I'm Just Sharing

There are many ways to publish your own book. I’ve written two books, and ended up self publishing one and leaving the other as an ebook. Personally, I think most ways are easy to do it, but many people seem to freak when thinking about giving it a shot.

A friend of mine sent this link from the Online Education Database’s blog iLibrarian titled How To Publish Your Own Book that was pretty good, and gives one way of doing it, along with some writing tips. It’s only about five minutes long, so it’s well worth watching.

Another article you can look at that might give a little bit of insight on book publishing was written by a guy named Shawn Fawcett, titled Book Publishing: Problems With The Traditional Model, as he talks about problems people sometimes have with publishers if they’re hoping to make money publishing their own books.

What I did with my book was, after multiple edits, take it to a professional printing company and told them I wanted it to look like a paperback. I could have saved a lot of money by simple going to a copy center and having it spiral bound, but I wanted it to have the look and feel of a book, not a report. I gave them a pdf copy, which surprised me because I’d assumed they would want it in Word format, selected a white cover with dark blue printing, which kept the cover simple and costs down, and for around $1,200 I got 300 copies of my book.

Now, let’s think about this for a quick moment. True, I didn’t get a fancy cover with colors and images, but because of that I got 300 books that are mine, that I can sell for whatever I want (even give a couple away for free every once in awhile as promotional material), and I even have an ISBN number which means I can list it on Amazon or wherever and call myself a publisher. Many websites, such as Publish America, will help you self publish your book, but you’ll pay $750 for 10 copies of your book at least that’s what it used to cost), and of course you can print the rest on demand, but I had a purpose for my books, mainly to take them with me on speaking engagements, and having to order up copies all the time wasn’t going to get it done for me.

So, there’s some options on how to publish your own book. Options are always nice, and information on how to do it is pretty nice also, isn’t it? I’m not going to hawk my book now, but I am going to hawk the one below:

Why We Want You To Be Rich by Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki