Entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for ways to boost their business. One of those ways is to become an author. A book doesn’t have to be 100,000 words and hundreds of pages long. An e-book can be as short as 50 pages, just make sure it’s packed with solid, usable information.
How a book can boost your business
A book immediately establishes the credibility of the author in their field. Customers feel more secure knowing the company they deal with has recognized established expertise at the helm. The release of a book can lead to greater media exposure and requests for speaking engagements which increases the visibility of the firm.
A book can be given away as a promotional item to new customers. If it’s an e-book, there are little or no out-of-pocket expenses. An e-book can be immediately downloaded from a website or sent as an electronic file in response to a request. The contact information of the potential customer can be collected as part of the download process.
Polish to Perfection
If you have the great ideas for a book but your writing needs a bit of help, there are the options of collaboration — writing with another author, using the services of an editor and ghost writers. Hiring a writer to take your ideas and put them on paper in manuscript form is no different from hiring a copywriter for your advertising, or a public relations person to write your press releases. What counts is the content and that comes only from you.
Is Self-Publishing Right for You?
E-books can be easily formatted from most word processing files at minimal cost.
If you want a hard copy of your book, you can use a publish on demand company such as Iuniverse, authorshouse or xlibris. The fees are reasonable and you can print as few copies at a time as you need. One company, Lulu.com doesn’t charge any fees upfront, although you need to have your book, including the cover artwork and formatting all ready to go. Again you can have one copy printed or one hundred.
An offset printer is the most cost effective method of printing 500 copies or more, but you’re responsible for all the formatting, interior design and artwork.
If your goal is to see your book being sold in bookstores then it makes sense to forgo the self publishing route and consider selling your book to a commercial publisher.
Mainstream Commercial Publishers
There is a bit more cache when a book is published by a mainstream commercial publisher rather than self published. Publishers vary in the types of books they’re interested in. Some only want nonfiction narrative, some cookbooks, others business books. There are a number of resources, both websites and books, which describe what types of books each publisher is looking for, their contact information, and often the name of the editor to contact.
Commercial publishers will pay you an advance, which is simply a fee for allowing them to publish your work, and take care of all the editing, formatting, cover design, and marketing. The advances can run from a few thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars. Once your book is accepted, you do not have to pay the advance back, unless of course it’s stipulated in the contract, but that is very rare. Commercial houses have the distribution and sales force in place to get your book into bookstores. Most bookstores, both independent and chains, do not stock self-published books.
The downside of commercial publishing is it takes time, from 12 to 18 months, to see your book finished and sitting on the shelf. You also lose a bit of control over the process. Most publishers take into consideration the author’s wishes as far as cover design, publication date, pricing, and marketing, but they have the final say so in those decisions.
Preparation
Know what publishers and literary agents want to receive. Most publishers will not accept unsolicited manuscripts, so don’t send them one. Send a query letter which describes your book and why you’re qualified to write it, to the appropriate editor at the publisher.
Good News
The good news is, most nonfiction books don’t have to be completely written before the publisher offers a contract. You just need a solid book proposal and a sample chapter to entice them.
Are you a writer with lots of talent but no one will give you the time of day let alone a contract? Would you pay a professional publisher to make your book but can't afford it? Do you need a better tool than your plain old word processor to make your work look more professional and desirable? Do you possess special knowledge that if packaged in a book could make you millions? Well fret not your answer is very available to you now in the form of self publishing software tools!
These tools are electronic publishers that produce professional grade quality at a fraction of the price that it costs a traditional publisher to produce a book. They produce the work in the form of a PDF file which can be sent with an email, saved onto any form of memory storage media, downloaded onto your website, etc. This is hundreds of times more convenient than traditional publishing efforts and again at a very small fraction of the price.
The software is easy to use, designed to be used by a person with a 2nd grade level computer IQ. So, not even close to rocket science. A person can become proficient at using the program and start writing in a matter of hours. Yes, you heard me right -- you can have the necessary tools and be writing that book that you have been waiting a long time for in a matter of a few hours. Self publishing is a beautiful thing, and I am just getting started.
When I said a fraction of the price of a typical publisher I only meant for one book. But think about it, you would have to continue to pay each time your next book came out which multiplies that fee over and over and over. But you only have to pay for the self publishing software once. It is very reasonably priced, and it is with you, at your beckoned call for life. Now that's a deal.
The last benefit of self publishing that I am going to talk about (not even close to the last benefit there is) is the true freedom of speech that you retain when you buy this tool. What I am referring to really is the editing process which for those who have already been published know can be a brutal process.
Basically anything that you right is at the mercy of the publishing editor when you go the traditional route. But if you publish your own work it stays as you want it which is the way it should be. That's all for now, but if you want to know more just give me a ring, or fling me an email, or whichever you prefer.
Today, more than ever before authors are presented with publishing opportunities that have never existed before. This is not to understate the hard work that authors have to go through to get recognition, write great books, and make a full time living from their passion of expression. However, it is to say that today, due to advances in communications technology, authors can now get their books distributed much easier than they could a decade ago. One very popular way that authors are distributing their work is digitally through ebooks.
Digital books are gaining so much popularity that even some of the most popular authors in the world have used it to distribute their books. Stephen King for example published “Riding the Bullet” exclusively in ebook format. When this ebook began distribution over Barns and Nobel and Amazon.com there was so much demand for the download that the servers of these two book giants slowed down almost to a halt. People that wanted to download the ebook were put in a large queue with the hundreds of thousands of other who downloaded the ebook as well.
It’s not only big name authors that are finding success in ebooks. Many of these people are first time authors and are often amazed with the success of their ebook sales. Below are some of their ebook writing tips.
Don’t underestimate the power of the Ebook
Ebooks are still looked upon as unpopular by many authors who have not yet taken the time to learn about the success within this industry. For example, while the traditional publishing industry growing at the sluggish rate of 5% a year the digital publishing industry is growing at rates between 30% -50%. This means that the opportunities within the publishing industry are growing at a fraction of the rate that opportunities within the digital publishing industry are growing.
To set up an ebook you don’t need to be a tech wizard
Setting up your ebook from the idea conceptualization stage to the selling stage can’t be completed overnight but it is definitely something that can be done by anyone regardless of your technological background. If you can use a word processor then you can create and sell an ebook online. While it is recommended you set up your own website, it is not necessary. There are outlets such as Amazon.com, EBay and Lulu.com to name only a few sites that allow you to post your ebook on their servers.
Setting up an Ebook site is virtually cost less and you keep 100% of the profits
With traditional publishers you’ll be lucky to see 10% of the profits from your book. With ebooks however, you keep 100% of the profits minus the fees required to set up the site which are minimal. Here is the fee breakdown for ebooks vs traditional books:
Ebook vs Book cost
Ebook = Free to create an unlimited number of copies
Book = approximately $1500 for 200 copies of a 200 page
Soft cover book
Rights and profit
Ebook = You keep 100% of the profits and rights to your ebooks
Book = You get 10-40% royalty (usually about $2-$5/ book)
With the above examples it is easy to see that for first time authors ebooks make a lot of sense. The risk associated with publishing an ebook is much lower than it is with distributing a soft or hard cover book. Likewise, as an ebook author you’ll keep virtually all of your own profits.
If nothing else, it is something worth consideration. Ebooks may not replace traditional paperback books, but they certainly are gaining popularity at a rate that should make all authors stop to think about how they could use ebooks to their advantage.