Looking for some insight into the process, costs, things to know.
My wife just wrapped up a nearly 3 year effort, writing when she's had the time.

From what she's found so far, self publishing could cost $10k between editing, proofreading, graphic design & she's feeling a bit discouraged with that knowledge.

I plan on reading it & giving my critique, but I'm no editor. I've avoided reading it until she's done with it.

Thanks, all!

Edit, details in post further down the page, below:
https://www.amazon.com/Love-10...a%2Caps%2C370&sr=8-1

This message has been edited. Last edited by: P250UA5,

quote:

From what she's found so far, self publishing could cost $10k between editing, proofreading, graphic design & she's feeling a bit discouraged with that knowledge.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That is about right. The alternative is shopping the book with different publishers. A family member did the self publishing and found it rather exhausting. It was finally published and she felt good about it. Did not make any money.

IIRC, Typically you hire an agent who is well connected to get a book proposal sold based upon an outline and a chapter or two. At least two guys I know went this route.

Expect ALL promotion to come from you, and not the publisher.

I know a couple of authors who have self-published, and although I’m not completely familiar with how they did it, the process didn’t seem that daunting and was something I’ve been considering myself. But of course the subject of the book and whether it would require professional editing, proofreading, etc., would be significant variables. Their advice to me was to attempt to have a publisher pick it up and then the company would handle those sorts of things, but if that was unsuccessful I’d have to rely on my own efforts.

What type/subject is the book?

Increasingly, book publishing is being crowdfunded, especially when it comes to books that would only interest a niche group.

They write a draft of a book about a certain topic, then start a Kickstarter (or similar) for it, and advertise it heavily among forums and other social media groups pertaining to the books' target interest group.

Once (if) enough money is generated through the Kickstarter, the book is greenlit, they use that Kickstarter money to cover the editing/design/publishing costs, and the backers get a copy of the book once published. If the Kickstarter isn't successful, the backers get their money back, and the book draft gets shelved.

Sometimes this crowdfunding is coordinated by the publishing company. Sometimes it is coordinated by the author themselves.

They're effectively getting sufficient pre-sales on the front end to ensure the publishing costs are covered, with the buyers in turn being assured a refund if the book falls through. It's a safer bet than laying out thousands of dollars on publishing costs first and then hoping to sell enough copies to at least recoup those costs.

I published a book although it was 16 years ago, it's still selling on Amazon. It's a technical book on Project Management for software development. The methodology is no longer popular so not many copies are sold these days. However, it was an interesting experience.

I was fortunate, because I had not seriously considered writing a book. I presented at a software conference, and the next week the publisher contacted me and asked if I was interested in writing a book. I was, so the first thing I did was go on Amazon and order a couple of books on how to write a book proposal :-)

The proposal was accepted, and as part of the proposal, I wrote one Chapter so they can get a sense of my writing style. The whole book took me about a year to write (I had another full time job during this). It ended up being about 300 pages.

When you have a publisher publishing your book, you sign your rights for the submitted material over to them. Another thing that scared me a bit was that as part of the agreement I signed to deliver the book, I had to sign a statement that said if someone read the book and was offended enough to sue the publisher (or myself) for some reason, I would have to pay not only my own legal expenses but those of the publisher myself. That gave me pause, although my attorney stated there is no way to get around this, so just be careful when writing the material.

Another thing that surprised me was for some reason, the book was popular in Russia, so it was translated into Cyrillic. I didn't even know this was happening until the publisher shipped a few copies to me!

You won't get rich publishing your first book either. I estimate I probably made less than minimum wage given all the hours I spent on the project, but it was worth it.

Increasingly, authors are expected to have a platform and followers, and to be able to make their initial pitch with an idea of the market for their work, and comparisons to similar works and sales. The marketing of a book may begin several years before publication.

You can fill a bookshelf with volumes about getting published.

A good starting point is a subscription to Writers Digest. https://www.writersdigest.com/

Grab a current volume of Writers Market. https://writersmarket.com/

My Mom published 4 books . She didn't spend anywhere near 10k each . Mom didn't type so she had to pay somebody to type it into a computer and save it on a flash drive . Plenty of people available to do that . She used a local publisher and printer . Soft cover of course . It can be done .

Depending on your level of interest and timing... go to "Great Courses" and look for "How to Publish Your Book"

https://www.thegreatcourses.com

this course is currently listed at $149 but the co. recycles their prices constantly. When it's on 'sale for $40 or so it is a great choice and about the price of a couple of books that may or may not be on topic.

You can scan the individual lessons when you preview the thing. If this is the sort of thing you are looking for it is just the thing you are looking for.

interested also tagging to keep the thread

quote:

Anyone knowledgeable on book publishing?

I am not. But I have a friend who is. He actually wrote a book on it.
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Pu..._product_top?ie=UTF8

Does the book have to be published physically? Ebook & PDF publishing is a lot less expensive and more viable for self-publishing.

I believe RogueJSK's advice is sound. I know a girl who self-published a book through her blog and Kickstarter. She didn't get rich off it, but it was profitable. Andy Weir self-published The Martian using similar methods.

On a related note, there's the story of Putting My Foot Down. It's an interesting take on how easy it was for someone to 'game the system' into becoming an official Amazon Best-seller.

https://observer.com/2016/03/e...ot-a-real-book-deal/

quote:

P250UA5

Vanity Press (aka self publishing) is not the way to go. Try to sell the manuscript. If there is no interest from publishers, there is a reason for that. They are the experts. If they don't think it will sell, your chances of being successful on you own are not worth putting forth any more effort.

Unsolicited manuscripts arrive on publishers doorsteps daily. Most go into file 13. If you want so try to sell it, create a short synopsis from the book. Consult Writers Digest for the category for which a particular publisher might be interested. Submit that synopsis with a cover letter.

She got it done.
Published with Amazon through their Kindle publishing services.

Link below if you want to take a look, bit of a lovey story, but I enjoyed it.

https://www.amazon.com/Love-10...a%2Caps%2C370&sr=8-1

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
She got it done.

Excellent! Congratulations.

Congratulations. Good luck with the sales! Hopefully it is successful enough to bring encouragement to keep going.

Congratulations to her.

If she's going to continue writing she might take a look at "DIY MFA", and "Mary Atkins", for continuing helps and hints. Some of their stuff is fee based, but much of it is simply in their blogs. Pretty cool stuff sometimes, with easy access.

Congrats to your wife.

I would like to hear updates on the book’s progress

Anyone else used Kindle Publishing?
My wife is reading hers in Kindle format & has noticed a lot of punctuation/capitalization issues. Issues that aren't present in her non-Kindle original documents.
Guessing something got skewed in the Kindle conversion.

quote:

Originally posted by nosticks:
... If there is no interest from publishers, there is a reason for that. They are the experts. If they don't think it will sell, your chances of being successful on you own are not worth putting forth any more effort.

Someone should have told JK Rowling this. She was turned down by one after another. They all thought that Harry Potter wizard thing was dumb, and not salable. Yes, she should have given up I guess. Instead, Rowling has since become the UK's best-selling living author, her books have brought in more than $25 billion and sold more copies than any other book series -ever. Wonder what the many (@13 I heard) publishers who turned down Harry Potter are doing these days.

Congrats on your wife getting published!