Please advise about a publisher.

[Reason Man]

Dear All,

I have finished my book -- and hit upon the usual bigger problem, getting it published. The topic of the book is the current socio-political situation in western countries (focus on US), take-over of politics by irrationalists, and how to stem this slide. (Info is given in an article by me in Productivity - Member Writing Forum).

The problem is: there are usually not enough readers for this kind of work in India, so no publisher will be interested in the economic risks involved. More importantly, this is a bit of a risky affair — it may land into the hands of politically undesirable persons and bring a vindictive backlash.

English-speaking countries are a desirable choice — but there too, new-comers have to search for too long, have a long waiting period even after a publisher accepts, etc.

So self-publishing is another alternative. Here again we have no information / prior experience of whom to rely on, etc. Money has to be sent by credit card, and if the publisher turns out to be bogus or even not up to his claims, I will have to accept the loss.

I will be thankful if those members, who have any information about this issue, share it with me. I am particularly interested in self-publishing. Because of web-advertisements, I know a few people like Author-house, Lulu.com etc, but no idea whom to choose.

I also hear that there is a body of people known as ‘literary agents’ in the US / UK (we have no such thing in India). Information about these would also be welcome.

Thanks and regards,

[Brant Gaede]

Your best bet is to e-publish it.

--Brant

[Reason Man]

Your best bet is to e-publish it.

--Brant

Thanks a lot. OK -- but can you (or somebody) elucidate on it a bit further like who all to approach, 3 - 4 names in ascending or descending order etc? Authorhouse, Lulu and many others are advertising a lot, and its a bit confusing -- the best of your knowledge in good faith and nothing more, even whatever you have heard from your more reliable friends / acquaintances, means some lead at all instead of total darkness.

Reason Man

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Reason Man,

The very best solution I can suggest is to go the Amazon route.

For digital, do Kindle. Here's the link: Digital Text Platform.

And for actual books, do CreateSpace.

The secret about both Kindle and CreateSpace is that they are relatively new to Amazon. It wants the lion's share of the independent publishing market, so it is pushing the daylights out of them and needs content.

You publish for free, you get paid for sales, and you automatically get the full power of Amazon's online marketing without doing anything. What's more, you get the power of the Amazon machine at a time when it wants to favor new works.

I do not suggest you stop there, though. Google phrases like:

how to sell on CreateSpace

how to promote on Kindle

... and so on. Mix them up and do your homework by actually spending a few days studying this stuff. Learn how keyword promotion works and where you should include it. You will find tons of great information to use for free.

Also, I shouldn't need to say this, but too many people get it wrong. Do yourself a HUGE favor and actually read and study the material on the Kindle and CreateSpace sites. Go through their Terms of Service, instructions, etc. Learn what they expect of you and what you can expect of them and how they want you to do stuff.

A warning. Stay away from paid advertising solutions until you know what you are doing, especially PPC (pay per click) advertising. You can lose your shirt. In Google, this is called Adwords. Yahoo! and MSN have equivalents.

You can do quite well with free promotion if you apply yourself.

Here's a fast-track idea. Find books that are similar to what yours is on Amazon, notice the ones that sell the best, then use their promotional copy as a model for your own. Look them up on Google and see what else they do (or others do) to promote their book.

Price-wise, I suggest you keep your Kindle price about 1/3 to 1/4 the CreateSpace price. I suggest you shoot for a medium price. Look at what books like you have written go for and sell yours at an average of those prices, or just a little under. Don't go too cheap, though, because people will not value your book.

There are other publishers, but this is the cream for begninning authors, and the time is now. Later, as the need for titles becomes less, Amazon will start making it a lot more difficult to publish there and will focus on promoting best-sellers more than anything else. But for now, a window of opportunity is open.

Michael

[Reason Man]

Reason Man,

The very best solution I can suggest is to go the Amazon route. ..........

Michael

Thank you very much MSK -- the time spent and the efforts that you have taken etc in advising can be felt. I have already started loading the book on Kindle, and will publish after more study of the platform / completion of technicalities. Only problem is, the thing really is time-consuming, and my environment is a bit bad -- but I hope to finish off the matter soon.

Thanks again and Best Regards.

[emb021]

I actually get books from several small publishers which use Lulu and Amazon/CreateSpace as their printers. they sell thru Lulu, Amazon, etc to their customers.

They get their own ISBN numbers. The books have their name and contact info. Most have a website/webstore (some of which just link to lulu, amazon, etc).

the quality of the books are very good. they are good, quality paperbacks. they can handle b/w artwork fairly well. Covers are good.

While about 5-10 years ago POD wasn't that good, but I think for small publishers or self-publishers, POD is the way to go (you can also go with e-publishing with POD, offering your e-book for less then the print work). What makes it great for these publishers is they don't have to order and pay for a large print run, then sit on it as it slowly sells.

Publishers I mean are Altus Press, Airship 27, Blood n Thunder, Wildcat Books, Age of Adventure, Age of Aces, and a few others.

Hope that helps.