If you are wondering how to sell your book, there are basically four general options for an author to get a book before the public. There are very few opportunities to make a profit out of your efforts. And all of the efforts entail hard work and more writing work than you have yet imagined.
1) I have described self-publishing, at least my experience with it. There are any number of self-publishing companies to help; many of them are inexpensive; some have fairly good artists that work with them or to whom you can be referred. Get online and search out the field. I will give specific recommendations in later blogs, but if you are a fledgling, you need to do some of the work of floundering around online to get a feel for what is available. Enjoy your writing; share with friends; and be content to have the publishing be a vanity process. Maybe, with intense effort at marketing, you will be able to make a profit, but by and large, it is a negative inflow enterprise.
2) Every aspiring and as yet inexperienced author sees the book he or she created as being a good one–well written, inspiring, informative, and salable. The old time concept of sending in a completed manuscript, even one that needs some copy reading touch-up and having the publisher discover you, distribute your books all over, and make you rich and famous–like the experience of Hemingway, Grisham, and Michener. That day is over–history. At the very least, it is the rarest of scenario for an aspiring author to make it rich.
Instead, to attract the interest of a big publishing house, you must first garner the enthusiasm of a well-known and successful literary agent. That requires that you write an excellent query letter. Look up how to do so on line and believe what you are told. You have ten seconds to get the agent’s attention, just as television and radio adds do to catch yours. You must right a hook sentence–one sentence–that grabs the attention.
Remember, the agent and the publishers are not really interested in good writing and only somewhat in good storytelling. This is a business, and they are in it to make money. The value of your offering depends upon whether or not they think you can make them money. I will talk more about all of that in future blogs.
3) Find a limited distribution publisher like Jolly Fish in Orem, Utah or Publication Consultants in Alaska and deal directly with the publisher. They do good work and give limited help, but do not expect them to launch an expensive campaign or to do the work of selling–that is up to you.
4) Self-publish and beat the bushes. Go to every library, bookstore, grocery outlet, and obscure book store you can find. The big bookstores, and just about the only national one left is Barnes and Noble, won’t take your books. Sell 100 books a year for four years and get a publisher to re-publish the book under a different title which may help you sell another 100 books in the next couple of years. Then go electronic. E books are the thing. They are relatively easily to do, and nobody much cares about the content or quality of the writing or even if you know how to punctuate.
Finally, if you love to hold your book in your hands and to share it with other people you like–and I readily confess that I do–find an inexpensive self-publishing company, do it yourself online, or go to Kinkos. It is better than sitting around and dreaming. If you really want to get your story and your name out there and can live without having a physical book, go the e-book route from the beginning. Think about it.
Carl Douglass – Author
Carl Douglass Books
www.carldouglass.com
“Neurosurgeon Turned Author Writes With Gripping Realism”
To experience Carl’s compelling works, follow the link below:
