Amen

Amen to what Joni just said. When you publish a book, you are starting a publishing business. YOU must be in control. YOU must learn the publishing business. It is far more important to educate yourself and formulate a business plan than it is to run around finding people who will do it all for you. That's a sure way to make costly mistakes. How will you know if the people you hire know what they're doing if you don't know what they should be doing?

Again - you are starting a publishing business and the best way to ensure success is to become educated and to have a solid business plan.

We can't wait to see the great books that YOU CAN create.

Denise

Denise's last post reminds me of the call we get ALL the time:

"Will you do all the marketing work for my book for me and I'll pay you a commission on sales? My book is really great, so there should be lots of sales. I won't need to pay you for your time because we're going to make so much money that a commission should compensate you well."

Really? Seriously? Would you sit in your doctor's office and say "ok, let's try the surgery, and although you've spent half your life in school learning about this trade and you'll spent countless hours preparing and performing the surgery, I'll give you a check when I come out of it ok in a few years time." Grab a brain people!

My partners and I have worked for YEARS learning about, and experiencing, all of the ups and downs of the publishing world. Some of us have even published bestselling books. We have learned what works, but every book is a business on its own. You are starting a business here, from scratch. Your marketing plan starts now, from scratch. You want me to start up as your VP Marketing, work my butt off and collect commissions from you months down the road when the book takes off? Please.

Do What You Do Best

I received a most interesting phone call from a gentleman who wanted us to market his book for him. As I replied, we do not do the hands-on marketing - we are educators. We teach people what to think about when writing, how to physically publish, how to market and how to do publicity. He was not satisfied with my reply, saying that he has an amazing book. That may be, but my reply again was that we are educators not do-it-for-you marketers. So he persisted: his book is apparently very similar to a a now famous book. My response was: that's already been done. So again he persisted: if I knew then what I know now about how successful the popular book has been would I then consent to be the marketer of his book? What do you think I said?

I said NO. That is not what we do. The point is, do what you know and do it well. If you want to become a publisher, learn how to publish. Don't assume that you will write a book and everyone else will be responsible for its success. Become educated. Focus on making your book a household name. Sell books.

Another lesson learned from the gentleman's call is: don't copy someone else. You very likely cannot do it better than the author/publisher who has sold a gazillion copies of their book. The public associates the well-known book as the final word. Be unique and be successful.

Here's to successful publishing,

Denise

SELF publishing

I thought that I would share with you a few thoughts that I wrote today on SELF publishing:

When is Self Publishing SELF Publishing?

There appears to be some confusion about the definition of self publishing. So you ask, “What is it really”? As an author and aspiring publisher, you need to understand the different ways in which to create a physical book.

Basically, there are three strategies for publishing:

submit your manuscript to a publishing house, which takes over the design, editing and printing
find a “publishing service” that takes over the design and editing, and sometimes the printing
organize the design, editing and printing yourself.

Which one do you think is SELF publishing? If you chose number one or number two, you are wrong. The correct answer is number three. In order to produce a quality product that will sell over a long period of time, YOU must be the publisher.

Imagine that you want to build a new house. You have a vision of how your dream house should look, but you decide to turn the project over to someone else. You tell them to design and decorate the house and when it is done, you will move in. Do you really think that the house designed and decorated by someone else will entirely meet your needs and your tastes? Where do you want the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the laundry room? What materials do you like for the floors, the cupboards, the walls? What colors do you like? You can have the house built by a contractor, but the designer cannot get into your head to envision the final product, so you must call the shots.

The same holds true for your book. When you work with your own editor, your own graphic designer and your own printer, you can create the beautiful, professional-looking book that you know you can live with and that you can sell because YOU called the shots.

Denise