THE ICE PICK

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, by Tom & Marilyn Ross. 4th ed. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books, 2002. 521 p. $19.99. Includes: illustrations, bibliography, glossary, index, & resources. ISBN: 1-58297-091-2.

How to Get Your E-book Published : an Insider’s Guide to the World of Electronic Publishing, by Richard Curtis & William Thomas Quick. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books, 2002. 278 p. $21.99. Includes: bibliography, index, & resources. ISBN: 1-58297-097-1.

If you are considering self-publication, you are about to enter a wilderness of possibilities, responsibilities, and confusion. There are rewards and, as the Rosses say, "options beyond your wildest imaginings." And also many pitfalls.

Beginning with the "publishing scene" of what is out there and the basic choices you will have to make, the Rosses take you from "product development" (writing your book) to selling it.

You can learn how to establish your own publishing company and how to handle bookkeeping, billing, pricing, discounting, taxes, and all the other nitty-gritty of setting up shop. They walk you through copyright registration, getting an ISBN and a Library of Congress Card Number; and explain what you need to know about cover and page design, typeface, proofreading, and choosing a title for your book that will help sell it.

The second half of the book is devoted to marketing, in both traditional and non-traditional ways. And they discuss how to approach a regular publishing house, if your book is a success, or how to raise your small one-book publishing enterprise to become a small press with more books, if you ever have time in your life again to write another book, because self-publication is a full-time job.

The book is awesome in what it covers and provides and in the little tips and hints it gives. For example, in most areas, when you set up a company, you need to advertise "your intention to do business as (dba) XYZ Publishing Company." They recommend saving money by advertising in a small "weekly neighborhood paper" instead of a major daily.

The Curtis book is restricted to e-publishing. Richard Curtis, is a leading New York literary agent, and William Thomas Quick is a self-described "full-blown computer geek" who writes science fiction. Together they are well qualified to help you understand e-publishing and publish your book electronically.

The Ross book includes a great deal about e-publishing, as well, but if you are serious about electronic publishing, the Curtis book has very much more for you.

Curtis covers the kinds of e-books and the issue of rights, how to get your book into digital format, set up your domain name, etc. And he discusses whether it is better to try to make money advertising on your website, use pay-per-download with PayPal, or try Amazon.com’s honor system.

If you would rather go with "brand name e-publishers," Curtis outlines the advantages and disadvantages, tells how you can find them, and warns of some of the scams that are out there.

The last section of the book deals with marketing. It tells why you should avoid spam advertising and why you should not ignore libraries. It explains how to get your book stocked in e-bookstores or sold through Amazon.com, how to get your e-book reviewed, create other publicity, and submit to search engines and improve your rankings on the major ones.

If you are thinking of self-publishing, you should read the Ross book. It will help you decide whether to "do-it-yourself" or not and, if so, how to go about it. They even include a "self-publishing timetable" and "a realistic and complete marketing plan" for you.

And if you are considering e-publishing, the Curtis book has the most complete coverage of the field that I’ve seen.

Both books are down-to-earth, practical guides full of detailed instructions, advice, and tips to help you publish your book and make it a success. I recommend both of them highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Oct. 2003.}

THE ICE PICK

Publish Your Own Novel, by Connie Shelton. Angel Fire, N.M.: Columbine Books. ISBN 0-9643161-6-1. $18.95.

At last a self-help, self-publishing handbook for fiction! And this one is outstanding.

This book is a step-by-step guide to being your own literary agent and publisher as well as an excellent example itself of what Shelton is talking about. As a former book editor for a small publishing house myself, I can testify to Shelton’s accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Among the many reasons for self-publication is the time factor. If you don’t want to wait months or years for a trade publisher to even decide whether they want to publish your novel or not, and more months and
/or years before it gets into print, only to have it placed in a bookstore for often as little as three months, then you may want to consider self-publication.

Many of us think vanity presses are the only alternative, but are concerned with the stigma and the financial risk. And some of these presses are shoddy operations that take your money and run. Even if they are reputable, they will still leave all the hard work of selling up to you.

However, now that even major publishing houses expect authors to do most of the promotion and market analysis, many more writers are opting to self-publish, figuring that if they’re going to do most of the work anyway, they might as well get the elephant’s share of the profits rather than the 6 to 10 per cent advance on royalties the houses offer.

Yet self-publication does not have to be through a vanity press. Whether you want to publish only your works or you want to set up your own publishing company and publish other authors’ works as well, this book can show you how to create beautiful, top-quality books and sell them.

In fact, the book is a great resource for authors even if you do get your book published by a trade publisher, offering lots of behind-the-scenes information on how the publishing industry works, how books are placed in bookstores, etc., plus many quick and inexpensive ideas for promoting your book, making a name for yourself, setting up book tours, and so forth.

Shelton also offers plenty of warnings of what not to do, and of the pitfalls along the way.

If you’re tempted to look down on self-published authors, then you owe it to yourself to think again. You will be in good company not only with Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman, but with modern authors like James Redfield--who self-published The Celestine Prophecy and later sold it to Warner for $800,000.

If all this makes you think you might consider self-publication, then this book is for you. At the very least it will help you decide if you have the courage, stamina, and financial resources to handle self-publication.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter. Sept. 1998. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Dec. 1999.}