Self-Publishing - From Author's Last Option to Best Option? Five Advantages to Self-Publishing

A self-publishing article by Jeanette Joy Fisher

The concept of self-publishing has carried a somewhat negative connotation. However, over the past few years, it's become much more common for authors to self-publish their work and market their books themselves in a variety of creative ways.

In fact, many authors prefer to control their book production and sales. Today's authors self-publish because they make more money, faster, without working so hard.

The explosion in self-publishing has been driven by advances in technology, which have allowed authors to print books more quickly and at considerably less expense. One advance has been print on demand (POD). With POD, authors can often bring a perfect-bound paperback book to the market for less than $1,000. That's thousands of dollars less than self-publishing used to cost, and the books delivered by the majority of POD houses are generally of excellent quality. Although these books can be sold on Amazon, POD books still receive negative treatment from reviewers and book stores.



The best advance in technology is digital printing. Today's authors can order small runs of books, from 50 to 250 copies at a time. These books can be sold in book stores just like any large publishing house book.

Five Advantages to Self-Publishing

1. You don't have to buy a large quantity of books to get a reasonable discount as was the case years ago. (In fact, many POD houses don't require you to buy any books at all.)

2. Your book can be printed quickly, which can be important if you're writing about a timely subject or if you need books in your hands to sell at an event or speaking engagement. Sir Speedy in Whittier printed 250 books in less than a week. They received the PDF and cover art, sent a proof overnight, received the fax with corrections, printed the books, and shipped to Las Vegas in time for a convention.

3. You're in total control of how your book is marketed, which can be a distinct advantage. If you're not a well-known author and you're lucky enough to sign with a major publishing company, you can't expect them to promote your book. They're mainly interested in blockbusters, and all their other titles generally suffer as a result. As a self-publisher, you're free to do radio and television interviews, book signings, seminars, or any other sales-generating ideas you might have--without seeking permission from your publisher. You keep all your hard-earned profits instead of sharing the majority with a company that didn't book the event.

4. You can easily test an idea you may have for a book. You don't have to go through the formal (and tedious) process of writing proposals and doing market research to prove to a publisher that you have a winner. You can publish it yourself and reap all the benefits.

5. As a self-publisher, you get to keep a much larger percentage of the profits. For example, if you sell copies of your book at $20 that only cost $5.00, you quadruple your profit on every book. On the other hand, you'd be lucky to get one-tenth that amount through a standard contract with a mainstream publisher, which means you'd have to sell ten times as many books to realize the same profit. And, if you print more books at a time, you can make even more money because the cost per book goes down significantly.


Self-publishing allows you to call yourself an author, because you can hold up your book and proudly say, "I wrote this!" That may be the greatest benefit of all. So if you've been avoiding self-publishing the manuscript you've worked on so long and hard, it may well be time to join millions of other self-published authors who have a special reason to celebrate!

Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher

Get your book in print before another celebration passes you by. Join our FREE Speakers and Authors Network and learn how to write a book fast. You'll also learn how to write a book that SELLS and how to promote yourself and your business. Free Author Help! ebook: http://www.writertoauthor.com

Design Psychology Expert and author Jeanette Fisher helps speakers and authors with free teleseminars. Jeanette is the author of best-selling real estate investing books.

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Self-Publishing: Death Trap or Career Booster?

A self-publishing article by Karen Magill

I am in the process of self-publishing my second book – ‘Let Us Play, A Rock ‘n Roll Love Story’. And because it is self-published I seem to be hearing so many doubters and haters on self-publishing again.

Granted, it does take a special sort of person to travel that journey of self-publishing. And anyone who goes into it feeling that they are going to make a lot of money is liable to have those hopes dashed quite quickly. But does self-publishing automatically mean a black mark against the author or mean that their career is ruined? Hardly.

One of the Yahoo groups I am on brings in top agents. Now I do admit that one of them is against self-publishing and feels it is the last resort for a writer. But another is for it and is curious to read an author’s self-published product. It depends on the person.



As technology changes so does the industry. We have seen success stories in the past that have begun as self-published writers and that gives us hope. More and more places are accepting self-published books too; the author just has to find them. I have even heard of a Lulu author getting his book into a Chapters bookstore.

Self-publishing is a lot of work and requires ingenuity too. Thinking ‘outside the box’ is a definite requirement.

Editing is also a must. I have now edited ‘Let Us Play’ so many times in the last twenty-four hours that I am sick of looking at it. LOL. But I am going to be receiving a hard copy in a few weeks so I will be looking at it again.

Although ‘The Bond’ has been out for two years I am not going to quit promoting it. Instead I am going to try to combine efforts with ‘Let Us Play’. And I am going to try things that are long shots. But hey, sometimes long shots pay off. All I can do is try.

I don’t intend on self-publishing forever. Yet I am glad that I decided to do it with these two. I have learned a lot about the process of getting a book from my imagination to print. I am constantly learning about promotion and it helps the creative side of me to know the business side. When I do land that big contract, I think I will be better suited to deal with an agent and have a better understanding of what the publisher and the publicist etc. goes through. I will know what it takes to make that book sell. I will know better how hard it is.

Karen Magill
Author of The Bond, A Paranormal Love Story
and the soon to be published
Let Us Play, A Rock 'n Roll Love Story
For more information go to http://www.karenmagill.com

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Start Small but Finish Big in Self-Publishing

A self-publishing article by Anthony Obey

You may have never considered self-publishing as an option for your book or even considered publishing at all for your work. Publishing a book is extremely effective in broadcasting your message, ministry, or organization. A book gives you the ability to thoroughly inform, educate, and inspire your audience on what you are teaching. A book also adds another very lucrative stream of income to your organization that will enhance your existing ones.

Now that your interest is peaked about the power of writing a book, you may directly go to thinking “who should I go with: Random House or Nelson Publishing?” Who said that you would be able to go the traditional route in the first place? Traditional publishers only publish about a dozen to 50 books a year while they receive 1000’s of book proposals from would be authors every single month. Do you see how the two don’t equal a book deal for you any time soon?



But take heart, many of the greatest writers of time past up to today have been self-published authors. Check out this list of names to see if self-publishing could be profitable for you:

WEB Dubois, Ken Blanchard, Benjamin Franklin, Earnest Hemingway, Spencer King, Edgar Allen Poe, William Strunk, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, T.D. Jakes, and Walt Whitman.

This is some list, huh? What makes the difference is not whether you get a book deal with a traditional publisher or self-publish, the difference is within you. You have to determine how successful you will be and what legacy you will leave to the world after you. I wouldn’t let the rejection that you’ll get from traditional publishing companies stop me from being successful if I were you. I know because my wife and I didn’t let that stop us. We self-published our book and started marketing, promoting, and speaking to teach our message to the world. We have found this to be a great way to get our message out and reach people.

You should definitely consider self-publishing as the road that will lead you to where you are trying to go. Do your research on different Self- Publishing companies and get your work out there.

Anthony Obey is the owner of GMA Publishing providing book publishing and marketing services to Writers, Pastors, Leaders, and Speakers. At http://www.GMApublishing.com you can also sign up for Book Coaching and receive FREE E-Tips on Writing, Publishing, and Marketing your book.

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