
Everything I Know about Self-Publishing - kofman
https://hackpad.com/Everything-I-Know-about-Self-Publishing-d4zCU7alhJX
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auctiontheory
This article provides some good pointers, but for more detail (all you need to
know), read Aaron Shepard's blog, and also read his _Aiming at Amazon_ and
_POD For Profit_. You'll thank me.

To keep your options open, you definitely want to buy your own ISBNs from
Bowker (if in the US).

Above all, do not use a "vanity press" that charges you to publish your books.

Source: The rewarding and time-consuming experience of self-publishing my
first book.

~~~
nekopa
What was your book about? Fiction, non-fiction?

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auctiontheory
Non-fiction.

Making a financial success of fiction is (even) harder. Much harder. Generally
speaking, I think you need a publisher behind you for fiction, although Amanda
Hocking recently managed to bootstrap her way to self-published vampire
success.

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gaylemcd
I agree -- harder to be successful in self-publishing for fiction.

(1) There's less "need" for your book. People aren't saying, "gosh, I wish I
could find a book on zombies from Mars attacking Earth. Let's see what my
options are!" (2) You can't differentiate yourself as easily. (3) To be
successful as an author, you need a platform / promotional strategy. It's
harder to build that with fiction books (at least until you are well-known).
In an "informational" space (business, reference, technical, etc), you can
build up a following by starting a business or a website that provides
assistance in some area.

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zrail
Both this and the link to James Altucher's article in the sibling comment
should prove to be very useful for my upcoming self-published book[1],
especially the link to the image generator. Thanks for sharing!

[1]: [http://www.petekeen.com/mastering-modern-
payments](http://www.petekeen.com/mastering-modern-payments)

~~~
nekopa
Good luck! I signed up for the free chapter, and feel free to contact me if
you'd like some feedback.

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lingben
great stuff, thanks! you should also check out James Altucher's recent
article, it has tonnes of great tips:
[http://www.copyblogger.com/professional-self-
publishing](http://www.copyblogger.com/professional-self-publishing)

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dylangs1030
Can someone explain to me why the author is implying CreateSpace is
disreputable?

Apparently ISBN's are not acceptable from there an bookstores will not order
through them. Why would this be?

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gaylemcd
Whoa! Not saying CreateSpace is disreputable at all. I love CreateSpace.

It is, however, a self-publishing service and thus it is "disreputable" in
that sense. There's additional credibility when you're backed by a publisher,
particularly a major one. Thus, by using CreateSpace, you're lacking some
credibility there. That credibility, as well as the sales channels, can be
pretty valuable for getting a book into a store.

There's nothing wrong with _CreateSpace_ specifically though.

That said, Barnes and Noble will not order books for their stores through
CreateSpace (unless, perhaps, specifically requested by a customer). That is,
it won't stock books with a CreateSpace ISBN on their shelves.

One person (who handles independently published books) at Barnes and Noble
told me that this is because CreateSpace / Amazon is a competitor. Maybe
that's true, or maybe CreateSpace does something funky with returns (like not
accepting them with good enough terms) or doesn't offer a sufficient discount.
I'm not sure.

Regardless of the reason, the fact remains that Barnes and Noble will not
accept books printed by CreateSpace for their stores. (They will, however,
list them on their website... which I can't imagine many people order from.)

AND -- if you purchase your ISBN from CreateSpace, then CreateSpace owns your
ISBN and _only_ CreateSpace can print your book. You can't, say, have
CreateSpace print your book for Amazon sales and then Lightning Source print
your book for B&N sales (or Pothi.com for India).

If purchase your own ISBN (for like $250), then you can print through multiple
sources. This will allow you to print your book with Lightning Source (as well
as CreateSpace), and thus get into Barnes and Noble stores.

That said, for the vast, vast majority of self-published books (or any book),
getting into Barnes and Noble stores just isn't going to happen anyway.

Happy to answer more questions / clarify!

~~~
dylangs1030
Thanks, that was a great answer! I just misunderstood your intent in the OP,
good clarification.

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yumcoin
This is already a great list, and it's just a few of the resources available
to people hoping to achieve success with self-publishing.

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ninetax
It seems to be blank to me.

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coreyja
And I'm getting a server error. "Oops! A server error occured. It's been
logged."

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nekopa
Great list of tips. I helped a friend self pub his first novel about 3 years
ago. Amazing experience, I organized the cover (lucky to kow an extremely
talented graphic designer who worked for a small percentage of sales) and I
did all the internal layout using indesign (the OP was right on how much of a
technical nightmare it is to get up and running with InD!)

My inspiration and guide for working with the interior of the book, believe it
or not, was don knuth's TAOCP. That is one of the most beautifully typeset
books I've ever read (ha, I mean have _tried_ to read over the last 12 years).
It was a lot harder than I had imagined, and took a lot of by hand tweaking to
make each and every page look just right. But it was worth it as the printed
version of the book looks great, without the self-published look I've noticed
from people who I believe may have just downloaded a template for Word to
layout the book.

I don't know about the various comments here about createspace isbn's. That's
what we went with, and small bookstores and Barnes and Noble stock the
paperback version. (Although I don't know if B&N have it in their stores, but
you can buy the paperback version online through them)

The hardest part we found was the marketing. My friend started a blog, and is
active on twitter, pinterest and Facebook. The book is a novel so he can't
show domain knowledge via the blog, but his blog is entertaining and does lead
to sales as the book contains comedy, but isn't a comedic work.

The biggest problem was trying to reach out to traditional media - not even a
rejection email from various reviewers we tried to reach out to, even though
we focused on papers where he is from and also where the book is set (Philly
and Pitsburgh). This could of course be because of the fact that it's self
published. But when is next book becomes a big hit we will remember the great
websites and independent magazines that did review the book so they'll get
first dibs on the author. But I will definetly go through this list with a
fine toothed comb when I have a chance and check out the marketing tracking
tips.

Regarding piracy, we believed in the old adage that I think O'Reilly came up
with - 'It's not piracy that kills authors, it's obscurity.' But I couldn't
convince him to go the whole hog like Paulo Coello and upload his book himself
to pirate book sites, and I can understand as we worked on the book for about
4 years (by we I mean him doing all the work and me cracking a whip to keep
him motivated and writing, then proofreading and editing through 4 drafts)

Happy to say he's sold a few copies, and it keeps plugging along. This summer
I get to do it all again as he has almost finished the first draft of his
second novel.

If you want to check it out, the novel is called 'Senseless' and the author is
Damien Galeone ([http://damiengaleone.com](http://damiengaleone.com)). The
book is available on both Amazon and B&N (paper, kindle and nook) Or you can
email me if you want a copy of the book in PDF, if you'd like to check out the
internal formatting (this is marketing, not piracy and I just called the
author he said he's fine to hand out some copies:)my email is in my profile.

~~~
gaylemcd
"I don't know about the various comments here about createspace isbn's. That's
what we went with, and small bookstores and Barnes and Noble stock the
paperback version. (Although I don't know if B&N have it in their stores, but
you can buy the paperback version online through them)"

Right. It's carrying it in _B &N physical stores_ that's an issue. They will
put it up on the website or allow a customer to order through a store.

B&N won't stock books printed by CreateSpace in their physical stores. And, as
long as you have a CreateSpace-owned ISBN, only CreateSpace can print the
book.

That said, for the vast majority of self-published authors, it's sort of
irrelevant. B&N won't carry their books because they're not selling well
enough.

