Self-Publishing--Is it an option? Yes, And A Good One!

Self-Publishing--Is it an option?

However, we are living in times when ebook sales are multiplying, even as print books sales are falling, and over a long term. Print books still are the biggest part of the publishing market by far and will be for some time to come, no doubt. So, either we place out books with an online epublisher, or try really hard to go through print publishers (and often not succeed). We have few other options, Vanity Press being a poor one of them, in my personal opinion.

And now there is another problem these days; publishers, both ebook and print, seem more intent on marketing themselves rather than their authors. Oh, not all of them, and not the big, mainstream, print ones, so much, but the handwriting does seem to be on the wall. As their profits fall, the money for marketing authors shrinks. So out of necessity, more and more, authors are being pressured to do this for themselves. Let’s be honest; if you’re a publisher and you have only so much marketing money, you are going to spend most of it on the most likely authors, and also on your own company. So bye-bye, little or not well-known authors. It’s already this way. If you are Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, you get the lion’s share of marketing money. If you are an unknown professor; good luck!

But now, there is a new, and I feel true self-publishing system coming online, literally, and figuratively. Smashwords is the best example of this. This site allows you to self-publish your books. They guide you step-by-step in the upload of your work, have an automated system for formatting conversions of it to all the major types of ebook formats, assign you separate pages for each of your books, plus a profile page for yourself. They have direct links to graphs and charts (continuously updated) of your sales. They even assign ISBN numbers to your books. All you have to do is write the stories, and create your own cover.

Plus, they have a marvelous distributorship/affiliate program. Your books go to such places as Sony, Ipad, well, almost everywhere it seems like. And, they have their own vast site which promotes and distributes your works, too.

How much does all this cost? Well, surprisingly, it’s FREE! Yep, the magic word, often much maligned by liars and thieves in the market world, but in this case, it’s actually valid. Smashwords is free. Even the ISBN number, if you name Smashwords as the publisher, is free! No charge, nothing, nada! You get the lion’s share of the royalties, way above what almost any epublisher is willing to give you, you get to track your sales so there is no funny business, and with an automated system that helps ensure this. You are emailed (if you like) for every sale and/or review of your book. And, you can upload short stories, novels, novellas, and anthologies, whatever. They just have to be complete works.

Am I receiving a kickback for this marvelous review of their site? Nope--nothing! I’m just so enthused with it that I had to share this with my fellow struggling authors. Here, at long last, is an outlet for self-publishing that is professional, with widespread distribution, and all sorts of other goodies and it’s all free! Now, the affiliates demand a percentage of every sale, as they always do, of course so your sales from the Smashwords site give you higher royalties. They also have site-wide promotions, discount coupons you can email to favorite fans,
sales, etc. But even the distributors’ take is not high, so again, the author receives the lion’s share of all royalties, far more than practically any ebook or print publisher will give you or could afford to give you!

Do you still have to market? You bet. That’s a sign of the times, but Smashwords also makes available a marketing plan book for free, as well as allowing links to actual print sites for your story, and/or podcasts, as well. See what I mean? This is true self publishing in my opinion, and again, it’s FREE!

Create Space is another marvelous site if you want your books in print. They actually have a distributorship, as well, and the prices are low and quality of their print books is high. You get quite a choice as to what size book you want, too. What’s more, this is all free as well! And, they have a free program that allows you to create covers for your books. You do not have to order a minimum number of books to do this. Again, to have them available in print is free. When you do order books, you will they are certainly cheap enough to resell them and still make a tidy profit, if that's what you want to do. But my opinion is that for book signings, I'll do that, but otherwise, not. I just want them available to readers in print who want to order them through either Create Space or a distributor outlet.

Between these two sites alone, your books can be sent to a multitude of ebook distributors (including Barnes & Noble, I’m told), as well as in print and readily available at many print outlets. There are other sites like Smashwords and Create Space coming on line, so do yourself a favor and check them out, as well! Select the one(s) you think is right for you, but for me, it's Smashwords and Create Space.

Again, I get nothing out of this from these sites, nor do I want to. What I wanted to do was share with my fellow authors a new way of self-publishing, and for free. I don’t know about you, but again, I have darn little money to spend on marketing, so this to me was a big boon! And, I’m making sales. So do yourself a favor and at least check these two sites out. Smashwords, to my way of thinking, is absolutely wonderful, especially for ebooks. And did I mention it was free? Oh, yeah, I did… But check out this link if you don’t think I’m not actively engaged in this:

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RobShelsky

26 short stories, novellas, and two anthology\ies! Count ‘em. So I’m a definite believer in this. And soon, I’ll be up on Create Space as well.

And if that isn't convincing enough, check out this, my short story from Smashwords, Dystopia, is now a Recommended Read at Borders' new ebook site! It's posted there right alongside such sci-fi greats as Stephen King and Brian Herbert, no less! Here's the link:

So don't let anyone tell you that self-publishing, true self-publishing is just a vanity press business. Not anymore! Now, authors have real freedom to self-publish!

Self-publishing, the real thing seems to be here at long last, and it’s affordable, if “free” isn’t too high a price! So check it out!

It's getting to be strictly up to us authors, folks, to do the work of writing, marketing, and now publishing, so roll up those sleeves and do it!

And do check out my short story, Dystopia, at Borders! Hey, if it's good enough to be with Stephen King and Brian Herbert...

http://www.borders.com.au/borders-recommends-ebooks