If you have finally written that book, there are basically five ways that you can get it published. One way to go is to find a literary agent to represent you or you can approach the traditional mainstream publisher yourself. Then again, if you relish the challenge of publishing the book yourself either because you do not want to loose creative control of your work or you are looking for a bigger financial return, you may consider Self publishing. You can do this by either using a local printer or using an on-line Print On Demand service like Lulu.com. Lastly, there is the option of embracing the technology and market place of the world wide web and producing your book as a piece of digital information or e-book.
Publishing through an agency.
Finding yourself a literary agent can be a great time saver. If you can get your book, accepted by an agent who is on the inside of the literary network, they will be able to help guide you through the system. First of all, and most importantly, they will tell you if your book is marketable, you do not want to waste time and energy flogging a dead horse. That is not to say that your book is bad, just that it is not saleable. This can be a fine distinction and there can be many reasons. If they do decide to recommend it, that will almost guarantee that your manuscript will be read by a publishing house. If the agent believes your book is worth representing they will draw up a contract, and in return for about 15% of the entire deal your agents will work extremely hard to get your manuscript into a publishing house.
Depending whether you’ve written a work of fiction or non-fiction, you will be able to find someone suitable by paging through a publishing guide directory. Most agents have built up contacts in a particularly genre, so it is worth checking what previous books they have helped published. You can then make contact by sending them a short query letter as way of an introduction to yourself and your idea. Include enough information to arouse interest and take it from there.
Going with a traditional publisher.
You can of course try to cut out the middleman and go it alone. You will need to do a bit research and find out which publishing house prints books similar to the one you have written. Again, you will have to contact them by sending a short query letter and hopefully you will get a request to submit your manuscript. Be prepared, if they like your book you will probably be asked to pitch it to them in person. In fact, this is one part of writing that some authors still feel uneasy with but you must be prepared to market yourself. As budgets get tighter for publishing houses, authors are expected to do a major part of their own marketing.
You must also be prepared for rejection if you use this method. Many of the larger publishing companies will not risk their money on an unknown author,. This is one advantage of using the literary agent, as their judgement is trusted and will go a long way to influence the publisher’s decision in your favour..
Self publishing with a local printer
If you decide to take your book to a local printer and self publish, you must be prepared to make the decisions concerning the production of your book. You will have to make all the decisions. As well as having to organise the printing and marketing, there are even the minute details to consider, including what paper the book is printed on. Make sure you choose a printer that has experience in book production, then at least he will be able to give you some good advice. Do not go with the first one, visit two or three and get quotes to help you work out your budget. You must remember that the printer will produce precisely what you give him, without any revision or editing. It is important that your book is proofread before submission. If you choose this path you will have to store your books, do all the marketing and promotion, fulfil all the orders and organise shipping.
Self publishing online with print on demand.
With the advent of on-line sites like Lulu.com, self publishing has become so much easier and cheaper. After you have downloaded your version of the book to Lulu, they will take care of the printing and delivery. This means after you have written your book, you can devote your time to marketing and promoting it. They can even provide extra services for you,such as giving an ISBN number and making your book available to big book stores, like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Selling you work as an e-book.
The e-book is a digital version of your book that may be purchased and downloaded, and then immediately read on-line. If you use free word processing software like “Open Office” writer, you can automatically turn your document into a PDF e-book that can be sold on-line from your blog or website. You can do this by setting up an account with an e-commerce site like Pay Pal which will provide you with payment buttons on your website pages, to sell your book. Another more sophisticated way to go is to get a shopping cart system or use data delivery software like Smart DD
Which way to go?
Obviously there are risks and benefits with each method, and to a certain extent, your choices will be controlled by your budget. With traditional publishing, if your book is accepted, you can expect between 5% and 8% of the royalties on an initial run, that is perhaps as low as 5000. If you have an agent, you will have to pay them their share out of this.
When going with a local printer, you will have to have enough money to pay for everything upfront. Usually the more you can afford to have printed, the cheaper each book will be. You then have the expense of marketing and publicity, along with all the hassle associated with running a small publishing company. This includes keeping all the business books, sales invoices, delivery notes, etc.; and dealing with officials like the tax office. Offset against this is the fact, that if you are successful, you will earn more money and will be in the position to help other authors publish their books.
Publishing your book with a print on demand service, like Lulu is probably the cheaper of the options. You will also save yourself a great deal of time, as they take care of all the storage and delivery. You will still have to to spend a lot of time publicity and marketing if you want to be successful.
Finally, e-books are the way to go if you want to retain complete control of your book and its profits. Once you have the system up and running to sell your books actually producing them cost virtually nothing and in theory, you can sell them every day for the rest of your life. All you will have to worry about is getting potential customers to your website.
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