Publishing Tools

--For kids/teens who want to get published, here's a great site which does just that and at a very reasonable price. Go to www.kidpub.com and check out what they offer. They publish compilations for classes, too, and have had these books used successfully as fund raisers for the school.

Several years ago, I was well into working on my first book and had to make a decision -- Should I spend a couple of years researching traditional publishers, formatting my manuscript for submission, and sending it in to one publisher after another, or should I spend that two years researching self-publishing and go that route? After reading that Peachtree Publishers gets 20,000 manuscripts a year and publishes only around 50, I decided I would go for self-publishing. I had read that self-publishing is an especially effective option if you are aiming at a niche market, and I was. I wanted to target the homeschooling population because I homeschooled my own kids and had written the book with homeschooled kids in mind.

After months and months of research interspersed with learning to build this website, and along with finishing the book, I had come across some choice options which I highly recommend. They worked for me at at least. And hopefully some of these will work for you, too.

Software:

• Book Design Wizard
  This program is for easy text formatting (toggles the table of contents to the chapters and automatically updates page numbers for the table of contents; sets up the proper mirror margins; and the alternating even/odd headers, plus a lot more).
  About $40
  http://www.bookdesignwizard.com
  As I have used this program, I have worked to learn also how to do most of the set up myself in Word. But I couldn't have done it with out this program. I still use it for the initial set-up of a book, and then usually tweak things directly in Word. I write the book first in a normal Word program without special formatting, then copy and paste it into the book design wizard set-up when I'm close to being finished, but you can start in the Book Design set-up, too.
• Book Cover Pro
  A cover design program -- formats the cover (front, back, spine) properly for any size book. Easy to learn.
  about $80.
  http://www.bookcoverpro.com

Publishing Sources:

• Create Space
  Create Space is a subsidiary of Amazon for self-publishing books, cd's, and dvd's. There are NO set up fees at all. Very cheap printing costs. Book goes instantly to Amazon. You can submit changes to your files (to the book) at any time without extra cost (except the cost of another proof, i.e. the minimal printing price plus s&h).
  https://www.createspace.com
• Lightning Source
  After making sure a book is exactly as I want it, I spend around $100 total to put it through the hoops with Lightning Source. You have to sign up as a publishing company (but that can consist of just you),  and they accept the same files that I send to Create Space. It costs here to make changes, though, so that's why I wait until everything is just right. LS puts your book out through Ingram -- a wholesale distribution company that is nationally respected and well-known. At that point your book goes everywhere (Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc.) and is available to any bookstore or library at the wholesale price (which does not happen through Create Space (though Create Space has recently introduced their program for expanded distribution which you may want to research and compare).
  About $100
  http://www.lightningsource.com

Putting your files into a PDF:

• All files have to be submitted in pdf form. I use the free pdf creator  <http://www.primopdf.com>
• And, for some reason, I had trouble with the free Adobe reader opening my pdf's. I tried switching pdf creators first, but that didn't help. So then I switched to another free reader -- Foxit Reader-- and had no problems after that. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/

ISBN

• Create Space (and other publishers) will give you a free ISBN, but then YOU do not own it. If you switch to another publisher, you have to get a new ISBN which leads to confusion, a "second edition" and most self publishers giving advice online say buy your own. It's a scam if anyone other than the US ISBN agency, Bowker, tries to sell you one, too. People buy blocks of a hundred or more and then sell them off piece-meal for more, but they still own the isbn and it is in their name, not yours or your company's. There's only one place to buy:
  http://www.bowker.com/index.php/supportfaq-isbn
• The other thing you need -- this one is free -- is a Library of Congress Number. Find out all about that here:
  http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/infopub/publish.html

  The Library of Congress number must be requested prior to the publication of the book so that the number can be printed on the copyright page. What you need is called the Preassigned Control Number (PCN) available to US book publishers.

• Join a writer's group. Here are two that I belong to:
  East Metro Atlanta Christian Writers
  Christian Small Publishers Association
  I also joined a yahoo writer's group which has been a constant source of helpful information. It is by invitation only (you have to know someone and be invited), so I really can't put the link online and have random people giving my name as the person who invited them! But do a search and you can probably find many such groups to whom you can send your basic information and get in.

In Closing

I'm doing really well with my books today, though marketing is a rather constant challenge. You just have to keep a sense of humor. So I'll close with this funny quote from Garrison Keillor:

"And if you want to write, you just write and publish yourself. No need to ask permission, just open a Web site. And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you've got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75."