Our Stand on Self Publishing

We don’t encourage our readers to self publish.  Why not? Because many of the self published books are not up to the standards set by conventional publishers. The problem: sloppy writing, poorly edited and often verbose text, novel plots that fall apart, and lack of detail in their non-fiction books.  These authors make self-publishing look bad.

This is not to condemn self-publishing as a whole, in fact we feel that independent publishing is really the future of the book business. We can already see this. Publisher’s Weekly estimates 7,000+ small publishers come into being every year, many starting with a single self-published book. In addition, some self-published books have done well and rival anything published by a conventional publisher.

What we are asking is that you do an apprenticeship before to self-publishing a book

1. Go on Dan Poynter’s website and print out as much as you can. http://www.parapublishing.com/sites/para/ . Dan is one of the leading authorities in self-publishing today. I highly recommend buying his self-Publishing manual as a starting point. You will find an updated manual at  

The Self- Publishing Manual . or buy from Dan Poynter/Amazon for $12.97 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568601344     

The site itself offers a great deal of information on writing, publishing and marketing. You can also sign up there for the Publishing Poynters newsletter, Poynter’s teleconferences, and his Book Promotion Workshops. 

2. Join one or more small or independent press associations: Small Press Center for Independent Publishing,   www.smallpress.org , The Authors and Publishers Association,  www.authorsandpublishersassociation.org

PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association, www.pma-online.org All offer a great deal of help.

3. Hire a graphic designer to design your book cover. Often this is what sells your book.  You’ll find a few here.

http://www.pma-online.org/classi.cfm

4. Have your book professionally edited.  The Writing Center at Utah State University provides a list of freelance editors.  If this is your first self-published book, hire one. http://writingcenter.usu.edu/freelance.htm