Advantage Family

There's little doubt that one ofthe most exciting things you can do as a writer is to publish a book. (I shouldknow, I've had over a hundred books published in my time and it excites meevery time.) So here I'm going to explain how you can actually publish your own book.... and makegood money from it.

In the past you pretty much hadto find a publisher if you wanted to publish a book. But today new technologymakes it possible and actually not too expensive to become a self publisher anddo it yourself.

And - self publishing can be avery smart choice indeed. It's affordable (if you know how), fast, pays muchbetter than standard royalty agreements, and lets you keep control over yourbook too. Publishers might offer you a royalty starting at as little as 5% ofthe cover price. Self publishers can increase that to 50% or more!

Can the average personsuccessfully self publish a book? Yes they can! There isn't really any mysteryinvolved. You don't need to set up a big publishing company - you can do itpart time from home. All you need is a saleable subject, good presentation -and determination.

These are the basics of selfpublishing: Writing your book, preparing it to be printed, getting it printed,distributing the book, getting publicity.... and, of course, counting theprofits.

Here are some basic pointers toget you started publishing your own book:

* Choose your book subject.Non-fiction books tend to be much better for self publishing than fiction.Because they sell for higher prices and aren't usually heavily discounted likenovels and so on are.

Try to choose a fairly small,specialist subject to publish on. If your subject is small big publishers won'tbe interested in competing with you yet you can still make good money from yourbook.

* Do some research. Look forcompeting titles and figure out how to make yours better. Find out what salesof those books have been to see if they are good sellers or not. Tip. Have alook on Amazon to see what similar titles there are, and find out how popularor unpopular they are by looking at their Amazon Sales Rank. Go into somebookshops and ask the staff there if the kind of book you have in mind is somethingthey get asked for often or not.

* You can save money by doing asmuch as possible yourself. You will need a printer. But beyond that, do as muchas you can yourself and just buy in the extra services you need fromfreelancers. You can even typeset your own book using software such as AdobePublisher. Use a freelance editor/proofreader to edit your book and a freelancedesigner to design a good cover. It needn't cost much if you shop around.

* Decide what format you'd liketo publish your own book in: Hardcover or paperback for example. Take a look at competitors' books to get someideas. Paperback might not look as impressive as hardback but it can cost aslittle as a quarter of the price.

* Get lots of quotes on printing- since this is likely to be your main overhead. In general, the more copiesyou print, the lower the unit cost. On the other hand, you don't want a garagepacked to the rafters with your books! Before hiring a printer ask potentialsuppliers to send you samples of their recently printed books.

* Check out print on demandpublishers. Print on demand or POD is ideal for self publishers. Instead ofprinting hundreds of books in advance using traditional, ink-based offsetprinting you send a computer file to the POD printer. Books are then printedand bound ONLY as and when you sell them. So there's very little upfront cashoutlay and nothing's wasted if your book doesn't sell.

* Get an ISBN for your book. TheInternational Standard Book Number (ISBN) is the standard code for identifyingyour book in the book trade. Once your book has an ISBN it can be ordered byany bookshop anywhere in the world!

* Decide how your book will bedistributed, ie. how it will reach the bookshop or whatever. The conventionalroute is to go through a book distributor who will do everything for you - butthey will expect around a 50% discount on the cover price for doing it. Someprint on demand companies can also do it for you.

You can also distribute your bookyourself if you want to. If you do, you'll need to contact book shops directlyand ask if they're interested in stocking your book and handle all the orders.This can be a good choice if your book is a locally-orientated book. It's usualfor book shops to accept books on sale or return. Which means you leave themand if they sell, you get paid. If they don't, you take them back.

You can also get your books soldon Amazon and similar online bookstores very easily.

* Be prepared to do somemarketing of your book yourself. Distributors can do this for you, but you'llget much better results if you get involved in a hands-on way. A very good wayto get publicity is to send review copies to newspapers, magazines, radio andTV stations.... better still offer yourself to do interviews. This is totallyfree publicity that can sell hundreds or even thousands of books if it worksout!

Although a few self publishedbooks have become best sellers self-publishing is best thought of as a bit of acottage industry. Then again, if you're getting 50% from your book rather than5% you can see that you could make £5,000, £10,000 or even £20,000 a year justfrom selling a few thousand books!