How to Publish Your Own Book – Part 1
Should you decide you want to author and publish your own book like I did (Blog Blazers), there are basically three main paths you can take. Each has it’s own benefits and risks, and each is quite different. There are actually a few more alternatives to this, but you can pretty much fit them into these options if you try hard enough. They are:
- Ebook only
- Print-on-Demand (POD)
- Self publish
- Publish through a publishing company
I’ve personally had experience with 3 of them: Blog Blazers which was initially POD but ended up being self published, and How to Generate Traffic to Your Website which is an ebook only book. The only reason I have tried publishing through a publishing company is that I haven’t been interested enough in this option yet. But who knows, that might change if the opportunity is right.
In any case, over the next while I plan to write several posts explaining the ins and outs of each publishing option, maybe even have one Questions & Answers session, and finish off with one final post with my recommendations of which publication method to use in which situation (along with some links to further information and resources). Should be a lot of fun and hopefully you’ll learn a lot along the way.
And if you don’t want to miss anything, please feel free to subscribe to my email newsletter or RSS feed. This will guarantee that you’ll get each post directly rather than having to come back each day.
· March 20th, 2009 · 11:37 am · Permalink
Steph:
My son is doing a coffee table photo book about the capabilities of handicapped individuals (kind of a pictorial day-in-the-life-of thing) and needs to print ten or so copies in a pretty short time frame. Do you have a recommendation of how to do this well but without too much expense?
Thanks!
· March 20th, 2009 · 11:53 am · Permalink
Hi Steve,
If you’re only going to print 10 books, I would just recommend going with a company like Shutterfly.com and doing a “photo book”. These are generally used for personal photo books, but if you only have 10 copies to print, it’s probably your most affordable solution.
I wouldn’t recommend going with POD, etc. for only 10 copies. That’s considered a very small print run. Especially if you want to do a photo book. Some POD’s do offer photobooks, but at 10 copies you might just be better off going with a standard photo book.
Btw, photo books will generally charge you a minimum price (with a minimum number of pages) and $x per additional pages. And each book will cost the same since they’re run individually.
· March 20th, 2009 · 12:10 pm · Permalink
Wow … thanks for the fast reply!
He was looking at companies like ShutterFly, so it looks like he’s on the right track. Nice to have that confirmed by a professional though!
Thanks again!
· March 20th, 2009 · 12:13 pm · Permalink
Hi Steve,
You’re welcome.
I do believe he’s on the right track. If he had planned to print more than 100 copies, POD is probably the way to go. Anywhere between 25-50 is where it becomes a much harder decision.
· March 31st, 2009 · 9:02 am · Permalink
[…] labels and musical artists). This means that there is an opportunity for independent authors to self-publish and cut out the […]
· April 22nd, 2009 · 2:16 pm · Permalink
[…] this is why I’ve been a bit a behind in posting. I also plan on finishing the book publishing series, but it’s going to have to take a bit of a backburner for the release of LandlordMax. I had […]