Self Publishing Marketing

Understanding self publishing marketing is essential when authoring and creating a bound book online. The incredible feeling of accomplishment that an author can receive by holding his/her work in hand can be overshadowed by the puzzlement that arises with not knowing how to get the book into the hands of the general public. There is a light at the end of the tunnel however, because there are a number of self publishing services that are eager to help budding authors with marketing their literary creation online, in bookstores, and other locations germane to book commerce. All these services offer varying degrees of service, depending on how much expense and exposure one is willing to invest.

Take the case of the first time author Professor XY, who has just finished a research book that he called, "Boom! What's That Banana Doing in My Lemon Lime Soda?" The book dealt with the molecular chemical reaction of the mixture of soda and crushed bananas. The work consisted of seventy-six pages of scintillating reading on what occurs chemically when these two entities collide with one another. The learned professor believes that his research and conclusions will rock the soda and banana industry worldwide, and while no royalty publisher is interested in his book project, the decision has been made by the professor to use a self publishing service to print and market the new love of the teacher's life. As Professor XY begins to do research about on line publishers, the discovery is made that there are several different types of web publishers. One type of publisher makes the professor stop and think about the motive for the book just written.

Vanity self publishing services, which can be online or an actual publishing establishment, often give no counsel to the author on the questionable marketability or the lack of professional editing or even the quality of the work, including spelling and grammatical errors if not requested by the author. Vanity printers are just that: they appeal to the pride and vanity of an author just wanting to get a printed book in hand, even if it only includes a stock cover in the price of printing. In most cases, these types of businesses do not offer self publishing marketing help. By and large, they are not necessarily unreputable, but rather the advertising quite clearly that their appeal is built on an author's inability to obtain printing and publishing help anywhere else. Professor XY wondered if the strong personal desire for a printed and bound book had anything to do with those rather base elements of his personality. The professor's honest assessment was that the motive to publish was just to see knowledge abound on the earth.

The professor knew that less than a quarter of one percent of all unsolicited manuscripts are ever accepted by royalty publishers, so the search continued for those printing services that featured self publishing marketing as part of their service. The college teacher then discovered subsidy self publishing services. These publishers ask the author to pay most costs, and in many cases, own the rights to the work, which may have to be purchased back from the printer by the author at some point. The professor found out that the problem with subsidy publishers is that the finished product usually will not be reviewed by mainstream reviewers, and are not placed in mainstream bookstores with their marketing plan. They often end up only on the publisher's website along with other books unmarketable in the general public domain. A subsidy publisher must be thoroughly vetted and references must be obtained. Checks with Better Business Bureaus must also be obtained for the most complete piece of mind.

Professor XY was uneasy about the fact that a subsidy publisher might own the rights to his work, so the search continued. The college teacher's real interest lay in what extent self publishing marketing could be done for the book. The professor found that the cost of promoting this project through self-publishing services could cost almost as much as the first run of printing. There was a plethora of businesses on the web ready to promise large sales of his book. But the more thought that was put into a marketing plan, the more Professor XY came to the conclusion that marketing could be done alone. When thinking about what could be the means of getting into the public eye, the professor knew that twice a year science conventions offered an excellent platform on which to display and sell the literary project. Professor XY made goals as to how many books could be expected to sell in that arena.

The ideas started flowing. Self publishing marketing would take him on a long pilgrimage the next summer. The professor made a number of inquiries and signed agreements with several large gas station chains to place the book on display at company retail stores. Professor XY worked out a display agreement that would be paid for each book sold, and agreed to stock the shelves personally on next summer's road trip. Since bananas were big in South America, he also gave foreign publishing to a small Honduran printer to sell the book only in Latin America. The small contract paid for one third of the cost of the first run. In the end, Professor XY decided to go with a true self publishing services provider. The professor designed the cover, did the editing, and carried out the boxes to the old bus just purchased for the road trip.

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