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Any Writer Can Publish a Book Online at No Cost
Topic Started: Sep 7 2015, 11:01 PM (95 Views)
kingwand
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Check out the article in today's (Aug. 9, 2010) Sacramento Bee newspaper by Allen Pierleoni, "Make me an author you can't refuse: Any writer can publish using online tools--and no more rejection letters." Read the online version of that article, Self-publishing gets easier with online tools. Also browse the book, Writing What People Buy - iUniverse. That's right you can publish any book of various sizes using publishing tools online and at once be put of the media and its culture. If you're looking for resources such as writing associations and companies of interest to writers in the media, check out this writer's resource list. Basically, you see below a list of my books, all published print on demand from online sources, where you send your Microsoft Word manuscript for a book to a publisher online, and the publisher turns your manuscript into a book and posts it with most online booksellers. You have your choice of a paperback book, like my 91+ books are, or you can upload your book as an e-book, suggest a distributor such as Amazon.com to offer it to Kindle to be read as an e-book, keep it as a paperback, or make an audio or video recording of any part of your book or all of it and send it up to the web (for free) at Internet Archive (if it's free) or if you're charging, to any sites offering audio books that you can make your own price for, such as lulu.com. A mainstream media newspaper reporter also can promote your book if someone in the national media or with a large urban daily newspaper interviews you. It's about the whim of the reporter on a national newspaper who has or is writing a story related to the topic of your book. For example, if the Wall Street Journal writes an article on the plight of low-income senior citizens and your memoirs are about that topic, that reporter, if the individual chooses to interview you or write about your book, could make a difference. Sometimes it's a writing instructor at a senior center who sends your book or information about your writing to a national newspaper reporter writing on a topic similar to what you're researching or writing. I've used lulu.com. See my storefront at lulu.com with a variety of video, audio, and paperback writings. The site at lulu.com is free. I didn't pay anything and it does not cost anything to publish your book or your video or audio recording. You set a price. If you want a distribution, you can pay a small fee. Otherwise, you set your own price and sell your books online. You only pay when you order one book, and that's the price you set plus a small commission to lulu.com. There are several sites online where you can publish your book using the web's tools and make a paperback book, buy a copy of it at the price you set, and have people order books online at your price (plus a small commission for lulu.com). There are other similar sites at Amazon.com, for example, such as Create Space. Also see, Amazon.com: How to Get Published Free: Best in Self-Publishing. See CreateSpace - Free Setup, and also CreateSpace: Self-Publish and Distribute Your Books, Video and Audio. Basically, what you want to look for online are free publishing tools to publish your own book, either paperback, on CD, DVD, audio, or video, or an e-book, or all of these, which I've done on lulu.com. Other books from the print on demand company, iUniverse, for example, ask for a fee to publish your paperback book and distribute it online with most online booksellers. If you belong to the American Society of Journalists & Authors, you can get a discount on an iUniverse.com-published print-on-demand paperback or e-book. You can use online self-publishing, or rather print-on-demand publishing companies such as CreateSpace, Lulu, and Digital Text Platform). You also can pay a fee to have your paperback (and/or e-book) published at Author Solutions (parent company of AuthorHouse, Xlibris and iUniverse), (PubIt!), iBookstore, Smashwords, Scribd, and Fastpencil. I've used iUniverse with most of my books, lulu.com, and others as well as had mainstream publishers such as Career Press for my 2007 co-authored book, Employment Personality Tests Decoded. Before 1985, my mainstream publishers included Simon & Schuster and other mainstream publishers. What I did not like about the mainstream publishers is that your book eventually goes out of print when the publisher says, not when you say. With print-on-demand publishers, you more or less control when your book goes out of print, gets simply unpublished until you want it on the lists of online booksellers again, or stays up there. Since you paid to put your book there, you control what happens to it to a large extent with the self-publishing tools. For example, you manage what kind of distribution you want and will pay for. Some distributions run about $100 to have your book listed on the websites of most of the online book sellers. Usually, your book won't be in bookstores, but available in paperback at the online booksellers' sites, such as Amazon.com if you pay for a distribution. Otherwise, you get a storefront with the publisher's site where people can order your paperback book, CD, or DVD online. Or with Lulu, you can have people download your book in e-book form or buy it in paperback and have both on your free storefront website hosted by Lulu or other publishers offering similar situations to authors. What do I like best? It's the print-on-demand publishers. The reason why is that before 1998, I had a dozen books published by mainstream publishers between 1978 and 1998. The paperback books would go out of print when the publisher determined. In 2007, I had one book published by a mainstream publisher and the rest by print-on-demand online publishers. I compared the books. The mainstream publisher certainly had a reporter contact me from a magazine. The free publicity was great. But with my 91 other books at print on demand publishers, I had to write my own press release and contact media personally. Otherwise, you'd have to pay for public relations services or have the publisher write your press release for a fee. Since the publisher has no idea what niche or ethnic publishers would be most interested in your book, you'd have to provide a list of where you'd want the book to go to. As the media asks for review copies, you'd have to pay for a copy of your book and then send it to the media with a print-on-demand publisher. That doesn't pay. With unknown writers, most of the time, the book would not get reviewed. You'd lose your money. That's why sending a reporter an electronic PDF file copy of your book to review would be free, but chances are unless you asked the reporter in advance, no one is going to read a book online because eyes get tired much faster looking at a computer screen than at a large-print paperback. But if you ask for a large-print paperback, your book will cost more to the consumer for the added pages if you're publishing print-on-demand. With most print-on-demand (P.O.D. publishers, the publishers get 80 percent of the profit on your books, and you get a mere 20 percent. But that's better than the average 5 percent you'd get in royalties from mainstream publishers. Some P.O.D. publishers give you a 30 percent royalty. Other publishers give writers 70 to 80 percent profit and the publisher only takes 20 or 30 percent royalty on your book. They earn more than you just for hosting your book image and summary on their website. You get less for doing all the writing, research, editing, and promotion. Self-published authors can have their books downloaded as e-books to a variety of e-readers (including Kindle (Amazon) and iPad (Apple). You can have your book downloaded to a variety of mobile devices and computers or stick with the paperback or hardcover. Most people will buy paperback because it's light to carry in transit for easy reading on the beach, in bed, or in a lounge chair. The R.R. Bowker Company put together bibliographic data. In 2009, 764,448 self-published titles appeared in print. That's up 181 percent from 2008. Compare print-on-demand books with the mere 289,729 titles from traditional publishing houses. Hardcover books are not selling well this year. Paperback books are. There are so many people writing for the joy of it that you can guess self-publishing tools are going to increase the number of people writing and publishing books, hopefully at no or low cost to the author. The profit should go to the writer, not the publisher when you print books online because you're not getting any publicity unless you pay for it or arrange it yourself. Few reporters are going to review your self-published or print-on-demand books, so you have to find ways to promote your books at no cost to you. Otherwise, you're stuck paying fees to have the company that printed your book write your press releases and send them to generic media, missing perhaps the niche media you want to learn about your book. Unless you have a national radio talk show, the chances of selling a lot of copies of your book are not there unless you pay. And most authors don't have the money to pay for publicity or to invest heavily in books that usually are not heard from much after a year on the market. If you write for teachers, contact teachers, for example. The Internet has a lot of ways to promote your media in a niche culture that relates to the topic of your book. Fiction competes with the entertainment industry. Nonfiction is read for the value of its information to help people solve problems and make decisions such as choices. After having published 91 books print on demand, the conclusion is that you have to go out and speak about your book on public Internet radio, national radio, and sometimes on TV. A celebrity can send your book to the best-seller list, if the celebrity interviews you as an author on a national TV show. This leaves out the person who is not able to talk in public for physical reasons or for shyness or fear of judgment. The alternative is to promote your own print-on-demand published book online on your own site or continue to write for a variety of outlets or blogs read by a national audience, unless your book is local. There are success stories. Your books could be picked up by a mainstream publisher who might pay you an advance. With my own publishing experiences, I had published about a dozen books with mainstream publishers before I turned to print-on-demand as a way to write the novels, plays, and nonfiction books that had niche markets that most mainstream publishers would find too narrow. Print-on-demand published books have their own audience and following. Mainly certain novels appeal to women like myself in the age 70-90+ age group looking to expand their horizons. The nonfiction books are informational and focus on resources and ways to solve problems, measure results, and make better choices. Check out the success stories in today's Sacramento Bee article. Interestingly, the Sacramento Bee never interviewed me as a Sacramento author success story, and I think I'm the only Sacramento author who has had 91 paperback books published with online print-on-demand publishers after having had a full-time writing career stretching from the late 1950s to the present, including having had about a dozen mainstream publisher paperback books published between 1985-1998. If you think about it, many authors with mainstream book publishers get about $1,500 or less in advance for nonfiction, how-to or informational books. The books go out of print within two years or don't sell enough to earn royalties. But at least the online tools for publishing your book yourself offer you hope. That's the hope your book won't go out of print for generations. And that hope might motivate you to keep writing and letting the world know through your online writings that you continue to write more books as long as it's the joy of writing. Also, most mainstream newspaper reporters will interview the print-on-demand published authors who have had their books picked up by mainstream publishers or who have made money. You won't see many interviews in the mainstream media about authors who have printed books that never sold more than a few copies, if any. Mainstream brick-and-mortar publishers may promote books by celebrities (even if written with a co-author, ghostwriter, or 'with' another author) more than they promote books written by full-time book authors of informational, how-to, popular books meant for general audiences. For example, if you have no day job and write books for a living, and hold a liberal arts degree, your book may not be publicized as well as a book written by a celebrity, even if the celebrity (or famous doctor) writes the book with a co-author. Worse yet are 'unreadable' books written by educators where the mainstream-published books remain on university shelves and are rarely read, even by students. But what about the popular book author whose books are never read because the author is too old to have the energy required to speak to the public about the book or is a low-income person who writes because the individual is not offered other work, for example tutoring or teaching creative writing, or working as a manuscript 'doctor'? Writing a book that nobody buys is worse than writing a screenplay that never gets read and competes with the entertainment industry. In Hollywood, for example, there are more than 50,000 scripts floating around that rarely are read by the people who can option the screenplay. One way to salvage that script is to expand it into a novel and publish it print-on-demand as a thriller, humorous novel, or for a particular niche audience. The bottom line is if your book isn't promoted, few will know about it. Your job is to find out how you can launch your book in the media without it costing you money, particularly if you're a low-come senior who isn't about to go on a book tour, speak to a live audience, or pay to promote your book. You have to rely on the material in the book to promote itself by reaching the niche market where your marketing research and audience is at. Books by this Sacramento Author: Writing, Financing, & Producing Documentaries Neurotechnology with Culinary Memoirs from the Daily Nutrition & Health Reporter Do You Have the Aptitude & Personality to Be A Popular Author? ADVENTURES IN MY BELOVED MEDIEVAL ALANIA AND BEYOND How Nutrigenomics Fights Childhood Type-2 Diabetes & Weight Issues How to Start, Teach, & Franchise a Creative Genealogy Writing Class or Club How to Make Basic Natural Cleaning Products from Foods 101+ Practical Ways to Raise Funds Dogs with Careers: Ten Happy-Ending Stories of Purpose and Passion Who's Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying? Ethno-Playography How to Video Record Your Dog's Life Story How to Launch a Genealogy TV Business Online How to Publish in Womenýs Studies, Menýs Studies,Policy Analysis, &Family History Research How to Start Engaging Conversations on Women's, Men's, or Family Studies with Wealthy Strangers How to Open DNA-Driven Genealogy Reporting & Interpreting Businesses Why We Never Give Up Our Need for a Perfect Mother Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome 30+ Brain-Exercising Creativity Coach Businesses to Open 101 Ways to Find Six-Figure Medical or Popular Ghostwriting Jobs & Clients How to Refresh Your Memory by Writing Salable Memoirs with Laughing Walls 102 Ways to Apply Career Training in Family History/Genealogy Creating Family Newsletters & Time Capsules Social Smarts Strategies That Earn Free Book Publicity How to Start Personal Histories & Genealogy Journalism Businesses 1700 Ways to Earn Free Book Publicity A Perfect Mitzvah Gift Book How to Open a Business Writing and Publishing Memoirs, Gift Books, or Success Stories for Clients 35 Video Podcasting Careers & Businesses to Start Diet Fads, Careers & Controversies in Nutrition Journalism Where to Find Your Arab-American or Jewish Genealogy Records Job Coach-Life Coach-Executive Coach-Branding-Letter & Resume-Writing Service How to Turn Poems, Lyrics, & Folklore into Salable Children's Books INFANT GENDER SELECTION & PERSONALIZED MEDICINE Middle Eastern Honor Killings in the USA 32 Podcasting & Other Businesses to Open Showing People How to Cut Expenses Baltic, Scandinavian, Eastern European, & Middle Eastern Ancestry Online Large Print Crossword Puzzles for Memory Enhancement PREDICTIVE MEDICINE FOR ROOKIES Popular Health & Medical Writing for Magazines Writing 45-Minute One-Act Plays, Skits, Monologues, & Animation Scripts for Drama Workshops Cutting Expenses & Getting More for Less Dramatizing 17th Century Family History of Deacon Stephen Hart & Other Early New England Settlers Scrapbooking, Time Capsules, Life Story Desktop Videography & Beyond with Poser 5, CorelDRAW ® Graphics Suite 12 & Corel WordPer Problem-Solving & Cat Tales for the Holidays Writing 7-Minute Inspirational Life Experience Vignettes Ancient & Medieval Teenage Diaries 801 Action Verbs for Communicators How to Write Plays, Monologues, or Skits from Life Stories, Social Issues, or Current Events Search Your Middle Eastern & European Genealogy Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals How to Interpret Family History & Ancestry DNA Test Results for Beginners Is Radical Liberalism or Extreme Conservatism a Character Disorder, Mental Disease, or Publicity Campaign? Writer's Guide to Book Proposals Creative Genealogy Projects Find Your Personal Adam & Eve One Day Some Schlemiel Will Marry Me, Pay the Bills, and Hug Me. How to Safely Tailor Your Food, Medicines, & Cosmetics to Your Genes Nutritional GenomicsA Consumer's Guide to How Your Genes and Ancestry Respond to Food The Beginner's Guide to Interpreting Ethnic DNA Origins for Family History TRACING YOUR JEWISH DNA FOR FAMILY HISTORY & ANCESTRYy Selling Facts Roman Justice: SPQR How to Interpret Your DNA Test Results For Family History & Ancestry The DNA Detectives How to Make Money Organizing Information How To Stop Elderly Abuse How Two Yellow Labs Saved the Space Program Astronauts and Their Cats Make Money With Your Camcorder and PC: 25+ Businesses Sacramento Latina Writing What People Buy Cyber Snoop Nation Tools for Mystery Writers How to Make Money Teaching Online With Your Camcorder and PC The Date Who Unleashed Hell Cleopatra's Daughter Counseling Anarchists Anne Joan Levine, Private Eye Verbal Intercourse Murder in the Women's Studies Department The Khazars Will Rise Again! New Afghanistan's TV Anchorwoman The Writer's Bible Power Dating Games Four Astronauts and a Kitten The Courage to Be Jewish and the Wife of an Arab Sheik The Freelance Writer's E-Publishing Guidebook A Private Eye Called Mama Africa
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