
How to self-publish a book: A handy list of resources - vharuck
https://blog.datascienceheroes.com/how-to-self-publish-a-book/
======
ilamont
Indie publisher here. Nice job - it came out quite well, judging by the
images. Curious if the editor and proofreader were working with the same
software, or it had to be exported to markdown or some other format.

Facebook ads are not a good investment, IMHO. They are expensive, campaigns
take time to set up, and most people on FB are not on the site to browse
books. Amazon Advertising is more effective and will be available to Amazon
KDP users.

A note about ISBNs: You don't need one if you are just publishing a PDF on
Gumroad or an ebook on KDP. If you are creating a print edition through KDP or
a service like IngramSpark, you will need an ISBN, though.

For authors based in the states, a warning: The U.S. ISBN registry, Bowker, is
a monopoly and prices accordingly so if you do want to go that route the
outlay will be significant: $125 for a single ISBN in the registry and $250
for 10 (the last time I checked). Bowker will try to upsell overpriced and
unnecessary services, like $25 barcodes and copyright assistance for $80 a pop
not including Copyright Office fees. Bowker also left the barn door open on
its CC page for six months earlier this year
([https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-
news/b...](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-
news/bookselling/article/78506-bowker-investigating-breach-of-isbn-
site.html)).

~~~
michalskop
$125 for ISBN seems like a ripoff to me - the ISBN are given for free where I
come from: the Czech Republic; and the system is administered by the National
Library

~~~
apocalypstyx
ISBNs and healthcare tend to follow similar patterns in the US, contrasted
with the most of the rest of the 1st world.

~~~
_red
The AMA to both certifies doctors and runs the medical schools. Obviously,
they have a vested interest in controlling supply to protect their membership,
thus artificial scarcity leads to high prices.

------
stakhanov
Is it only me, or does anyone else think that the prevailing business
practices of the likes of Amazon are an absolute rip-off when it comes to the
low royalties? You go through all the work of writing, editing and producing a
book and upload it. Amazon does nothing by the way of marketing & promition,
so you end up marketing links to your book on social media yourself. If you
want a decent price, you get 35% royalties, maybe another 5% for affiliate
marketing. That means that Amazon gets more out of the project than you do,
despite the fact that you're the one doing almost all the work (handling
downloads & payments seems like a pretty commoditized thing these days).

Compare that to selling music on bandcamp: They take 15%, the rest is yours to
keep.

It is absolutely beyond me, how self-publishing authors put up with that.

I GUESS the difference between music and e-Books, to some extent, is how the
channel influences perceptions of the quality of the product. People have got
very used to low quality writing being available for free on the web. So if
your ebook is just another piece of text on some website, many people will not
be willing to pay for it, whereas being on amazon creates an expectation that
the quality would be in line with properly published work (where, at least,
there is a four-eyes principle at work, at shouldering financial risks around
a book project etc.)

Someone should do something about that and create an ebook marketplace that
enforces certain quality standards and pays decent royalties.

~~~
mockingbirdy
A friend of mine did $120k completely passive with his book (+ audio book) on
Amazon. Without Amazon, he would have to get the outreach. Outreach is the
expensive and difficult part. When the customers are already there, it's just
a matter of converting them.

There are many people who make $25k/month completely passive on Amazon. I'm
not a big fan of Amazon, either, but you're not signing a bad deal with them.
Most publishers are worse (and don't deliver the outreach).

edit: Another thing to consider: Don't limit yourself to selling books. Add
value and place upsells in your books. And for fiction writers: Maybe add
merch and other stuff. For non-fiction: Sell online courses or coaching for
your expert topic. Usually the book is just the entry.

~~~
djaychela
What was the book's subject? I've always managed to convince myself that the
poor performance (relatively to values such as I see you have quoted) is
because my market is somewhat niche, but it may not be the case, so any info
on such self-published success would be useful for me.

~~~
mockingbirdy
I'm not gonna lie: Daytrading.

It's _the_ definition of a money topic. But I know that there are people who
make a fortune with small cook books. I know some other very profitable
niches, but I can't talk about them in detail - competition is already
extreme. But trust me: There's a ton of money in most topics.

OT: About daytrading (most people think it's basically a scam) - I know people
who do daytrading on a daily basis (what a pun) and who live relatively
comfortable investing $25-40k. I know a guy who went from 12k to 80k with one
investment (was a 2-year investment, though). He's not gambling, he is a
trading nerd reading the news and all company reports constantly. But yes, 99%
of daytraders lose money because they start to become greedy or have no
discipline.

~~~
stakhanov
...well I guess the important question is whether or not you think you have a
high chance of showing up at a high rank for search terms with enough traffic,
whether you have a chance of being featured prominently by amazon's
recommender engine etc etc. If you want to make that work for you, you
probably have to play a game like being a demand-driven content farm gaming
Amazon in a way akin to how SEO tries to game Google.

Maybe there's money in it, but it's probably not the kind of content I would
either want to produce or consume.

For most authors, the point of departure is probably, more idealistically,
some well written content, maybe with an audience that's a bit niche, and the
desire to find a way to get remunerated fairly on the effort that went into
producing the content. It sounds to me like that's not really what Amazon is
offering.

~~~
mockingbirdy
His book is fairly good and well-written, but I know what you mean.

I'm currently helping an author who wants to write a book and make some money
with it (she wrote books in the past and worked with publishers). I explained
to her how the self-publishing business works and she also had the same
reaction. It's possible to write high-quality content and get fairly
compensated, but you should definitely know that most people seem to be
content with sub-par books. The average quality is really bad and people seem
to like it (e.g. another very profitable niche: erotic books, Shades of Grey
is just one of many of them).

Amazon is very generic. If you want to build an audience, you should stick to
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Slack/chat groups, write a blog, do
vlogs and videos, organize local and offline groups, events and other methods.
You can then build a whole community around a niche and sell way more than a
book. This is also what I've recommended to her because this is how you build
high-quality communities.

------
vezycash
Editing your own text can be difficult because when reading it, you'll
mentally fill up missing words that aren't on the text.

Use a text to speech reader like Textaloud, balabolka and you'll catch more
errors.

There's a setting in Microsoft word to check for grammar, run-ons, verb
agreement... and readability rating of your text.

Write first, edit later to reduce writers' block in drafts - Turn off the
spell checker or simply write in notepad.

~~~
satysin
Do yourself a favour and get Scrivener. Don't use Microsoft Word or any
generic word processor if you're writing a book, sure you _can_ do it but god
is it a painful experience.

I have been using Scrivener for a few years now and I couldn't go back to
using a generic word processor for writing now.

I try not to recommend closed source software but there really isn't anything
else that comes close to it.

~~~
ghaff
I have Scrivener and have used it. The problem is that, at some point, I need
to start collaborating and otherwise sharing copies. At that point I need to
switch to a common format anyway. So I'm not convinced that Scrivener helps me
a lot given that I'll have to export well before I'm finished (in my case).
Maybe if I were working on something solo for a long period of time but that's
not how I generally write.

~~~
satysin
Yes I can see the issues in real-time (or near-time) collaboration as that is
not something Scrivener really deals with elegantly. I was talking about it
more from an individual writers perspective which is how I use it.

I export sections/chapters to PDF, ePub, etc. to send to my editors and
technical reviewers.

Actually you got me thinking about how I would need to approach this should a
collaborative project come my way. I need to investigate this further as that
is now an itch that needs to be scratched :)

~~~
ghaff
For work stuff, I use Google Docs as a matter of course and that works well.
It's not perfect insofar as the "it's over to you now and I won't touch it any
more" handoff isn't baked into the workflow but once people learn to have
discipline around that, it works well.

I do like Sccrivener. I just don't really do the working on
screenplay/novel/etc. over the course of months to years that is really it's
sweet spot. The one time I used it which was really useful was assembling a
book partly out of a series of previously written pieces. It was very good for
moving parts around although I suppose outline mode on a standard word
processor could have substituted.

------
austenallred
I self-published a book and sold $250k worth over the past year.

I cannot recommend getting an editor/typesetter highly enough. I paid mine
something like $500 total and she absolutely saved my life.

I'd go the Gumroad + Stripe route (or maybe Kickstarter if you need some
motivation) - Amazon sales have been negligible for me.

~~~
vram22
>I'd go the Gumroad + Stripe route

Why do you need Stripe? AFAIK Gumroad already handles payments. Something to
do with free vs. paid Gumroad plans and features?

~~~
austenallred
They didn't process payments when I set it up. Or rather, they processed them
through Stripe

------
nuklearwanze
Most of those resources only cover text-heavy books in paperback format. i
currently write an astronomy book (many high res images and illustrations) in
a large A3(ish) format. the whole process is completely different.

for example:

\- you should NOT let a third party print the book for you without any control
over the quality of the final product. amazone print on demand does a decent
enough job with paperback text books, but should probably not be used for
printing anything else.

\- unfortunately there is no real (OSS)alternative to CS software like
illustrator and indesign when it comes to actually creating the book. yes, you
CAN do it with other tools - but if you want to keep your sanity, DON'T. ( I
tried and ultimately gave up on the idea of using anything but adobe
software....)

\- color management is a nightmare. prepare for some real headaches when the
first test prints come back and everything that should be "100% black" comes
back in different shades and color variations of dark grey.

\- if you want any layout-heavy book to be easily translatable into different
languages, plan for it from the get go. text like small info-boxes underneath
images tend to vary in length a lot from language to language. some languages
produce much longer texts than english, others are more compact. this can
become a significant problem if all your layouts rely on character-perfect
text placement and fixed lengths.

\- binding techniques vary from one printing company to the next. it is
advisable to choose a company early on, so that you can adjust your layout
process accordingly. a simple change to color management, paper format or line
characteristics can become a huge problem, when you have to change dozens or
hundreds of embedded illustrations.

\- you dont need amazons print on demand at all: most printing companies let
you put in a small initial order (like 200 books). sell those first, then use
the money to order more. margins are great if you actually publish yourself,
so you can easily scale up your orders without risk of financial
overextension. if you do it with the same company this should not take longer
than 2 weeks. that kind of response time is totally acceptable.

Edit: I should add that this only works for books with a high retail price
(like 50+ dollar)

------
djaychela
I've written a book about a domain I know about - Music Technology - and self-
published it about 5 years ago , using lulu.com. It sells for £24.95 [1], and
I get about half of that in a lulu sale. This is a 650 page text book which
has a LOT of content - it would take hundreds of hours to go through it all
for a beginner.

If it sold on Amazon, I would get about £4. I guess I should have gone via
Amazon direct? (given that the author mentions 40%?)

Lulu makes about £4-5 on a sale (going on the printing costs that I pay, and
me factoring in a bit that I would pay even on a copy that I'm buying myself),
whereas Amazon would be taking more like £12-13 going on those numbers.

So, that's why my book isn't available on Amazon - I'd have to sell 3 times as
many to make the same money, and that seems unlikely to me. If it was more
even, I would sell it on Amazon as well as Lulu as I'm sure I'd get -some-
more sales, but not drastically more.

The book is a reasonable seller and a useful source of side income for me, but
it's certainly not an 'earner' \- I've spend about 3 weeks of very full time
work updating it for the latest version, and that will be in print for a year
before the next x.5 version comes out (and usually this means changing a large
amount of content as lots of little things change). Dividing the year's
earnings over the time taken to update it means I get a reasonable rate for
that time, but certainly not a good one.

I've thought about writing another book (going into more depth on the same
subject, and being a Cubase 'expert'), but I remember that it took about a
year of spare time to write the first one, and while it's been a reasonable
proposition over that time, it was only because it got picked up by the
software company's education rep that it went anywhere and reached any kind of
'critical mass' \- for about a year it sat and literally sold only copies to
students I was teaching (which was the initial reason for writing the book as
there was no text book of worth available). Just to be clear, I didn't enforce
purchase by the students, I'd say under 10% of them bought the book.

[1] - [http://www.lulu.com/shop/darren-jones/the-complete-guide-
to-...](http://www.lulu.com/shop/darren-jones/the-complete-guide-to-music-
technology-using-cubase-95/paperback/product-23486148.html) (latest version of
the book, until Cubase 10 gets released, then it will be superseded)

------
thangalin
In my spare time I've been developing a Java-based (don't hate me) WYSIWYM
tool that integrates R, Markdown, and a fair bit more. For example, Scrivenvar
can also transform XML into Markdown via XSLT, then use an R engine to perform
computations that are substituted back into the Markdown document prior to
generating an HTML preview from the final text. (For the OOP enthusiasts, it
uses the Chain-of-Command design pattern.)

I wrote Scrivenvar because I wanted the ability to use interpolated variables
while writing, so as to create documents free from duplicated content (e.g.,
character names, locations, and timeline calculations in a novel). (My
favourite part of the book's R code is integration of a GIS API to compute
driving distance based on the lat/long coordinates of two places in the novel,
falling back to the Haversine formula if the website is unavailable; the
number is then converted to English text using a Chicago Manual of Style
function call. Effectively, if I change the lat/long of either location, the
value of the book is updated without having to remember where in the text that
that particular number was referenced.)

Once a YAML document is loaded, inserting a variable is quick: type a few
letters from a value followed by Control+Space to insert the corresponding
variable name. This is handy if for deeply nested variable hierarchies.

The software is open-source and very much beta:

[https://github.com/DaveJarvis/scrivenvar](https://github.com/DaveJarvis/scrivenvar)

Ping me on GitHub if you like the concept and have comments or questions.

------
__________ttttt
Does anyone know how I can self publish on the “bible paper”? It’s the super
thin yet strong, high quality, paper.

I want to print a large book but want to have it not be too thick.

~~~
agbell
What your looking for is called onion skin paper and it seems to be pricey,
but I agree, great for certain uses

~~~
__________ttttt
I’m willing to pay. Do you know how to get a book bound using that paper?

~~~
schrijver
Like ilamont said you’ll probably have to go through an offset printing
process. There are some online services that offer offset printing for flyers
etc. but only with the most common setups. Easiest is to find a few printing
companies in your area and ask for offers. You might ask book designers or
publishers in your area to recommend printers.

------
innocentoldguy
I enjoyed the article and appreciated the information on ISBN numbers in
particular. In addition to the suggestions in the article, I would also add
Scrivener and Vellum to the list of important writing and publishing tools.

For the most part, I think this article is full of excellent advice. I do
disagree with three of the author's tips on how to write well though.

Specifically:

1\. There is no need to avoid alliteration. You shouldn't drown your work in
it, of course, but skillfully employing alliteration in your text can help
your sentences flow and can make certain aspects of your content more
memorable. I'd say it is better to learn to use alliteration, and use it to
good effect, than to eschew it altogether.

2\. Comparisons are not bad, especially in technical writing. When teaching,
it is helpful to tie new concepts to existing knowledge and comparisons are
one way to create these mental connections.

3\. Generalizations aren't bad in technical writing either, especially in code
samples. For example, telling a programmer how to print "Hello, World!" to the
screen is a helpful generalization. With that knowledge, the developer can now
use that same print statement for console output, messages, debugging,
logging, and other tasks. Developers can take this deceptively simple
generalization and use it for all kinds of specialized needs.

I think the key here is to learn to use alliteration, comparisons, and
generalizations in a way that strengthens your writing, rather than detracting
from it.

~~~
pablo_c
Hi! I wrote the post, glad you found useful!

Also, I'm with you with the recommendations :P It was just a funny image I
found on the internet and shared to produce some laughs...

I use a lot of comparisons alongside the book, especially from the "technical
to the real world".

Generalizations are also important, otherwise, it is impossible to get to the
point. They shape ideas. cheers!

~~~
innocentoldguy
Excellent job! Thank you for your efforts in sharing the information.

------
LeonB
I have a (draft) article where I've dumped all of the technical nitty gritty
of self-publishing: [http://wiki.secretgeek.net/creating-a-
book](http://wiki.secretgeek.net/creating-a-book)

------
ergothus
For papers and presentations at work (ones where i have time to do it right) I
write the text, then run it through the xkcd simple writer
([https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/](https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/)), then make
a new version with that output, then compare the two side by side and either
edit the original down or the simple one up.

It is a fascinating lesson. Some names or terms are understood and should be
there. Sometimes a more uncommon word is still clear AND more precise, so it
stays. Other times I find complete sentences that I can just remove and my
points are more visible.

I try to anticipate counter-arguments and head them off with detail, and/or
add qualifiers to statements at the cost of my main point. This technique
makes it clear when that happens so I can pull such out entirely or move to a
distinct section. Do it a few times and you benefit even when not using the
tool, though I need to refresh my brain monthlyish.

I removed "tend to", "most", "some", "often" and three sentences from the
above. I also broke my second paragraph into two, just from habits I've
learned this way.

------
slap_shot
I'm currently in the process of drafting a book about modern data engineering.
Data pipelines and data warehouses have changed drastically in the last five
years and I feel the few books on the subject are drastically outdated.

I figured I'd just start with content and work my way into the logistics of
the actual publishing process. This, and the comments in this thread, are a
huge help on the logistics side. Thank you!

~~~
malshe
Your book sounds interesting! How to keep a track of your project?

------
codazoda
A shameless plug for my own.

Publish on Kindle by Joel Dare

Explains how to format and publish a book using Libre Office. The book is
short, getting strait to the point quickly. I don't see a lot of sales but
readers that have reviewed it seem to like it.

[https://www.amazon.com/Publish-Kindle-write-ebook-
software-e...](https://www.amazon.com/Publish-Kindle-write-ebook-software-
ebook/dp/B00A4112ZM)

------
marvindanig
> …and a website.

=:) Have you seen Superbooks on web with
[https://bubblin.io](https://bubblin.io)?

Disclosure: I'm one of its developer.

~~~
wyldfire
Pretty cool site. FYI the page turn animation is unstable if I grab it near
the center of the page (it rapidly rocks between angled-down-from-top and
angled-up-from-bottom).

~~~
sonicaa
hi, I'm Sonica, CTO and cofounder of Bubblin here.

Yes, the transition is shaky when the curl is near the horizontal axis. We'll
fix or remove it on our next iteration of Bookiza.JS [1]

[1] [https://bookiza.io](https://bookiza.io)

------
jklepatch
I self published a book with leanpub. I used their online markdown editor.
Then I used their preview feature to export in all formats: pdf, epub and
mobi.

Then I uploaded these to my gumroad account, created a product and setup a
payment widget on my website.

Smooth and simple process.

------
ggm
A few comments. 1) kindle KDP is good, but you need to read up on format
issues for print on demand. fine detail around gutter and margin needs to be
understood for a high quality product. The specific DPI you render cover
artwork in, and sizing has a huge impact. Kindle can be a bit arbitrary on
what they accept and what they reject for print.

2) Kindle ePub demands a different set of outcomes. Do your print hardcopy
first, then modify it to make the inputs to upload. I used calibre to do all
the mods, but people swear by sigil. How you index makes a huge difference.
Remember ePub is flow text. All those pagerefs have to be re-calculated into
logical offsets and marks, not literal paper counts.

Again, the submission system can be a bit opaque.

If you want PoD hardcopy in Australia.. Avoid kindle. The amazon trade war
with Australian taxation has hit hard and they have no local printery.

I recommend Ingramspark, who can do PoD, _and_ manage epublishing into kobo
and nook and the like, and who have an agency status in amazon to sell your
hardcopy. The PoD rates look competitive with the KDP ones, once you factor US
delivery costs in.

(Amazon are pretty cool for worldwide rights)

Ingram demand really tight conformance on the PDF ISO specs for final output.
Adobe, craptacular code though it is, will emit the legal form. Sigil and
(yay!) libreoffice seem to also do this, but ymmv. Again, the DPI of your
images make a huge difference to submission here. Some stuff demands 300, some
demands 72 (for eprint covers)

Employ a professional editor/proofreader. They make a huge difference.
Seriously, its money well spent. Some of them index too.

~~~
sehugg
_Kindle can be a bit arbitrary on what they accept and what they reject for
print._

For e-books, too. One of my books was mysteriously blocked without
justification, and after several months and attempts at escalation was just as
mysteriously re-instated.

------
tuomosipola
Self-published books often have horrible layouts and graphical design, all-
around. Thankfully basic LaTeX styles are quite decent and do their job.

Casas's Data Science Live Book looks nice with its basic LaTeX style, I think.

~~~
pablo_c
Thanks! All the magic for the layout is thanks to LaTeX and the use of the R
package Bookdown:
[https://bookdown.org/yihui/bookdown/](https://bookdown.org/yihui/bookdown/)

Bookdown provides a template to produce the pdf, and you can modify later on
(for example customizing the table of contents, image positions, etc)

You write the book once, and it can be exported to html, pdf, epub (and
kindle)...

~~~
tuomosipola
These multiformat outputs have come a long way in the last five years, and
it's good to see them working. Thanks for the link! The automated approach
works best for technical books, just as in your case. There are still some
esoteric layout features that are very difficult to automate.

------
pablo_c
Hi! I'm Pablo Casas, the author of the "how-to" post & the Data Science Live
Book. I didn't notice the link was here!

Let me know if I can help you, I see a lot of interest here :)

------
atom-morgan
Softcover should be listed here:
[https://www.softcover.io/](https://www.softcover.io/)

You're familiar with it if you've been through Michael Hartl's Rails tutorial.

I used Softcover to self-publish my own book, releasing it in paperback on
Amazon:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1980891419/ref=dbs_a_def_r...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1980891419/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0)

------
kylegalbraith
Nice post! I am an Indie Publisher as well and you hit on quite a few things I
ran into as well. I went Gumroad right from the get-go and was very happy with
my experience. I later added KDP into the mix as well with a Kindle/Printed
version of the book, it hasn't done great but it is added credentials in a job
interview :)

------
jatsign
Does anyone have experience publishing a book similar to a kid's
coloring/activity book? I'm not interested in the e-book route and the
services I've looked at don't seem to offer the type of binding books of this
type have.

------
ggambetta
A similar example based on my own experience, but for a non-technical book:
[http://www.gabrielgambetta.com/tgl_open_source.html](http://www.gabrielgambetta.com/tgl_open_source.html)

------
amelius
Just curious, is it (still) possible to make a living from writing books?

------
C0d3r
Does anyone have a recommendation for just simply printing a book (epub or
pdf) that I'm not interested in selling? Just to print a copy for me?

~~~
codazoda
For short / simple books or "zines", consider a simple rotatable stapler and
print at home. Look at many of the zine resources online. This is my own
favorite way to publish small one-off or short run books.

------
nyc111
I use [https://leanpub.com/](https://leanpub.com/) and it works for me.

------
grecy
Does anyone know of a PoD service that will do hardcover books for a decent
price?

~~~
djaychela
Can you define 'decent'?

~~~
grecy
ha. OK, how about a PoD service that does hardcover books, at any price!

~~~
djaychela
[http://www.lulu.com/create/books](http://www.lulu.com/create/books)

I've done all my books through Lulu - including doing a couple of projects for
clients (schools) who did a 'make a book' project with the kids writing the
stories, etc... their service has always been pretty good. The site is a bit
clunky, but works. I've done a couple of one-offs for my own use as well.

And looks like they do hardcover (although I've never tried it).

~~~
wrycoder
I bought Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces in hardcover from Lulu.

[http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/remzi-
arpa...](http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/remzi-arpaci-
dusseau-and-andrea-arpaci-dusseau/operating-systems-three-easy-pieces-
hardcover-version-100/hardcover/product-23779861.html)

The book is over 700 pages. It's very nicely done. The front and back covers
are just the right thickness. The book is not bound in signatures, it's edge
glued ("perfect bound") like a paperback. But, the spine is extremely flexible
and not attached to the casing. I was very careful to open it properly by
gently creasing down sections of pages starting at the front and the back. If
this is not done, there is risk of breaking the spine. I can open the book at
any page and it lies flat on the table. The paper is medium weight, light
ivory, and non-glossy. The casing is printed nicely with the title, and the
dust jacket is first rate. Altogether, I'm quite pleased.

------
girmad
Traditional offset printing company with a plug / PSA: below 500 copies print
on demand services are great. Above 500 copies going with a traditional offset
printing house will get you a better price. Of course you take on more
inventory risk that way.

You also get access to more finishing and cover options, etc.

