SELF-PUBLISH!
Introduction
NB: The first part of the intro looks at the different ways to get published, in particular through traditional publishing companies and print-on-demand (POD) companies
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Self-publishing your own work is the object of this book. True self-publishing is when the author of a book takes on and pays for all aspects of its publication, including but not limited to its production, distribution, marketing. In other words, you will take care of all the things that a traditional publishing house would normally do for you, if you were only the author.
This does not mean that you literally do everything yourself, but that you will be managing the whole publishing venture, bringing in outside help when required from specific contractors along the way (eg printer, illustrator). You will be running and financing a small business whose goal is to produce and sell a single product: your printed book. In most cases, the business’s goal is to make a profit over time even if it is usually not (and should not be) the main reason for self-publishing.
There are many aspects to producing, distributing, marketing and selling a book and this is the reason why all the following chapters are dedicated to guiding you through the time-consuming but rewarding process of publishing your own work.
If being published by a traditional publishing house is not possible, or you have other reasons not to go through an established publisher (eg preferring to keep control over the content, design and marketing; preferring the challenge of managing the project from the beginning to the end) and if a POD company does not seem to fit your requirements but you do want to see your work in print and available to the wider public then self-publishing is an option you should explore.
Self-publishing used to be considered as bad as vanity publishing, but with so many recent self-publishing successes it is now possible to be a respected self-publisher. Indeed, many large publishers now follow with interest self-published and POD books and may in some cases buy the reprint rights of such books that might fit their publishing program.
Self-publishing a book does not mean in any way that your printed book will be of inferior quality than a traditionally published one. Or that it will not sell. However producing a high-quality, marketable book on your own does require some skills and effort, as well as a certain amount of money that will vary depending on many factors, for example how many sub-contractors you need, how costly the printing cost per copy is (and how big the print run is), and how much you invest in marketing.
Another thing to bear in mind is that self-publishing your first book may be just what you need to acquire a reasonable level of fame on your local market and therefore attract the interest of a traditional publisher. If you are keen to continue on writing and manage to first pull it off by publishing a successful, highly-sellable, good-quality book on your own that catches on really well chances are that you will soon be offered a publishing deal for your next project.
Landing a good deal with a larger publisher who can push your sales to the next level is something that has happened to many successful authors over the years. I can testify it myself! Of course all this depends on the level of success of your first project, and helping you make it highly successful is what I will focus on in the rest of this book.
© copyright Christelle Le Ru - Self-Publish! (CLR Books, 2009)
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