good website and payment processing/delivery system), you need to market your book. Remember that marketing does not need to be purely on-line; with some careful thought and a bit of luck you can generate a lot of interest with phone calls and meetings, but you do still need a quality online presence to refer people to.

Here are some simple places (in no particular order) you can use to market your book:

  • Google Book Search Partner Programme where you can have your entire book indexed by Google (but retaining copyright of course) but only have excerpts published if you want.
  • Microsoft Live Books Publisher Programme where you add your content to Live Search Books. Participation in the program is free.
  • Project Gutenberg Europe which allows full search and free (public domain) distribution of books. This is not a realistic option for copyrighted work that you need for an income stream! But it could be used for showcasing shorter pieces.

A Self Publisher

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Created on 17 October 2007 22:49 | Add a comment
A good friend of mine, David Mason, has a strong portfolio of poetry, stories and music aimed at a younger audience. He has been struggling down the traditional publishing route for some time, and in my opinion would benefit from a determined online self-publishing strategy.

There are several angles of attack:

  • Put more material on the author's website: excerpts that make the visitor want to read on.
  • Provide an online ordering system; most people are not patient enough to print out an order form and send off a cheque. Online payments can be tough for the non-techie on a limited budget, but it would be simple to provide purchase links to on-demand publishers such as Lulu.com. Which leads onto the next point...
  • Get signed up for one or two on-demand publishers of choice, to alleviate the publishing and distribution headache.
  • Get noticed in search engines such as Google by using their paid search facilities.
  • Promotion in the wider Web community, using high-traffic sites such as Digg.com to get the word out.