Even First Time Authors Can Harvest the Rewards of Self-Publishing Their Book

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Even First Time Authors Can Harvest the Rewards of Self-Publishing Their Book
By Charles Jacobs


No one ever told you it was an easy job. But the rewards in income and in self esteem far outweigh any negatives.

Self-publishing is fraught with myriad chores that steal time away from writing and promoting. The nitty gritty of pre-publication seems to grow, not diminish, with every challenge you overcome. For a first-timer it can be a bit daunting. I know. I've been there. Yet I recommend it highly to any author and to my peers who are beginning to write in their retirement.

Occasionally I wondered why I chose to self-publish a book instead of coasting lazily through my retirement. Or I could have selected a different approach, POD or traditional publishing, and have the publisher handle all of the pre-publication chores. But every time I felt overwhelmed, I reminded myself that this was my book and I had total control over its production and distribution, and that doesn't happen with the other alternatives.



You're in Business
You're now a publisher, not just a writer. The process may begin with your writing, but it goes on to pre-pub preparations, printing, distributing, marketing, promoting, and they are all your responsibility. While you may not perform each of those tasks, you still control how they are done because the people you hire are responsible directly to you.

Before we look at the challenges you'll face, I urge you to read some of the outstanding literature available on self-publishing. Start with Dan Poynter's classic Self-Publishing Manual. Study Peter Bowerman's Well-Fed Self-Publisher. Perhaps you'll be inspired by John Kremer's Self-Publishing Hall of Fame. The most recent of the breed is Patricia Fry's fine book The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. Use that knowledge to create a solid business plan and timeline for action, and you'll find the challenges can be overcome with relative ease.




Easy But Time Consuming
Well before you go to press, you must tackle a host of small, but essential, tasks. Securing your book's ISBN, obtaining barcodes, copyrighting and cataloguing it with the Library of Congress. All of these are easy, but they do take time and effort.

The aesthetics of your book are critical considerations . The cover must be dramatic and magnetic to make it stand out from competitors on the book shelf. Each portion has its own special function: the spine motivates the customer to reach for the book because that is what he/she first sees. It then becomes the job of the front cover to convince the customer the book is worth skimming, and that has to happen in about two seconds. The average person then turns to the back cover for information about the book and the author and any impressive endorsements.

Next in the reader's decision-making process is a strong, well-designed table of contents that allows the potential buyer to gain a true sense of what the book is about. Lastly, he/she will flip through some pages to get a feel for your writing. At that point, the design and formatting of the text, done tastefully, will probably send the looker to the cash register to close the sale.

Although going to press is the last stage in the production cycle, you better find time to interview printers and make your choice early on. You'll need to know the specs required to print your book so your cover and text designers can meet the printer's needs.




Gaining Awareness
It is critical that you try and capture as many reviews and endorsements as you possibly can. They are the most effective selling tools. That means preparing Advance Review Copies (ARCs) to send to key reviewers, particularly those who in essence review for the trade like Publisher's Weekly, Foreword, Library Journal, Kirkus and other highly respected publications. The best of the endorsements will go on the back cover when you actually print the book. The others will be placed on the inside pages near the front, along with excerpts from early reviews.

While all of this is going on, you, the publisher (and promoter), must juggle the other elements of your promotional plan. You need a web site, and that requires some careful thought to make it effective. It also demands a good deal of writing as you keep adding fresh content to your site. Actually, you must do these same things regardless of the publishing method you use.

You must start writing articles to send to other web sites as well as both print and digital publications. And you have to reach out to establish links from other web sites to bring readers to your own.



The Nuts and Bolts
As though all of that isn't enough to make your head swim and keep you tossing and turning throughout the night, it's time to develop a program of distribution for your book. You require a distributor to promote and sell your book to the marketplace and possibly a wholesaler to be available to fill bulk orders swiftly.

It's time to decide on fulfillment. Will you accept orders on your web site? If you do, you must have a shopping cart and a merchant program to accept payments of cash and credit cards. And you must have provision to package and ship books that are ordered. You might prefer to avoid all of that by contracting with the distributor you picked to do the packing and shipping. Or, if you feel overburdened, you may want the distributor, if able, to accept individual phone orders in your name and process them. All of those decisions impact both your own schedule and the bottom line of the company. Remember, you're now in a business and the bottom line is a major consideration.

On first reading, this may sound overwhelming. Not to worry. It is a great deal of work, but it produces not only satisfaction but far more dollars for the bottom line. The entire profit from every sale is yours to keep. The publisher you share it with is YOU.

Self-publishing done properly can be a lucrative business. Today, more and more authors have begun to realize this, and are following this path. Once you dig in and see how rewarding this can be, you'll be delighted that you decided to join them.



Do you need help getting your writing career started? Writer, editor and consultant Charles Jacobs is the author of "The Writer Within You," the book on writing after retirement that has created buzz throughout the publishing industry. It has just been released and is available on his web site or at major booksellers. Visit Charles' web site and blog http://www.retirement-writing.com for many more informative, free articles on writing, publishing and promoting your books.




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Ella D. Curry, President and CEO of EDC Creations
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