Getting Your Books Published

How Do You Get Your Books Published?

Becoming an Indie Publisher

Independent Publishing has become normalized in the 21st Century, because technology is so readily available. From your own laptop, you can purchase a monthly subscription to Microsoft Word®. That is all you actually need to publish your own book.

Word® is a powerful word processor. Using templates and tags, you can format your book as you go. With a quick change on an individual tag (s), you can change the look of your book. If you do not know how to do this, most continuing ed programs offer such courses. Equally useful is the Layout tab, because you can change your page size from its standard setting of 8.5-inch by 11-inch to any number of other sizes, such as 6-inches by 9-inches. Using the custom-size option, you can virtually create any custom size your on-demand printer/publisher offers and you choose.

While there are many publishers/on-demand print companies, beware that they are not all the same! Check out exactly what you are paying for. Some companies to consider:

Traditional Publishing

The traditional route for publishing is the older way of book publishing, where you have an editor that loves your work, gives you lots of advance money (money paid to you before your book is published with the hope of more after publication and marketing). Traditional publishers are also changing, because it is so costly to edit and print a book, distribute it, and market it, they are publishing fewer titles. Many of these publishers are also going to e-books, as well as paperback and hardback. The overhead of the Traditional Publisher drives the cost upwards.

In fact, not only do you need an agent to get your book into the hands of an editor, they also want to know about your online following. If you’ve published an Indie Book, it needed to be a huge success and been on the Best Seller lists. These lists include Amazon.com, but the main Best Seller list that Traditional Publishers are concerned with is the New York Times, which is hard to get in as an Indie Book Publisher.

Hybrid Publishers

Naturally, the Indie Book Publishing industry is also changing. There are more Hybrid Publishing companies that offer a bit of both Traditional and Indie opportunities. This means that the company may open its doors to you, but you have to pay fees for much of the services they provide. Make sure you know who is going to be owner of your manuscript and what the costs are before signing any contracts. You may want to go the Indie route, so that you are making all the decisions and own the manuscript, which means you can use this material in other ways.

The Difference Between Traditional and Indie Publishing

One of the biggest differences between the Traditional and Indie Publishers is ownership of the manuscript. Traditional and Hybrid Publishers usually own the manuscript; whereas, Indie Publishers are more of a printer service. They will help you with layout (at a cost, of course). They provide you with an ISBN number, which is required if your book is going to be going into bookstores – even Amazon! They will edit your book, as well, for a fee.

More About Indie Publishing

There are a number of steps for which you need to do before you send it to the Publisher/On-Demand Printer:

  1. Write your book divided into Chapters.
  2. Get your manuscript edited by a Professional Editor. It’s nice that your uncle or your niece will do it for free, but often you get what you pay for. Good editors are available, check on fivver.com
  3. Design a cover. (Link to Designing a Cover) Your front cover matters. Go into some book stores and notice the covers of books…notice the bestseller books and their covers.
  4. Layout (Link to Book Layout) is another important aspect of your book. You want your readers to easily read your book, so you should cater this layout to your ideal readers! For example, a Children’s Book and an Adult Non-Fiction will not look the same. Children would need larger print. A book on embroidery will need a lot of pictures next to the text discussing a particular stitch or design or whatever. A book on writing may or may not need pictures, but might need specific fonts to make it easier to read.
  5. Uploading to Your Publisher/On-Demand Printer will require you to know what format they need you to upload and how to convert your Word® file to the correct format, such as a .pdf or a .html format. Both convert easily. But remember to do all corrections in your original Word® file and re-convert.

How to Get Started?

12 Easy Steps to Publishing will take you step-by-step through the processes of writing, publishing, and marketing. In just 12 weeks or less, you can write your book – one chapter at a time.

Cost: $75 To Register: