Hi all,

Does anyone know anything about publishing a book?
I know there are a few sites on web about self publishing
but is it really just paying to have them print your material
regardless of how good it is?

Or if you wanted an illustrator to get involved ?


Cheers

s

I have a friend who had a book self-published. It seemed to be very expensive but the product looked like a real book. I think she had to agree to have it sub-edited and that cost a lot and there were still lots of errors in spelling, grammar and layout. The content was supposed to be semi-autobiographical which made me look on her in a new light
I don't think a self-published book will sell much without a publishing-house promotion department behind it so look on it as an achievement, rather than a money-spinner.

I've heard of a couple of people using Lulu, but no direct experience.

Didn't the guy who built the Kimini use Lulu?

My father self published a book of childrens stories in 2001.

I cant remember what it cost him, it wasnt cheap but it was exactly the sort of distration he needed in the months following the death of my mother.

He realised it was vanity publishing, though the publishers did not make this immediately transparent at the start of the process so wasnt really surprised the publishers didnt do any active marketting of the book. Instead he managed to get talk his way into a slot on local radio which shifted a few copies. It did look good as a bound book with nice illustrations by someone called Matt Plant.

The publisher was called Minerva Press, a name mya dad thought he'd heard of as a historic publisher of gothic novels back in the early nineteeth century. He later discovered there was no connection other than by name, the earlier publisher packed up in the early nineteenth century and a completely different outfit picked up the name in the late 20th century.

They sent a box of books for friends and relations and more were ordered from Amazon. In fact Ive just seen the book is still available on the Amazon site- albeit there is only one copy showing left in stock.

prepairing, printing, and publishing, are three separate tasks.

publishing also involves
allocation of isbn / ean codes (barcode) ,
sending copies to the registrars, (british library, oxford, cambridge etc)

Have you considered publishing electronically? There are a few options from the simple approach of creating a PDF or epub file and selling it through a web site of your own or you could work with Amazon via Kindle or Apple via the iBookstore. I don't know much about Kindle but for iBooks you could use the excellent iBooks Author application, especially if you already have a Mac.

Details of iBooks Author here:
http://www.apple.com/uk/ibooks-author/

Here is a tutorial covering the iBooks authoring process:
http://www.raywenderlich.com/32493/how-to-make-an-ebook-with-ibooks-author-tutorial

I almost never buy physical books anymore as the electronic version can be with me wherever I go (on my iPhone) or most places I go (on my iPad). There is a huge market out there in the shape of tablet and smartphone users and get to keep 70% of the purchase price of your books which is probably better than you would get through a traditional publisher.

Good luck whatever you decide to do!

my mrs is just doing a proof reading course at the moment , it involves copy editing tooo....

you will need someone to do it , and at £30/hr its not cheap .

you will need an ISBN number if you want to sell in shops altho its not really needed , thats not cheap either ...

Online Publishing sounds like the way forward....

Cheers for all the answers.

I have looked at Lulu and azimuthprint and I must admit the latter looks too easy.
It says its £120 for 10 books.
Which I was quite surprised by as I thought it would have been more.
I hadn't considered going down the E-publishing route but I suppose when I think about
my sons tablet it might be good.

Might have to give one of the printers a call and find out what the implications are
regarding ISBN, amazon etc.

Thanks

S

My sister is in that field...low volume publishing and all that it entails.....tell her Alan sent you...

Check out linky

[Edited on 13/6/13 by Alan B]