Guest Author - Jacqueline Suffolk
When you feel your story or stories are ready for publication, where do you go? Who do you contact? Whether to publish your story or stories with a reputable publisher or go it alone and self publish?
Self-publishing your work is a daunting prospect; it will be a huge learning curve and has many pitfalls. If you decide to go with a publisher and all goes well, it can take anything up to nine months from acceptance of a manuscript to publication. However, this does give publishers time to publish on Amazon before the book hits the shops. With self-publishing you don’t have to wait for so long to publish, but your book will be out before it is available on Amazon.
If you self-publish, not only do you have to write your manuscript, but you have to create any artwork, decide on how many copies to have printed, the type, paper quality and all on a budget.
Printing: Small runs are an expensive way to print, because the initial setting up is the largest part of the cost, but there are specialist short run printing houses. Print on demand is much cheaper in the short term at least. Many self-publishing authors think that by using a ‘print on demand’ company like Lulu, it will also increase sales, it won’t, it just makes distribution easier. The author still needs to sell their books as you would with a conventional printer.
A conventional print run’s main problem is, you may end up with a large quantity of books, which you will have to store, sell and distribute. Whatever method you use comes down to time. Do you have the time to distribute to shops and Amazon, the storage space or, most importantly, the money? A conventional print run will make more money per book sold, but may leave you with a quantity of unsold books.
Marketing: The internet is a valuable resource for getting your name and book noticed especially for the self-publisher. There are a number of avenues to pursue, your website, facebook, twitter and a blog about the books subject matter, are all a good way to begin. Always have books for sale on your website and set up an e-bay store. Use your blog to develop an online readership and if people like the style and content, they will be enticed to buy the book. Look at other blogs and try to post on them regularly, as this is an excellent way to encourage traffic to your site and make people aware of your book.
Approach local bookstores and if it’s a specialist book, the relevant specialist stores because many books are bought as presents. The difficulty is, maintaining the momentum, so use every opportunity to plug your book.
Selling: many readers prefer to buy directly from the author or Amazon, and many are familiar with the buying process from Amazon and will probably already have their own account set up. Anything that makes buying or selling easier is always a winner. To assist in the sale of your book, a unique selling point is always a good idea, something about your book that makes it stand out or exclusive. There is always the personal touch, well advertised, book signings at your local bookstore.
If you do decide to self-publish, do your researches first, look at how other authors have achieved their aim, look at blogs, facebook and twitter and ask questions, before you spend any of your own hard earned cash.
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