Self-Publish Your Book And Sell It On Amazon -
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How To Self-publish your books and sell them on
Amazon.com
.
How Do you decide if you should self-publish your book or not? Here are a
few questions you need to ask yourself first.
1) Can you be a businessperson as well as a writer?
Writing is a quiet occupation while business takes a lot of communication
skills.
2) Are you Motivated? You will want to see your book
through from beginning to end.
3) Are you willing to take a risk? You can't be afraid
to take the plunge. You have to believe in yourself.
Above are just a short version of some of the questions
you need to ask yourself before getting started.
Other things you need to learn are about Writing and
Designing your manuscript. Research your material, keep it organized and
easily accessible.
Draft your back-cover copy before beginning your book.
Read the back cover copy of many books in print to get a feel for how to
layout this text.
Talk to editors, proofreaders, cover artists and book
designers to help you.
Find a cold reader to review your final draft. This will
help you locate grammar errors and obtain a opinion from another persons
view. Make the book as perfect as you can.
When the book is finished check it for necessary
permissions if you quoted others. Design your book, choose your printer
and print your book.
Next you will need to distribute and promote your book.
The best place to start selling your book is
http://www.amazon.com/advantage - this is Amazon's independent
publishers program. How it works is you sign up for their program after
you have obtained your ISBN number from
http://www.bowkerlink.com and fill in the information they request.
Review the site for more information. Amazon does take a percentage of
your sales I believe it's 55% so have enough profit in your list price to
make money for yourself.
Send the first two copies of your book to the United
States Copyright Office. See
http://www.loc.gov for more information.
Find wholesalers and distributors - read the yellow
pages or call a bookstore to learn the local wholesaler and preferred book
distributors.
Market to Libraries. Sell to bookstores etc.
Here are some terms you will need to know for publishing
your book.. Bar Code - indicates the books identification and prices.
Found on the back cover on the book. There are software programs at
www.download.com
where you can find these to print out.
Bluelines - Printer's proofs designed to catch final
errors before printing
Bookbindings - Case bound - hard cover Comb - spiral
like plastic bindings used when authors want their book to lay flat.
Perfect - a square spine created by gluing the page ends together at the
spine. Saddle Stitch - Stapled at the fold like magazines Spiral - Wire
binding
ISBN - International Standard Book Number, essential to
the identification of a particular book (check out
www.bowkerlink.com
for more)
For more information on this topic check out the
following books and web sites to get started...
RR Bowker -
www.bowker.com -
Printable forms available at the web site (ISBN #'s) Library of Congress -
www.loc.gov/copyright - for copyright forms Para Publishing -
www.parapublishing.com - Publishers of The Self-Publishing Manual
Publishers Marketing Association -
www.pma-online.org/index.html. Newsletter with up to date info for
publishers. Small Business Administration -
www.sba.gov - to help you
start your publishing business Small Publishers Association of North
America -
www.spannet.org. Association for independent presses and
self-publishers and authors.
http://self-publishing.com
By Tom and Marilyn Ross
