Introduction

You may have personal and/or professional reasons why you want to get published. Perhaps you hope to supplement your income or generate an entire income as a writer. Maybe you have important information to convey or a compelling story to tell.

If you want to become an author who has a published book as a result of working with a major publishing house, you have a challenge in front of you because of the highly competitive nature of the book-publishing business.

Would-be authors also have a way to see their work professionally published in book or e-book form, and then distribute it to the general public, through self-publishing. New technologies — such as print-on-demand (POD) to create printed books — eliminate the need to print thousands of copies of a book at one time, enabling you to print as few as copy instead. The cost of self-publishing a book has also dropped dramatically in the past few years. Now, virtually anyone can access (and afford) the means to publish a book. Never before has the opportunity to publish a professional quality book or e-book been within reach of any aspiring author.

People all over the world want information, to gain new skills, to enrich their lives with new knowledge, or to enjoy an escape into the imaginary world that a really good story can create. So, if you have expertise that other people can benefit from or an amazing story to tell, self-publishing may give you the perfect route to take.

This all-new edition of Self-Publishing For Dummies helps you take your idea for a book, develop the idea into content to fill a full-length manuscript, and then have it published in print and/or e-book format. This book describes the incredible opportunity self-publishing offers to aspiring writers and authors, business leaders, entrepreneurs, consultants, and anyone else who has a great idea for a book.

About This Book

Self-publishing puts you in total charge of your publishing project. A successful publishing venture requires effectively dealing with each step in the publishing process. Without proper knowledge and experience, you can easily make costly mistakes. The information in this book helps you avoid the most common mistakes made by authors and self-publishers, and helps you properly cater your book to its intended readers. This book also lends a hand when it comes to gathering a highly skilled publishing team for your venture. By hiring freelance experts to help you with editing, design, layout, and marketing, your book can more effectively compete with all the other books currently available for sale.

Most importantly, this book shows you how to obtain traditional and online distribution for your book and properly market it to generate sales. By using marketing, public relations, and advertising strategies — along with the power and capabilities of the Internet — you can transform your book into a successful publishing venture.

Keep in mind that this book isn’t a “how to write a book” book or an “improve your writing skills” book. Developing the writing skills and the necessary expertise on the topic you plan to write about is your responsibility. If you need to brush up on your writing skills, I recommend that you sign up for writing classes or workshops.

Each chapter focuses on one important aspect of the self-publishing process, so you can jump around to quickly obtain the specific information that you’re looking for.

I also use a few conventions to help guide you through this book:

• Italic words point out defined terms or emphasize words.
• Boldface text indicates keywords in bulleted lists and the action part of numbered steps.
• Hyperlinked text highlights website addresses.

And because you need to complete many steps to ensure that you make your publishing venture a successful one, this book’s six parts group topics and subdivide them into chapters covering information that directly relates to those topics:

• Part 1: Do It Yourself: Getting Started with Self-Publishing introduces you to self-publishing, explains what it is, and clarifies how you can use it to publish your book. This part also helps you gather all the tools that you need to write and publish your book, while providing you with basic information about developing and fine-tuning your manuscript.
• Part 2: Pulling Together the Details: Administration and Design discusses the work that you need to do after you finish writing your manuscript but before you can print it (or publish it as an e-book) and sell it.
• Part 3: Start the Presses! Examining Printing Choices outlines the handful of options that you have for publishing and printing your books. You can determine which option to choose by considering a number of factors: your budget, your ultimate goals for the book, your distribution plan, and your audience.
• Part 4: Making Your Book a Bestseller: Distribution Methods explains that you can’t simply write and publish a book to make it successful. This part focuses on book distribution methods and how to best use each one. You can also find out how to handle your own warehousing, order fulfillment, and shipping, if you need to deal with these tasks based on the distribution method that you choose.
• Part 5: Creating a Buzz: Publicity and Marketing explores the options for letting readers know that your book exists. Developing a comprehensive advertising, marketing, and public relations campaign — and then properly implementing it — requires financial and time investment, plus a tremendous amount of creativity, planning, and initiative.
• Part 6: The Part of Tens offers you ten common self-publishing mistakes to avoid, ten e-book publishing mistakes to avoid, and ways to establish your expertise and credibility as an author.

Foolish Assumptions

Before writing this book, I made a few assumptions. I know, making assumptions isn’t always the best idea, but in developing the content for this book, I had to start somewhere. Here are my assumptions about you:

• You have basic writing skills and a great idea for a book. This new edition of Self-Publishing For Dummies helps you evaluate your idea in terms of its profitability, suitability, and marketability.
• You already have information to convey to your readers, whether you have a good story, or valuable and informative content. Sure, this book helps you fine-tune your approach when it comes to communicating your content to your readers, but you need to decide what information to include within your book, based on your book’s target audience.
• You have content ready to publish or have already tried other publishing methods. Perhaps you wrote your book’s manuscript and want to bypass the traditional publishing process and do it yourself. Or perhaps you already approached major publishers to sell your book without success, and now you want to give self-publishing a whirl. If you already wrote your manuscript, this book explains how to develop it, publish it, market it, and make it available to its intended audience.

Icons Used in This Book

The icons used throughout this book help you quickly pinpoint important information, focus your attention on information that’s worth remembering, and draw attention to things you should watch out for and avoid while you work on your publishing project.

This icon appears when I convey information worth remembering. Sounds simple enough, right?

You see this icon whenever I provide advice or tips. The information listed with this icon can help save you time and money, or help you improve your overall productivity and chances of success.

Watch out for this icon. It accompanies information such as common mistakes people make, misconceptions that need clarification, or potential pitfalls to avoid during the publishing process.

Beyond the Book

Within each chapter of Self-Publishing For Dummies, 2nd Edition, you can find information about many useful resources and companies that provide products or services for self-published authors. Keep in mind that the companies listed within this book provide only a sampling of what you can find out there. Feel free to shop around and research other companies or services before deciding which one you want to work with. Also note that pricing for various self-publishing-related services vary greatly, so shop around to get the best deal based on your project’s unique needs.

Where to Go from Here

For an overview of what self-publishing is all about and to determine the best way to get started, Chapter 1 definitely gives you the best place to begin reading. Of course, the Table of Contents and Index can help you find specific topics. And don’t forget to check out the online Cheat Sheet for other related self-publishing information. Go to www.dummies.com and type “Self-Publishing For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the search bar.

Never before has the opportunity to publish a professional-looking book or e-book been available to so many people at such an affordable price. After you write your manuscript, by following the advice offered in this book, you can become a published author in a matter of weeks (or months) and begin selling your book. If you have...