This is a question that I've had from a few writers, so I thought I'd tackle it in the newsletter:
"How do I self-publish a print book?"
In the indie-author / self-publishing world, there's a lot of focus on ebooks, but it can be tougher to
find information on publishing a printed book.
The ebook-centric approach is, I think, for a couple of reasons:
- A lot of indie authors are also voracious readers, and people who are likely to adopt new technology; they've probably had a Kindle for years.
- It's easy and cheap to publish and distribute an ebook; print books are trickier.
- You can change an ebook file as many times as you like (e.g. to fix typos): once a book is
printed, it's printed! It can also be trickier to alter the file for future printings.
- With an ebook, you can price very low (e.g. $0.99) and still make a decent percentage profit on each book sold.
Some authors feel that ebook-only is perfectly good enough for them, or they produce a print version to give readers the option, but they don't worry about distributing it in physical bookstores.
If you're aiming at an audience that
prefers to buy print books, though, or if being able to hold your book in your hands – and send copies to family / friends – is important to you, then the good news is that creating a print book is easier than ever.
In case you didn't know ... you can print just one book at a time!
Ten years ago, Lulu was making waves as a print-on-demand company: you could upload a manuscript and print a single copy of your book there. The first
time I did that, it was an incredible thrill to hold an actual book with my name on it! I didn't self-publish for public consumption at that point – I just used Lulu to print various drafts of various novels-in-progress. It was a fantastic way to have an easy-to-engage-wth copy of the manuscript to edit.
These days, Lulu is still around, as are other print-on-demand services; I personally use Amazon's CreateSpace to produce print versions of my
self-published novels (Lycopolis and Oblivion), as it integrates so seamlessly with Amazon.
Of course, you still have the option that self-publishers used to take: get 1,000 or more copies of your book printed. It's much cheaper per book ... but it's a huge upfront expense, and it can easily lead to a garage or attic full of books that you can't shift.
If you're looking into publishing in print, Joanna Penn
(of the popular blog and podcast The Creative Penn) has an excellent article with lots of links to handy tools and resources here:
