Publishing a Novel
So the novel is written, polished, and ready for prime time. Now what? The traditional approach is to put together an engaging book presentation, an eye-catching letter, research publishers to find those who are publishing your type of book, and send out stacks of query letters. Another version of this is to find an agent who likes your book and will peddle it to the publishers. Finding an agent is approximately the same process as finding a publisher, but you have the added problem that you will most likely have never heard the name of the agent, so it is hard to know if he/she is reputable, though there ways to get some info. I went down this road for a couple of years. There is no indication from any of my submittals that they were ever read before landing in the trash can.
Luckily, in today’s world there are other options. You can sign on with a print on demand (POD) publisher. I worked with a company named iUniverse. They will publish any book that is sent in, with only a few censorship rules. You pay a fee and they will format your manuscript, help prepare a cover, and put your book out on the market. In addition, they provide services to polish your book if you are interested in creating a high quality book. I used iUniverse to publish my first three books as I wrote them. After the first three, I became more interested in creating a quality book and took advantage of polish services. I was very happy with the results and even pulled the first three books back for major rewrites. The problem with iUniverse is that they set the price of the book significantly higher than the market price for similar books. They are totally inflexible. Consequently, I have cancelled my contracts with iUniverse.
Another option, the one I am using now, is to publish your book yourself. I have published all of my previous books over the past three months. It seemed that it would be simple, but as I got into it, I discovered it is more complicated than I imagined. Although I struggled for the first couple of books, I am glad that I am now the publisher of all my completed books. I have been able to cut the prices of my softcover books by about 50%. More about the details of self-publishing in the next post.
Luckily, in today’s world there are other options. You can sign on with a print on demand (POD) publisher. I worked with a company named iUniverse. They will publish any book that is sent in, with only a few censorship rules. You pay a fee and they will format your manuscript, help prepare a cover, and put your book out on the market. In addition, they provide services to polish your book if you are interested in creating a high quality book. I used iUniverse to publish my first three books as I wrote them. After the first three, I became more interested in creating a quality book and took advantage of polish services. I was very happy with the results and even pulled the first three books back for major rewrites. The problem with iUniverse is that they set the price of the book significantly higher than the market price for similar books. They are totally inflexible. Consequently, I have cancelled my contracts with iUniverse.
Another option, the one I am using now, is to publish your book yourself. I have published all of my previous books over the past three months. It seemed that it would be simple, but as I got into it, I discovered it is more complicated than I imagined. Although I struggled for the first couple of books, I am glad that I am now the publisher of all my completed books. I have been able to cut the prices of my softcover books by about 50%. More about the details of self-publishing in the next post.
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