people often asked how they can get published, and many assume that there is only one way – getting a publisher to accept your manuscript. Due to advancing technology and evolving trends in the publishing, bookselling and reading worlds, there are now many options. John Kremer, whose weekly (free) ezine on book marketing is always worth a read, has produced a list of eight ways to get your book into print:
"You have eight options in publishing a book:
1. Self-publishing. Getting your own printer, publishing your book, and marketing it. That's how I've published six editions of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.
2. Set up your own publishing company. For example, my company: Open Horizons.
3. Print-on-demand printer. You self-publish but you use a POD printer to produce copies 1 to 100 copies at a time. For example, Lightning Source or AdiBooks.
4. Print-on-demand publisher. You pay a POD publisher to publish your book. For example, iUniverse, Lulu, Xlibris, Infinity Publishing, etc. For example, Infinity publishes John Kremer's Self-Publishing Hall of Fame (also available as an ebook download from BookMarket.com).
5. Sell rights to a small publisher and let them publish and promote your book. For example, New World Library, Santa Monica Press, etc. I sold the rights to High-Impact Marketing on a Low-Impact Budget to Prima Publishing (now part of Random House).
6. Sell rights to a large publisher and let them publish and promote your book. For example, Simon & Schuster, Random House, etc. I sold rights to The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook to John Wiley.
7. Self-publish your book only as an e-book. For example, my new ebook on distribution: Book Marketing 105: Choosing a Book Distribution System — This vital mini-guide includes criteria for deciding how you will distribute your books. Also includes complete information on 30 book distributors, 4 library distributors, 89 book publishers who also distribute for other publishers, 3 sales representatives to the chains, 27 bookstore wholesalers, 34 library wholesalers, and 23 Spanish-language wholesalers. Plus a sample book distribution contract. Ebook download, $30.00.
8. Blog your book. Rather than publishing your book on paper, you could simply blog it using a free or paid online blogging service. I'll be doing several books like this in the coming months."
John adds that he could write a book about each option. Each has pros and cons, and apart from major strokes of luck each option needs some (actually, quite a lot of) knowledge to get the best result for you. The option you choose will depend on your objectives, your personality and the book(s) you want to publish. As John points out, he has used different options at different times.
You will hear stories of being stung - or completely screwed - by hard nosed or (at worse) amoral operators, be they mainstream or niche. You will also hear stories of happy experiences and successes ranging from the modest to the headline-grabbing.
Some of it is luck, most of it is about hard work, research, and contacts. There is masses of information – much of it honest and helpful – on the net and on bookshelves; there are lots of people in the publishing, writing and selling worlds who are generous with advice and concrete help.
The aggravating facts are that no-one but you can make the decision; that whichever route you go for, it will mean lots of work; and that before you talk to anyone in the publishing world it's essential to have done your initial research. t the very least, this means snooping around bookshops, online or 3D, to see what's already out there, and to see what the fashions are in book design, hot topics and so on.
You can sign up for a free sub to John Kremer's book marketing ezine at http://www.bookmarket.com
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Want to get published? Then get real
Two recent events have set a bee a-buzz in my publisher’s bonnet.
The first was was a chat with an organiser of one of the literary festivals that abound in the region; the second was an email from a friend and would-be book author about a writing course she had invested in. They had one startling fact in common: neither had any connection with the cold commercial reality of producing and selling books.
My shady past and part-time present as a hack and author gives me an unfair advantage over those who think no publisher truly understands the soul of a writer. They can get quite umpty when I reveal my soulful existence as one of their number, despite the recent injection of commercialism: they clearly think I have gone to the bad for wanting to bring grubby cash in to the equation, so these conversations tend to be quite short.
The festival organiser is a chum of long-standing, and as well as sitting round a large committee table dreaming up excitements for next year’s festival, she runs creative writing and poetry classes, and a popular writing website. What she hasn’t done is to get her work published beyond some stories in The People’s Friend. Her enthusiasm is infectious and undimmed, but she lives in the warm fuzzy world of the hobby writer with dreams but no real prospects of earning a living from books.
Nothing wrong with that at all. I amuse myself when I go off to Transylvania by digging out my crime novel and writing another chapter or two. I know perfectly well that it’s unlikely to get published, mostly because I’ll never finish it; and that if some fool of a publisher took it on it would soon languish in an unpromoted heap of remaindered copies. But it’s fun, and fills the long quiet Carpathian evenings.
Back to the festival organiser. There was nothing in this year’s festival line-up that related to publishing: the process, the market, the business model, the nitty-gritty of production. Nor was there a hint of the bookselling world; perhaps none of those at the conference had any interest in actually selling a book. Maybe the Creative Art is enough to feed their literary souls.
Same thing with the woman on the writing course. Lots of great stuff on pace, dialogue, character, et al. They were showing, not telling, and making flow charts of the plot for all they were worth. But not a sniff of how the relationship between author and publisher works; nothing to hint at the damaging bitchiness of editors and agents, or the philistine demands of the bean-counters.
If, that is, you ever get to meet a real live publisher. The book industry is morphing into a very different life form, and every part of the chain is affected. Authors who don’t understand what’s going on and how they have to adapt to survive, won’t get on to book shelves, not even via self-publishing. The DIY option is a Morecambe beach of the book world: get it right and you can do very well; choose the wrong path and it’s a slow, painfully expensive, and inevitable doom.
The frustration is that there is so much free help out there, in bookshops and on the internet; for a few hours’ surfing, or £20 in Waterstones, wannabe authors could get some seriously valuable advice to take them to within spitting distance of a book deal. But although they claim to be desperate to get published, they won’t make that small effort.
Book on to another course for wannabes, dearie, and don’t bother those of us who are trying to earn a living.
The first was was a chat with an organiser of one of the literary festivals that abound in the region; the second was an email from a friend and would-be book author about a writing course she had invested in. They had one startling fact in common: neither had any connection with the cold commercial reality of producing and selling books.
My shady past and part-time present as a hack and author gives me an unfair advantage over those who think no publisher truly understands the soul of a writer. They can get quite umpty when I reveal my soulful existence as one of their number, despite the recent injection of commercialism: they clearly think I have gone to the bad for wanting to bring grubby cash in to the equation, so these conversations tend to be quite short.
The festival organiser is a chum of long-standing, and as well as sitting round a large committee table dreaming up excitements for next year’s festival, she runs creative writing and poetry classes, and a popular writing website. What she hasn’t done is to get her work published beyond some stories in The People’s Friend. Her enthusiasm is infectious and undimmed, but she lives in the warm fuzzy world of the hobby writer with dreams but no real prospects of earning a living from books.
Nothing wrong with that at all. I amuse myself when I go off to Transylvania by digging out my crime novel and writing another chapter or two. I know perfectly well that it’s unlikely to get published, mostly because I’ll never finish it; and that if some fool of a publisher took it on it would soon languish in an unpromoted heap of remaindered copies. But it’s fun, and fills the long quiet Carpathian evenings.
Back to the festival organiser. There was nothing in this year’s festival line-up that related to publishing: the process, the market, the business model, the nitty-gritty of production. Nor was there a hint of the bookselling world; perhaps none of those at the conference had any interest in actually selling a book. Maybe the Creative Art is enough to feed their literary souls.
Same thing with the woman on the writing course. Lots of great stuff on pace, dialogue, character, et al. They were showing, not telling, and making flow charts of the plot for all they were worth. But not a sniff of how the relationship between author and publisher works; nothing to hint at the damaging bitchiness of editors and agents, or the philistine demands of the bean-counters.
If, that is, you ever get to meet a real live publisher. The book industry is morphing into a very different life form, and every part of the chain is affected. Authors who don’t understand what’s going on and how they have to adapt to survive, won’t get on to book shelves, not even via self-publishing. The DIY option is a Morecambe beach of the book world: get it right and you can do very well; choose the wrong path and it’s a slow, painfully expensive, and inevitable doom.
The frustration is that there is so much free help out there, in bookshops and on the internet; for a few hours’ surfing, or £20 in Waterstones, wannabe authors could get some seriously valuable advice to take them to within spitting distance of a book deal. But although they claim to be desperate to get published, they won’t make that small effort.
Book on to another course for wannabes, dearie, and don’t bother those of us who are trying to earn a living.
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