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| English: A Picture of a eBook (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
There has never been a more exciting time to consider writing and earning from a book!
Gone are the days of mailing a manuscript to a publishing house and waiting for months to get a response. Thanks to the huge success of Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing platform and many more self-publishing services, it's possible to publish a book and start making money in next to no time.
How it used to be
Prior to the digital publishing explosion, many authors who were rejected by traditional publishers made the decision to collaborate with a "vanity publisher" instead. It typically cost each of these writers thousands of dollars to have their books edited and published by these so-called publishers. A large portion of the fee went towards the purchase of a pre-determined number of books that the authors were then responsible to try to sell themselves.
How Internet Can Help
Now, writers can utilize print-on-demand services offered by sites such as blurb.com or createspace.com to print their books as needed, or in small quantities. These merchants typically offer additional assisted self-publishing services (individually or in different packages) such as:
- Cover Design
- Editing
- Formatting
- eBook Publishing
- Promotional Materials
- Book Fairs
- and more…
The Advantages of Self-Publishing
In addition to the speed at which a book can hit the virtual shelves (print books can take up to 2 years before they are actually available) there are many advantages to self-publishing. They include but are not limited to:
- Total control of content. There is no specific word count to adhere to, no need to make unwanted editorial changes and writers have the option to add elements such as numerous photos and interactive links.
- Total price control and a higher per book profit margin. Books sold online typically net the author a royalty of 30-70% per book. Traditionally published titles typically net the author a royalty of 5-25% per book, minus agent commissions.
- Ability to retain exclusive rights to content. This includes movie rights, foreign language rights, television rights and digital book rights.
- Total control of promotional efforts. This includes everything from creating a blog and/or Facebook page, tweeting about a book, joining general author forums and forums relating to the subject of the book, giving away free books for review, book fairs and more.
- World-wide readership. In the past, many traditionally published writers considered themselves lucky to have their books displayed in stores in their local area. However, publishing with the help of the Internet allows authors to promote to a global audience.
- Indefinite availability, regardless of sporadic sales. The majority of brick and mortar bookstores remove books that aren't selling well, after a period of four months.
Is it the real deal?
Well-known authors who have recently taken advantage of self-publishing and the Internet include J.K. Rowling, who exclusively markets the digital versions of her books from her website Pottermore, Catherine Cookson, and Deepak Chopra.
Of course, like any other accomplishment in life, successful self-publishing holds no guarantees. Many authors sell a few copies of their book and then simply decide not to pursue it further. However, with patience and due diligence many individuals manage to generate a reasonable, if not insanely big income from their writing efforts. There's absolutely no reason you can't do the same.
In particular, authors who take the time to learn all that they can about publishing and marketing their own work will generally prosper the most. But given the wonderful marketing opportunities offered by internet in general, and social media to be precise, there’s no reason why you cannot earn substantial profits by writing and self-publishing books.
This is a guest post by Farah from http://verybestsoftware.net/.
