Choosing a Publishing/POD Service

April is getting down to brass tacks when it comes to choosing a publishing/POD service based on the upfront costs and back-loaded fees -- plus how you want (or they want!) to price your book. Lots of useful charts and graphs in her presentation showing how to do the math.

You can get a taste of this by looking at her blog post that compares Lulu and CreateSpace.


POSTED BY JANE FRIEDMAN

How to Create E-Books

April Hamilton is mentioning some easy ways to create e-books:

• Easy-easy (one-click publishing): Scribd
• Easy-easy (one-click publishing): Smashwords
• A little more complicated: Amazon DTP (Kindle)
• Add-on option with POD services like Lulu

POSTED BY JANE FRIEDMAN

Print-on-Demand Gotchas

April Hamilton is discussing print-on-demand "gotchas":

• Full color POD costs typically require author to set a list price most buyers aren't willing to pay.
• POD printer vs. POD publisher. Who is the "publisher of record"? If they are the publisher of record, they are acting as a publishing service rather than a printer.
  
• Are you allowed to publish the same material elsewhere?
• Must you sign away any rights? (Avoid.)
  

POSTED BY JANE FRIEDMAN

April Hamilton: Indie Authors & Temple of DIY

April Hamilton (founder of Publetariat.com) started down the traditional publishing route, had a top agent, editors liked her work, still no sale. (Commercial viability deemed not there.) So she ventured into the self-publishing space and has become a leader and advocate of the indie author movement.

Her definition of an indie author:
An indie author is not someone who is using self-publishing as a desperation move, but as a carefully considered and conscious decision to self-publish. An indie author is a businessperson and an entrepreneur.

POSTED BY JANE FRIEDMAN, PUBLISHER OF WRITER'S DIGEST