BellaOnline Forums Career Nonfiction Writing Self-Publishing

A lot of marketing can be non-speaking, it can be sending out flyers, running a blog, having a website, submitting articles to magazines on related topics, and word of mouth one-on-one

Are self-publishing sites supposed to be sites where you publish your own content and see who will bid for it? I never heard of this before besides sites where you contribute articles and earn money based on different variables (i.e. associated content, helium, eHow, etc.), but I'm assuming that's not a self-publishing site.

The problem I am having with sites like LuLu is that my book is heavy on photos, so it needs to be full-color and I want it hardcover as well (it's sort of a coffee-table book), and they don't allow that. Does anyone know of a similar site that will work with this kind of book? I see a lot of photo book self-publishers, but this isn't a photo album, even though it has a lot of photos.

Ha - I don't know why I'm being all secretive! The book is about the months I lived in Africa, working with cheetahs. It's a fish-out-of-water kind of story about 40-something me stumbling around in Africa, dealing with severed donkey heads, balky plumbing, etc. but also living full-time with cheetahs.

the other thing I am struggling with is finding the right software to use to get it written, so that if I do submit it to publishers it's in the right format and everything. I know that Quark XPress is the industry standard, but it costs a fortune! Does anyone know of any free or low-cost software that is similar?

Hi All, I'd like to mention that in my years of working with new writers who wish to self-publish, I've noticed that way too many of these books are not edited first. My experience has been that once the self publishing industry realizes that books need to be as pristine as the traditionally published books, it will take off like no body's business. I've reviewed many self pubbed books and the quality, in general, really needs some help. There is nothing like showing your professionalism as an author like making sure all i's are dotted and t's crossed. Smiles, Jill Prather Ghostwriter Pro

I completely agree about the lack of editing in most self-published books. I've been a judge for Writers Digest Self-Published Books' contest and it's really sad what some people don't take the time to do before getting their books published. I'm not sure if people are so eager to get their books in print that they don't finalize the manuscript or if they don't realize the books need more work. The lack of editing is actually what gives self-publishing its bad name.

Richie - a self publishing site is solely about you publishing. It has nothing to do with bidding on content or anything else. So you load up the content of a book, the book is now available for sale to end users. You can buy copies yourself (at a discount) and go door to door selling it - or you can just hope people buy it without any marketing efforts at all. You are the publisher. You are responsible for making sales.

MaryEllen - BellaOnline uses Lulu to sell Mused which is a full color photo all the way through publication. It is soft cover and even so it is rather expensive (about $25 a copy). Is there a reason you "must" have a hard cover? I would go for a soft cover first and see how well it sold before you started taking on the huge additional expense of hard cover. That's a lot of extra money (and therefore it vastly reduces sales).

In terms of what to use, heck, just use Word. Or use PageMaker if you want. You don't need anything fancy. Word can do layout quite nicely, with layered images and so on. It's just a PDF in the end so it doesn't matter what software you use to make it.

Well, the reason I want(ed) hardcover is that the book is a sort of 'coffee table' book - large format, high-quality photos on every page, probably more photos than text. (But not just photos with captions.) So I wanted it to be big, glossy, hardcover, because the photos are the real highlight.

I've seen a few of the type of book I'm thinking of in softcover, but not many. But I think I may have to go that way anyway.

I'm really just writing and doing this for myself, anyway. And I should probably get the darn thing finished before I start thinking about publishing issues!

I used CreateSpace to indie publish my novel. Their bindings and paper stock are high quality and they charge nothing to publish. You do have to format the inside and design your own cover, which can be challenging, but also a lot of fun!

I'm also on Authonomy.com, which is a kind of contest hosted by HarperCollins. You upload your book and members read each other's work, comment on it and if they like it, store it on their virtual "book shelf." The titles with the most shelf space at the end of the month get read by HCs editors for a possible publishing opportunity. It's fun and you get to meet a lot of talented writers.

Shannon

I used iUniverse to publish my novel four years ago and I loved it. And I do want to self publish again but way, way, way in the future. A more immediate goal of mine right now is to get contracts with major publishers. I also don't relish the idea of public speaking, but I was actually on the news last night Fox 5 here in New York. It was one of those women on the street interviews. It all happened so quick, I didn't have a chance to get nervous and when I watched the clip, I didn't sound half bad. LOL.