| Today there are more options than ever before | | | | You can contact retailers and online distributors |
| for getting your book published. Here are four | | | | yourself or utilize a professional service |
| ways that you can get your book published: | | | | The first step is to decide which tasks you will do |
| 1. Commercial Book Publishing | | | | and which tasks you will hire someone else to do. |
| 2. Self Publishing | | | | Thanks to the internet, there is a wealth of |
| 3. Subsidy Publishing | | | | information online for you on each step of the |
| 4. Ebook Publishing | | | | process. |
| 1. Commercial Book Publishing - This is the most | | | | 3. Subsidy Publishing - In this case, the author |
| well known way to get published and can also be | | | | pays a printing company to produce the book and |
| the most challenging. While there are thousands of | | | | then earns royalties from the sales of the book |
| publishing houses, today there are more writers | | | | (usually a percentage). Sometimes this is confused |
| than ever before. | | | | with self publishing. With self publishing the author |
| Publishing houses are businesses and like all | | | | pays all the expenses and in turn receives 100% |
| businesses their goal is to create profit as | | | | of the proceeds. |
| efficiently as possible. It is unlikely that you will be | | | | Another name for this is "Vanity Publishing |
| able to make contact with a publishing house if | | | | Houses" which sometimes can have bad |
| you don't have a good literary agent. | | | | reputations. They will often claim that they can |
| Surveys indicate that literary agents only accept 1 | | | | sell the book and then after paying for everything |
| out of 400 writers for representation. The | | | | the writer is left without any real distribution and |
| majority of literary agents prefer to take on | | | | stuck with a bunch of books. |
| clients that have previously been published. | | | | 4. Ebook Publishing - This is a relatively new |
| To get published with a publishing house will take a | | | | phenomenon in the book publishing industry. It is |
| combination of talent, timing and luck. You can be | | | | very easy to take a digital file and turn it into and |
| an very talented writer and have a wonderful | | | | ebook to sell online. A good way to do this is by |
| book but if the publishing house just finished | | | | having a personal website or blog and putting up |
| publishing a book that is similar to yours you may | | | | articles and content to attract visitors and get |
| not be accepted - or if this is a "red hot market" | | | | publicity. |
| then you may be lucky. | | | | Alternatively, you can order an ISBN online and |
| For these reasons it is important to do research | | | | then companies like Amazon and Mobipocket will |
| and see what are the trends and what people are | | | | sell your ebook through their distribution network |
| buying. An excellent resource for this type of | | | | and you earn royalties from each sale. |
| information is Amazon's Bestseller section. | | | | Thanks to the internet there has never been a |
| 2. Self Publishing - Where in the past commercial | | | | better time for an author to get published. Some |
| publishing was the only option, today you can | | | | people feel that because there is so much |
| "self-publish" your book. Self publishing is when you | | | | information online that traditional books will |
| find others who offer all of the services that you | | | | become obsolete. |
| will need to create, print and distribute your book. | | | | I feel that while this may be true in some |
| Some of the services required are: | | | | categories, for the most part it is the opposite - |
| *Editing - This is very important for most types | | | | all of the free information creates a hunger for |
| of books | | | | more! |
| *Proof Pages - Preparing the pages and page | | | | When radio first came out, the music industry |
| order | | | | was worried that they wouldn't sell as much |
| *Artwork - You'll need both Front and Back | | | | albums and then they started selling much more. |
| covers plus the internal artwork which is any | | | | It's similar to how in a grocery store you are |
| images or clip-art that appears within the text | | | | offered free samples, if it tastes good than you |
| *Printing - You will need to turn your electronic | | | | are more likely to buy. |
| files into hard/soft cover books. There are 3 | | | | It's a good idea to spend a lot of time doing |
| options for printing: get a small amount printed, | | | | research until you feel what is the best way for |
| get a large amount printed or use a | | | | you to approach publishing your book. I highly |
| print-on-demand service | | | | recommend utilizing the internet to share with |
| *Distribution - How will you distribute the books? | | | | others and grow your readership. |