Self Publish Your Own Ebook
Research
Ebook Epidemic
With eBook readers and gadgets that you can load eBooks onto them (iPad, cell phones, etc.) becoming more popular, eBooks themselves have sky rocketed to unforeseen heights. Self publishing has become more popular with more and more outlets for an aspiring author to take advantage of.
A long time ago, just 5 years in fact, self publishing was such a taboo subject to discuss when you were referring to publishing. Some people even laughed and mocked at self publishers, because of their lack of editing and their lack of overall "unprofessional-ism". Writing a novel/book has become much more easier due to the fact that computers are now accessible to families worldwide, and self publishing on-demand publishing companies have sprung up all over the internet.
Such print on demand publishers are, but not limited to:
As stated before, these aren't the only print-on-demand publishers that are out there, but these are some of the most popular. Personally, I wouldn't trust them with my book if my life depended on it! Their "Author Guides" get commission when you sign up for their extremely high publishing packages, and in my personal opinion, they aren't that good at "Guiding Authors" anyway. On the entire list, I believe Lulu is probably the only one I would trust, that being said, you may ask me, "Well if I don't print-on-demand, how can I self publish my book then?" The simple answer is, "Publish it yourself!"
Self- Publishing
PubIt!
PubIt! is an online, self-service Web portal where independent publishers and authors can upload their eBooks and make them available for sale through the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. I've added more information about this on my hub: Publishing with PubIt! I think the only downfalls to Barnes & Noble's PubIt! is that you can't create children's books and the books only come in eBook format. Though, this may not entirely be a bad thing though, it can potentially become your best friend! PubIt! is free to use, but you must know that they take a percentage off of your list price (the price you list your book as) every time your book sells.
PubIt! has it's own forum that you can meet other authors and get help for PubIt! should you need it. I suggest reading about PubIt! before you decide on it, though you should do a lot of extensive research before you settle on one publishing outlet, but if you would like to know more information on how to use PubIt! please check out my other hub article here: How to Publish with PubIt!
Smashwords
Smashwords is an eBook publishing and distribution platform for eBook authors, publishers and readers. I have an extensive look at Smashwords at: Publish with Smashwords. Smashwords is a great platform to use because not only does Smashwords let you sell your books on their site, but they'll also submit your manuscripts to CreateSpace, PubIt!, and other eBook stores around the internet! So really, you can submit your manuscript and cover images to Smashwords, and they can do the hard work of submitting it to these other eBook sellers so that you can receive the profits. Cool, right? To learn more about Smashwords, check out my other hub here: Smashwords for you!
I've heard people complain that it takes a while for them to submit it to other places, but you could submit your work to Smashwords, and the opt to submit your work to PubIt! and CreateSpace yourself, and then just let Smashwords send it to other small eBook sellers for you! Great idea, I know! Also, another good thing about Smashwords is that you can create your own coupons for your books! I hope that whatever you chose, you read over what you've written, get friends/family to look over it too, to see if you can find any grammatical errors or spelling errors.
Create Space
So, you've written the world's best novel, or just a book about your hobby/business and you want to self publish it? CreateSpace could be a great place for you! For more information about how to publish on CreateSpace, check out my other hub: Publishing on CreateSpace. CreateSpace is Amazon.com's publishing leg. They have an extensive publishing community (their forum), and also free publishing tools to help you get your book ready for sale and publishing.
CreateSpace is very good to have as it lets you publish your book and it is posted on Amazon.com for anyone in the world to buy, eBook or paper copy! The basic setup is free, you upload your copy of your manuscript onto the user interface, use their Cover Creator to create a cover (it has over 2,000 images for you to use, FREE), or create a cover yourself, and now you have a book ready to publish. CreateSpace is also the only one, of the three online publishers I am going to list, that has the option of publishing a book, CD's, DVD's, and other artistic media for personal or consumer use and purchase.
Another good perk that CreateSpace has is that you can make your own eStore for your published media.You can customize your eStore to fit your website and sell your media directly from the eStore as well! Publishing with CreateSpace you don't have to worry about inventory or back orders because CreateSpace handles all of that, unless you want to buy their packages (which isn't required). You earn a percentage of royalties every time CreateSpace sells your media. As you can tell, CreateSpace may just be the right publishing help that you may need to self publish your own book(s) and/or other artistic media.
Self-Published Author R. Lynn Interviewed
Self Published Authors
Famous Self-Published Authors
Whether you're writing and publishing for fun, or for profit, you have to admit that getting rich and famous off your writings would be pretty cool. There have actually been instances, recently, where authors are making millions virtually overnight just by publishing the "hottest new ebook"! How cool would that be?
To publish a book and not only have people reading it, but having people gush about it to their family and friends and then they buy a copy and you go to sleep one night and wake up one morning and BOOM! you're an overnight celebrity! Intriguing, isn't it? I just wanted to list a few well known authors that self published and became famous, and a few indie authors (independent authors) as well.
- Tina Folsom
- Amanda Hocking
- e.e. Cummings
- Virginia Woolf
- Walt Whitman
- Mark Twain
- Edgar Allen Poe
- Thomas Paine
- and Bernard Shaw
All of these famous authors self published! So, don't be scared, you could be the next Virginia Wolff or Mark Twain! Maybe you've written, or are writing, the best American novel since Twilight (the verdict's still out on that one)! Amanda Hocking, Lindsay Buroker, Brian S. Pratt, and R. Lynn are all prime examples of what good writing can do, even if you are an indie author in today's society.
