Self-Publishing: A Three Step Primer

The world of publishing is changing dramatically.  Every day it seems, there are new options on how to publish your book, and many of these involve by-passing the traditional route of querying, waiting (sometimes for up to a year) for an almost inevitable rejection, and then querying again.  Although I believe strongly that the curation role of traditional publishers is valuable and will continue to be important as publishing morphs into the future, it's also the case that for many authors, self-publishing will be an important part of their overall platform - even if it's just to produce promotional, in-between material.  I've noticed an almost continual stream of new companies coming along to encourage writers into what's being dubbed "Partnership Publishing", but caveat emptor (buyer beware) since many of the contracts on these sites are signficantly worse than traditional publishing contracts, and where they don't involve substantial upfront payments (better spent, if you've got it, on high quality editors), usually involve you giving up a significant portion of royalties.   If you are self-publishing, you may as well do it yourself, and hire the specific skills you need, keeping control of your project.  After all, keeping control and reaping a high portion of the rewards are two key reasons for self-publishing.  Following are three no frills steps to getting your book published, and out into the market place.  

1. Get hold of good guide book. This is one place where a twenty dollar investment is well spent.  There are so many good books out there, and many are so well written and laid out, that you could use them for every book you self publish.  

2. Learn to turn your word processed file into a series of formats for electronic reading.  e-books are now outselling print books, and it's so easy to take a file and turn it into a .pdf file and other formats that there's no excuse for paying someone else to do it for you.  The easiest one-stop solution is to get hold of Calibre software.  Calibre is free, and will convert your book into any ebook reading format from ePub to .pdf to .mobi, etc.  Just make sure you check each format that you want to sell on a real ebook reader, as selling poorly formatted books is a fast way to make a bad name for yourself (and self-publishing in general).

3. Find a great printer. Not only can the right print company set your book up for print publication of your book at very reasonable prices for small print runs, but you can also use a trusted source for all sorts of promotional material like brochures, stickers, bookmarks, and postcards.  Develop this relationship and you may find that you can negotiate a great package deal that will be far and away more beneficial to your book sales than paying someone to do it all for you.

Of course there's much more to self-publishing than these three steps, as you'll find when you get hold of one of the manuals above, but at base, all we're talking about is taking your completed writing project,  polishing it to perfection (don't skip this step! Or the need for a professional editor), and then making it available to a readership.  Between electronic formatting and a great print resource, you're good to go.

About the Author: Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of the poetry books Repulsion Thrust and Quark Soup, the novel Sleep Before Evening, a nonfiction book The Art of Assessment, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Deeper Into the Pond, Blooming Red, Cherished Pulse, She Wore Emerald Then, and Imagining the Future. She also runs a radio show, The Compulsive Reader Talks. Find out more about Magdalena at http://www.magdalenaball.com