How To Self Publish Your Manuscript

By Evan Bailyn

The Best Job in the World

In what other business do you have low costs, international sales, high profit margins, no employees, and lots of fun while never having to leave home? Hello, self publishing! It is truly the best of all worlds.

Your Investment: Time

And lots of it. You will need to invest time before, during, and after the self publishing process. Only a minimal amount of this time will be spent actually writing the book. And you’ve already found us, The Penn Group, to self publish with. So what else is there?

Before You Self Publish

First things first: write the book and write it well. Do your research and edit thoroughly. If you have even the remotest concerns for you ability as a writer (or editor) hire a ghostwriter. The investment is well worth it in the long run. You will have a powerfully well written book with your name on it – and it’s one less thing you have to spend time on. This will give you the opportunity to focus on the title.

The Title

The title of your self published book has to be descriptive and attention grabbing. Leave behind artistic metaphors and beautifully turned phrases. If your book is about how to garden then your title should reflect that. For example, How To Garden. It’s not rocket science, but if someone is searching for a book on gardening, chances are that this will grab their attention before a book on the same subject entitled, The Triumph of Tulips and Tomatoes. Who knows what The Triumph of Tulips and Tomatoes is about? But How To Garden – there’s no room for doubt.

Writing the Book is Just the Beginning

While your book is being written by your ghostwriter or edited for publication, you will sit down to the real business of self publishing – advertising. Write a press release that does your book justice, extols the virtues of the topic, the writing, and you as the only expert worth reading on the subject. Place this everywhere you can: online blogs and search engines, every newspaper possible, applicable trade and craft publications. Make postcards and send them to potential clients. Try for radio and public TV spots. Get as much attention as possible for your book – before the ink has time to dry.

Once the Book is Out

Now that your self published book is printed and ready to go, it’s up to you to keep it from becoming a statistic. More than 95% of new books never sell out their first printing. Is it because they are badly written? No. It is because nobody knows about them. Your job is to make sure everybody who could possibly be interested in your book, knows about it and knows where to get it.

Your book may be 50,000 words long, but you will write at least 3 times as much in advertising copy. If no one knows about your self published book, no one can buy it.

So Much Work – Should I Self Publish?

Do not be mislead. If your book is published by a major publishing house, the time they spend on your book as far as advertising will be minimal at best. You will still be doing the same amount of marketing for successful sales at a traditional publisher, but without the control over the finished product. The title, content, character names, chronology, length, cover art, back cover art – all of these would be out of your hands and all your marketing efforts would be for a book that’s hardly yours. Not to mention that your royalties would be less than 6% of the cover price as opposed to the 60% and up from a self publisher.

Let the self publisher you’ve chosen print the book. You get your book into the spotlight and your next book will practically sell itself.

-

For a more in-depth explanation of the ghostwriting process, click here.

For pricing details, click here.

To inquire about our ghostwriting service, call
1-800-WRITE90 (1-800-974-8390) or e-mail ghostwriter@pegr.com.

This article is available for reproduction under the condition that it is accompanied by a link to http://www.pegr.com/ghostwriter.html directly below the title of the article with "ghost writer services" as the link text.

Return To Homepage

Contact Us

To Discuss An Order