Book marketing, in its simplest form, is essentially the same as any marketing—getting your product into the hands (or ears, in the case of audiobooks) of consumers. However, as Merriam-Webster notes, marketing can also be “an aggregate…of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer.” The word aggregate is the tip-off; book marketing is going to be a lot more involved than just printing and putting up for sale. Luckily, time can be saved by overlapping some of the steps to book marketing we’ve outlined below.

Tips for marketing your book – the writing stage

Hire a professional editor. Once your book is written and you’ve done a self-edit, maybe shared it with some beta readers to get their feedback on the content, it needs to be professionally edited. Editing may seem like an afterthought, something your cousin’s neighbor’s dog-sitter is happy to do for you because he got an A on an essay in school once. Writer beware! Just ask any author who has had to take their manuscript down from Kindle or Kobo because of all the bad reviews—not on the story line, but on the grammar and punctuation—how important it is to hire a professional editor.

Hiring a professional editor is not for the faint of wallet. However, it is an essential part of the aggregate marketing strategy for your book. There’s no sense trying to sell something people are not going to be happy with. Worse, it could ruin your reputation as an author. If you don’t have all the funds for editing on hand, you can ask your professional editor to edit a few chapters per pay period, to help spread the cost out more evenly over your budget. The worst they can say is no, and then, do you really want to work with that type of editor?

Once your manuscript is professionally edited, it’s on to the next step: formatting.

Format your book. “If you want to give a professional impression when you attempt to market your manuscript, it has to be formatted properly and presented in the best way possible,” says JoEllen Nordstrom, founder of FirstEditing.com, in her blog post “Marketing Your Manuscript.” Formatting a manuscript correctly depends on where it’s going next: uploading directly to a self-publishing platform, or sending it to a publishing house or marketing agency in search of representation.
The Chicago Manual of Style recommends a neutral formatting for submitting your manuscript to US-based publishing houses/marketers. Start with using letter-sized paper, which is 8.5” x 11”. Then choose one-inch margins all the way around. Chapter titles, headings, and subheadings throughout the manuscript get consistent treatment regarding font size, capitalization, and whether the text is set in italics or roman (see CMOS for details). Font should be something with “feet,” such as Garamond or Times New Roman. Line spacing is double-spaced. Paragraphs will be indented a half-inch, with no space between paragraphs. Text is left-adjusted, rather than center justified, meaning the right edge will appear “ragged.”

For international publication, check with the publishing house/marketer; they may prefer A4 paper and .33-inch paragraph indentations. The rest is essentially the same.

Formatting for an ePublisher upload can be different. Font with feet is still easier to read than, say, Calibri, and it should still be size 12. Line spacing can be closer, maybe 1.5 or 1.15, and most authors prefer their books to be center justified rather than left-adjusted. Nowadays, some authors are forgoing the paragraph indentation and instead using a space between paragraphs (but not a blank line; use the Paragraph spacing option in MS Word for consistent spacing).

Once your text is formatted, give it a once-over to make sure you haven’t left anything underlined (an indication to a publisher that something should be set in italics), bolded (except headings and subheadings, if desired), or all caps. Rather than gaining a publisher or reader’s attention, those formatting faux pas are likely to annoy them instead.

Developing a marketing strategy

Before or during the editing and formatting stages, take the time to develop a marketing strategy. Without a strategy, you’ll be working tirelessly with no structure and probably very few results, wasting time and money.

As JoEllen Nordstrom, founder of FirstEditing.com writes in her blog “Book Marketing Before Publication,” there are essentially five steps you can take to market your book before it’s even published.

1. Website development: Have a landing page for your readers to learn about you, your book, any contests/giveaways, etc. Include here your author bio, synopsis of the book, any news events related to the book, schedule for the book launch, invitation to in-person or Zoom book launch parties, and of course all your social media links. And remember to add the link to purchase the book!
2.  Social media presence: Add your social media links everywhere, and also the link to purchase your book once it’s published. Cross-reference all your social media links; add your Twitter link to your LinkedIn profile, add your YouTube channel link to your Instagram page, etc.
3. Alert your personal network: Let your friends, family, colleagues, and followers know in advance that the book is coming out, and simply ask them to help you promote it. You can make it fun, with in-person (once it’s safe to do so post-pandemic) or online Zoom parties (where people come into the call and say nice things about you and share happy memories about how you know each other).
4. Prepare to get book reviews: Magazines, trade publications, podcasters, radio, and media reviewers have different deadlines for when they need an advance copy of your book in order to read it and review it. You’ll want to time that so their review comes out near your publication date.
5. Create an editorial calendar: Put your matchmaking hat on; match your book’s theme/protagonist with real-world events, such as a book about moms being promoted for Mother’s Day, a romance novel coming out for Valentine’s Day, or if your protagonist is a pirate, put your book for sale on September 19, International Talk Like a Pirate Day! You get the idea.

The Elite Authors blog “How to develop a marketing strategy for your nonfiction book” contains a plethora of information that can be boiled down to a few major points.

• Identify your audience so you can target the right readers. Targeted marketing might be self-evident in this day and age, but it bears repeating. Don’t waste time, money, or energy marketing to people who will definitely not buy your book.
• Write a succinct book description to compel your target audience to purchase your book. Think about the back-cover blurb. If you watch people go into a book store (in the Before Times), they usually pick up a book, look at the cover, then immediately turn it over and read the back. That’s where you want to draw them in and make a sale. If the cover art says pick me up, the book description says buy me.
• Market online to reach the whole world; market in person to reach a local audience. When it’s safe to do local book store launches again, work with the proprietor and learn from their experience what will make a successful in-person book launch. Don’t be afraid to go outside your own comfort zone (some writers prefer pen and paper to people). Rely on their expertise.

Writing a marketing plan for nonfiction

In an interview with KindlePreneur Dave Chesson, JoEllen Nordstrom discusses the three main phases of marketing your eBook. Watch the video to learn more.

• Phase 1: Before writing your book, research your market, competition, effective writing tools, and finally, plan, outline, and write your book.
• In Phase 2: Putting your book together helps you select a title, subtitle, book cover, description, editor, keywords, categories, author page details, bio description, and how to sell on Amazon, Kobo, and beyond.
• The final Phase 3: Launching your book explains how to track books sales, email followers, use book promo sites, create ads, get reviews, create a press release, and network with other authors.

The ReedsyBlog goes even further, with five steps to marketing your nonfiction book and even has a checklist you can download.

• Step 1: Develop the core message of your nonfiction book
• Step 2. Nail your book description
• Step 3: Build Your Platform
• Step 4: Advertise and promote your book
• Step 5: Take care of your subscribers (and monetize them)

Conclusion

While writing, editing, and formatting your book is essential, without marketing, you’re not likely to get your book into the hands (or ears) of many readers/listeners. You can start to develop a marketing strategy before your book is even written, while your book is with the editor/formatter, or even while taking breaks from writing/revision. Get a head start by drafting your author bio, synopsis, and query letter. Create a website and social media presence for the book. Know your target audience and where you’re most likely to reach them. Get a list together of your biggest fans (personal and professional) and enlist them in helping you market your book. Make that launch date something people want to be part of. Remember to make it fun!

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Advantages of Direct Publishing

Here is a look at why direct publishing could be the easiest part of becoming a published author.

• Your e-book is published within 24 to 72 hours.
• You control the pricing, marketing, and promotion of your e-book.
• You don’t need to share your sales profit percentage with anyone.
• If you update your e-book, you can make the updated versions immediately available to the readers. This is especially handy if you had your cousin’s girlfriend’s mother edit the manuscript instead of hiring a professional editor before publishing the first time.

What are the Current Platforms of Direct Publishing?

So, how do you start your own self-publishing journey? Here is a look at the current top publishing platforms and what makes them a good choice for you.

• Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon KDP)

This is one of the most popular places you can go to for direct publishing. Your book will be available less than 24 hours after you click Publish.

• CreateSpace

If you want to self-publish your book in print (eliminating the benefit of easy revision), you might want to consider Amazon’s CreateSpace. However, your printed book can only be sold through Amazon. If you want other platforms to publish your book as well, you will need to pay a fee. Sign up with them

here.

• Lulu

Lulu is a global self-publishing company and is one of the first in the self-publishing industry. They can help your book reach almost 225 countries worldwide. Visit Lulu here.

• Kobo Writing Life

With Kobo, you can self-publish e-books in over 190 countries. Kobo also lets you keep track of your sales. Self-publish with Kobo here.

• iBooks

With iBooks, you can either distribute your books exclusively in Apple or reach a broader audience. For iBooks, set up an account here.

• NookPress

Publish either in print or e-book form with NookPress. There are no delivery fees or production costs involved. Check them out here.

• SmashWords

SmashWords have published over 442,000 book so far. Visit their website here for more information.

• BookBaby

can help you reach a variety of retailers. Take a look at their website and learn how they can help you by clicking here

• Draft2Digital

The main platforms they help you reach are Apple and Barnes & Noble. You can also distribute from Kobo, but for this they charge a small percentage of your royalties. Go here to sign up with Draft2Digital.

• Issuu

Issuu boasts over 15 million publications. Go to their website by clicking here and start publishing with them.

Now that you have a better knowledge of direct publishing platforms, you can confidently use them to help turn your book into a best seller! You can even use multiple platforms to distribute your books where allowed.

The post Here’s How To Choose Between Book Publishing Platforms appeared first on Firstediting.com.

If you decide to make your e-book available for pre-order, lowering your book’s cost initially is a great idea. This not only brings in more customers, but it opens up the possibility of an impulse buy. It also creates value for the early buyers.

Amazon allows a 90-day pre-order period. They will create your product page within 24 hours of signing up for the pre-order option, and will then release the book at midnight on the day you select. Ideally, you should allow for pre-ordering of your e-book just a few weeks before release, so it’s not forgotten by the time it releases. Finalize a release date, and remember to upload the final version of your e-book at least 10 days before the scheduled date. If you want to publish immediately, do not select this option.

How Should You Start?

If you want to use the pre-order option on Amazon, first you need to become a KDP author. Once you have created your account, go to “Select your Book Release Option” and select “Make my book available for pre-order.”

Apple iBooks also allows uploads of pre-orders, up to a year before the book’s release date. In Kobo and SmashWords, you can set up your book for pre-order 180 days before the release date.

You can arrange limited pre-sales offers for your books and arrange a free giveaway. That way, you can get reviews even before your book releases. This may increase your sales after release.

Planning for pre-orders and pre-sales is not going to help you all by itself though. You need to spread the word that your book will be available. Use email, blog posts, and social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to let your friends and followers know about your impending book release. Build excitement in the weeks before your book launch through pre-orders, contest giveaways, and beta reader reviews.

The post How to Time Your Book Release appeared first on Firstediting.com.

Here are a few tips for writing an e-book description that sells.

• Include hooks: Hooks are the cliff-hangers of e-book descriptions. Use a hook to attract a reader’s curiosity, leaving them wanting more by the time they reach the end of the description. Make them say, “I need to read this!” If they are intrigued enough, they will buy your book to find out what actually happens.
• Compare with other books in your genre: Each genre has a set of traditionally used hooks. Read the back cover of other successful books in your genre. Make a list of the ones that attract you most. Apply the writing style of book descriptions of successful authors while typing your description, being careful not to copy someone else’s writing; merely emulate it.
• Use keywords: This is important. Dig into online sites such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and make a list of 30 of the most-used search words and phrases for books in your genre. Just start typing your genre’s keywords in the site search box and it will auto-fill with popular searches. Start with keywords crime, detective, and suspense for a whodunit novel, for example. You will enter at least seven different keyword phrases when uploading your book for self-publishing. Try to include these keywords and phrases in your description. That way, when people search for specific words, your book is more likely to come up in the results. It will also make it easier for you to reach your target audience.
• Remember to include a captivating first line: You may include all the hooks you want, but no will read your entire description unless you win them over with your first line. The first line of your description is as important as the first line of your story, perhaps even more so, because this is what could lead your reader to buy the book.
• Include reviews and quotes from your book: Readers are more likely to buy a book if it has good reviews. If you can get a good review from an authority on the subject matter or other well-known authors, be sure to include them. Also, include catchy quotes from your book as part of your book description.
• At the very end of the description, subtly encourage readers to buy your book: For example, if you are writing about success, you can add, “If you want to help make your dreams come true, buy this now!”

Your e-book description is like an advertisement, helping readers determine whether they will buy the product or not. There’s no need to write an essay. Try not to write more than 150 words. Don’t just summarize your book; make it simple and catchy, and who knows, you might have a bestseller!

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It’s often the subtle change of a category choice that can improve your book sales—and you need to know that you are choosing the best ones possible. So, how do you go about it?

What exactly is a book category?

A book category is a group your book can belong in, depending upon its contents. While the definition of a book genre may change over time, the category does not change. It defines your book in groups that are constant. For example, your genre may be science fiction, but if your book includes fighting scenes or a quest, you can categorize your book as action and adventure.

How many categories does each platform allow you to choose?

Amazon lets you choose two categories for your book. You must choose at least one, though they highly recommend that you choose two.

Besides being able to choose two categories, you’ll have an additional advantage of adding up to seven search keywords for your book. You can find Amazon’s list and suggestions here.

In CreateSpace, you can choose only one category. However, if you want, you can e-mail them and request to be included in at least one more category.

Kobo and Apple allow you to choose up to three categories for your book.

How do you choose your categories for maximum effect?

Keep the following points in mind:

• Browse the best seller books of your genre in the platform you are publishing with and see what categories they use.
• Try to make a note of books with content similar to yours that come up in the top of the search results. See what categories they chose.
• It is often recommended to use a category for your genre that applies to your book but isn’t so competitive. Consider choosing categories that have fewer competitors.
• Selecting categories is also very important for your non-fiction book. Remember to narrow down your niche. For example, if you have a grammar book, instead of choosing grammar as your category, choose vocabulary or comprehension, whichever niche applies more to your book. That way, you’ll filter out hundreds of books in the category grammar.

Categories are included in your book metadata and are vital for the marketing of your book. So take your time, do some research, and choose cleverly.

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Your e-book cover needs to tell your readers about the essence of your book. And who knows the essence of your book better than you? No one. At the same time, the image of the front cover of your book needs to say pick me up and buy me!

The genre of your writing will help you start designing. However, it isn’t the only thing to keep in mind. Here are a few tips to make your e-book stand out among thousands of others.

• While designing the cover, keep genre styles in mind. Use the trends generally used by the industry so readers can tell which genre your book belongs to. If it’s a book on finance, usually some dollar signs, a piggy bank, or bars of gold will indicate that. If it’s a murder mystery, expect to see some kind of murder weapon, maybe a magnifying glass or some crime scene tape on the cover.
• If you are publishing more than one e-book, perhaps a series of books, keep the same font style for all your book titles. This helps readers unconsciously relate the book to the series and to you more easily.
• Make a note of the book covers of your genre that appeal to you. Create a portfolio or a dream board of 10 of your favorite book covers. Don’t copy them, but do draw inspiration from them.
• An e-book cover isn’t really a cover, but a flat image that will be displayed on the Web. For an e-book cover, it is not necessary to create a back cover, spine, and jacket, as you would need for a printed book. When a reader clicks on your cover a pop-up comes up, revealing the information that is usually present on the back cover of a printed book.
• The ideal size of an e-book cover image is 1563px x 2500px. Always save the image in .jpg format. The file size of the image should not exceed 2MB. And if this is all Greek to you . . . 
• Consider outsourcing your book cover design to a professional. Send your list of needs and a copy of the portfolio or a picture of your dream board to your new book cover designer. They will help make your e-book cover more eye-catching.
• You can check out our recommended book designers here: Fiverr

Many readers will buy a book because of the cover. Your e-book cover is one of the best marketing tools you have to attract readers. Used efficiently, your book cover can help your book have a better chance of gaining popularity.

The post Book Cover Design and Creation appeared first on Firstediting.com.

Who are aggregators?

An e-book aggregator distributes your books to a large number of retailers in return for keeping some percentage of the sales (usually around 15 percent).

Nowadays, aggregators have become synonymous with a distributor.

Pros and cons of an aggregator

Should you choose an aggregator every time? Is there anything you should be wary of?

Pros

1. If you want to publish with Apple, it may be difficult to do so if you are on your own. An aggregator can help you easily publish your book there.
2. It will be easier to track sales. If you work with an aggregator, they will provide you with a dashboard where you can monitor your sales on various platforms.
3. Aggregators will handle all the post-submission steps, making your job simpler. Just submit your book to them, and you have nothing more to worry about!
4. Most aggregators will convert your manuscript to the required file format for free. If your book conversion is slightly more complex, they may charge a fee, but at least you won’t have to worry about converting the book.

Cons:

1. Sales tracking is not real-time.
2. Must wait for almost a month for publication, unlike direct publishing with retailers, which takes 24 to 72 hours.
3. Delay in making updated book versions available to the retailers.

The Top e-Book Aggregators Today

The following are well-known e-book aggregators.

1. Draft2Digital. They will help you reach retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple iTunes, and Scribd. Get started with Draft2Digital here: https://www.draft2digital.com/
2. SmashWords. In addition to the retailers mentioned above, SmashWords also distributes to Flipkart, Oyster, Baker, and Tayler Blio. Additionally, SmashWords helps your e-book reach libraries through OverDrive, Library Direct. If you want to publish with SmashWords, visit this link: https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords

To enroll as a SmashWords affiliate, you can go here: https://www.smashwords.com/about/affiliate

3. iTunes Connect for iBooks. Set up an iTunes account and sell your books through them. Sign up here: https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/iBooksSignup

You can even combine self-publishing and self-marketing to retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, then use an aggregator to get your book published through Apple. Or you can self-distribute to Amazon and use SmashWords as an aggregator to distribute to the other markets. In the end, the path you take for distribution is entirely your choice.

The post On e-Book Aggregators (aka Distributors) appeared first on Firstediting.com.

We’ll use two popular self-publishing platforms as an example, Apple and Amazon (facts and figures below are correct at the time of this writing). Amazon currently outranks Apple in terms of book sales, while Apple’s popularity is growing rapidly. If you publish with Amazon, for example, you’ll get some control over the price of your books for your international audience, while when publishing with Apple, you have complete control to decide your prices, and can even change your price as you track successful strategies and make adjustments.

Putting aside all the hype surrounding these top two book publishers, let’s take a look at their payment rates and the commissions they pay to authors, as these items will help you determine the final price of your e-book.

Comparison of Apple and Amazon in terms of Commissions and Royalties

Commissions and royalties are important things to keep in mind before deciding which company to choose for self-publishing.

A commission is not the same as a royalty. A royalty is the sum paid to the author for each copy of their book sold. On the other hand, a commission refers to a one-time payment. Commissions may seem very lucrative, but you need to look closer to understand the real workings behind being paid commissions.

Commissions with Amazon

With Amazon, you get a 35 percent commission if your book is priced between $.99 and $2.98. For books priced $2.99 to $9.99, you get a 70 percent commission. The rate goes down to 10 percent if your book costs above $10.

You’ll also need to join Amazon’s KDP (its exclusive program); otherwise, if you are a resident of India, Brazil, China, or Mexico, you’ll get only 35 percent commission, no matter what your book costs.

In the early stages of e-publishing, Amazon offered a 35 percent rate across all categories, but they later raised their rates to 70 percent in some instances.

You may think that sales in India, Brazil, China, or Mexico won’t affect your book sales much, but if you combine the English speakers of all these countries, they form half of the world’s English-speaking population. It is definitely something to think about when you take in the wider scenario.

Commissions with Apple

Regardless of your book price or where you live, Apple pays you a 70 percent commission rate.

Another factor: Delivery Charges

The delivery charges you may need to pay are directly linked to commissions in the case of Amazon. If your commission rate goes to 70 percent, you’ll have to pay a delivery charge.

Delivery charges are 15 cents per megabyte. It may not seem like much, but looking at the big picture, this means your commission rates drop by almost 30 percent. This may not be a problem for novelists, but for non-fiction authors, this is a serious problem.

Cash Flow Considerations: Payments

Apple pays 32 days after the month ends, while Amazon pays every 60 days.

Summary

After thinking about how much of a percentage of sales is taken off the top before it even hits your wallet, another major consideration in pricing your e-book is to keep the price within the usual range of similar e-books. If everyone else is charging $10.99 for an e-book of the same length in the same genre, you wouldn’t want to price yours at $1.99 (excluding intro to market strategy or giveaways and the like), and you also wouldn’t want to climb to the other end of the spectrum and overprice your e-book at $29.99. Don’t undervalue your writing, and likewise, don’t price yourself out of the market.

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Your goal is to be published. In the past, the only way for this to happen was to be picked up by a publishing house after sending in a few chapters of your book and enduring rejection letter after rejection letter.

This is not for the faint of heart! It is also not the final word on getting published. Author J. K. Rowling has courageously shared some of her rejection letters on Twitter (Kennedy 2016) in order to inspire new authors to press on (pun intended). Here is a look at the advantages of going the self-publishing way instead.

Self-Publishing has many advantages:

1. Enjoy fast, click-of-the-button publishing: Whenever you decide to publish, just click the Publish button and your book will immediately be published. Of course, this has its pros and cons. Instant gratification, the feeling of satisfaction of finally being published, or rushing to meet the deadline of your promised book availability, may make self-publishing seem like a dream, when in fact it could become a nightmare. If you self-publish before professional editing, you’re more likely to get negative reviews from your online readers, regardless of the great story you’re telling. Traditional publishing takes a much longer time.
2. More profit and better access for readers: You can still sell the book anywhere online. Anyone who wants to buy your book can do so in an instant. They don’t need to pay any shipping or postage costs. Again we’re talking about instant gratification, but this time it’s for the reader. Say they’re on vacation and have only their tablet with them, having left their laptop at home. They’re in a different time zone, and find themselves wide awake in the middle of the night. Or they’re in the tropics and a tropical storm is keeping them inside. They can just go online, buy your book, and start reading; possibly making your book the highlight of the vacation in the process! Additionally, more people from abroad will be inclined to buy your e-books than printed books in order to avoid shipping and handling costs, as well as long delivery times. Traditional paper books cost more to produce, reducing profit, and limit access in a number of ways. A physical book can be more unwieldy, heavier to carry, and limited in font size for readers with poor eyesight.
3. No cost required to publish on e-book platforms: Most delivery platforms, like Amazon and Kobo, for example, don’t charge you anything upfront when you sell your books. There’s no waste involved, no stacks of unpurchased books sitting in a warehouse. With traditional paper publishing, there is the cost of materials and labor involved in the creation of the physical book.
4. Creative Freedom: Everything, including the cover, the marketing, and the book contents, are in your control. You can even update your book and release the new version at once. This happens more often than authors would like to think. You’ve made the final push to finish writing and publish. Your book is available 24/7, 365 days a year, to anyone in the world with access to the Internet. You’re sitting back, waiting for the profits to roll in. Instead you get flaming reviews from readers who say at best that your story was good but the grammatical mistakes were distracting, and at worst, they stopped reading altogether because they couldn’t get past the errors, including plot holes and character inconsistencies. With an e-book you can pull the book, send in a rush order for professional editing, and re-load the book in a matter of days (depending on the length of the book and availability of the editor). A printed book with errors will haunt you forever.

Traditional Publishing is harder, but still around:

1. Traditional publishing makes it very hard to break into the market: Traditional publishers have very low acceptance rates, which means that the odds of getting accepted and published are stacked against you. Some say the rate is even as low as just 3 books published out of 10,000 submissions (Harper 2004). It seems that when the economy is down, trying to make some extra money on the side by writing is up. This only makes it even harder to break into the world of publication.
2. More time needed to publish: It may take months, or even years, till your book is out there in the market. It takes a long time for your manuscript to be evaluated, and if it is accepted, then even more time is required for editing, production, and marketing. If you are rejected, you send out your manuscript to a different publisher or agent, and the process of waiting for months begins again.
3. More extra charges: Your book will be available mostly in bookstores. Otherwise, a reader will have to order your book, and the extra shipping or postal charges may discourage a reader from buying your book. Your book won’t be instantly available anywhere in the world.
4. Low royalty rates: Most authors may get only 7 to 25 percent royalty rates. This depends on a number of factors, including whether the book is hardback or paperback, and the number of copies sold. For example, a paperback book could typically give a royalty rate of 8 percent of the first 150,000 books sold, and 10 percent thereafter (Jacobson n.d.). That’s a lot of books.
5. Restraint of creative freedom: When your book is chosen by a publisher, it is more or less out of your hands. They design the cover in the image they have in mind for it. As a result, the essence of the book you may have had in mind may get lost. Think back to the British comedy As Time Goes By. Lionel Hardcastle (played by Geoffrey Palmer) writes the incredibly boring story of his life as a coffee plantation owner in Kenya. His “boy publisher,” who owes a huge debt of gratitude to Lionel’s dad, gets hold of the manuscript and the next thing Lionel knows he’s being driven to book signings in a Land Rover painted in zebra stripes and being dressed in a safari costume with a scantily clad model for the cover photo shoot. It ends up with protesters storming his lecture and shouting “Elephant killer!” at him because of all the hype his publisher created. Sure, it was only a TV show, but it could happen!

Summary

We would suggest that you go for the self-publishing. E-books are quite advantageous and bring you more readers—readers who are actually interested in what you have to offer. More importantly, you retain all your rights when you publish, and you can also publish without many hassles.

References

Harper, Tara K. 2004. On Publishers and Getting Published. Accessed February 12, 2017. http://www.tarakharper.com/faq_pub.htm#chances

Jacobson, Alan. n.d. The Business of Publishing. Accessed February 12, 2017. https://www.alanjacobson.com/writers-toolkit/the-business-of-publishing/

Kennedy, Maev. 2016. “JK Rowling posts letters of rejection on Twitter to help budding authors.” The Guardian. New York, NY, March 25. Accessed February 12, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/25/jk-rowling-harry-potter-posts-letters-of-rejection-on-twitter

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