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Steps to Getting a Book Ready For Self-Publishing
By Glen Ford Glen Ford
Level: Platinum

Glen Ford is a writer, consultant and trainer. A senior partner with TrainingNOW, Glen is a trained facilitator and course designer. In addition to his ... Article Word Count: 691 [View Summary] Comments (0)

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www.TatePublishing.comEvery book that has been written has mistakes. So logically the first step to getting your book ready for publishing is to read it, re-read it, and then get another five people to read it. Get everyone you can to look over your book and mark down all the mistakes you've made.

Once you've found enough, go back and fix them, and then get your readers to re-read your new version. Keep doing this until your readers refuse, or they don't find anymore mistakes. It's generally a good idea to find new people each time though. Once you're satisfied there aren't anymore mistakes and everything sounds good to you and your readers your editing is done.

It's much harder than it sounds. Spell check helps though.

Traditionally you would have two options for self-publishing:

1. On Demand

You do everything. You design the cover, you design how the inside of the book looks, you get the cover picture, etc. You have to have a pre-made version ready to show them. This is only for single copies, thus on demand; you only print when a customer demands one.

2. Vanity

With vanity printing the printing company does everything for you. You hand them what you wrote and they make a book out of it. Unlike On Demand you don't need anything except the words you want in the book, so they'll design the cover, the insides, etc, and then print multiple copies. They are your stereotypical press in that they will print multitudes of a single book as part of their package. This is useful if your works are taking off, as they will print around 100 at a minimum, and they can print however many you need above that.

But as with everything, the ways to self-publish are changing. New breeds of presses are emerging, Frankensteined creations that do work. Vanity is buying out On Demand and so On Demand is morphing into Vanity while still retaining the modern ways of printing.

You don't do everything, instead you pay for what you want done and do the rest yourself. You still print an individual copy, but instead you don't have to have the cover if you don't want to do it yourself, or you don't have to have the interior design if you happen to have difficulty with that. It's still On Demand, and so doesn't require you to maintain an inventory of finished books.

If you are doing everything yourself, then there are several things you will need:

1. An ISBN

An ISBN is a code that is found where the barcode is (it even says ISBN then the numbers! Neat!) and it tells you what the book is in an electronic database. Every book that is sold through a bookseller is registered there. If you don't have one for your book you won't be allowed to sell copies through a bookseller, so don't forget about it.

2. A cover

Unless you are using Vanity printing or a designer you have to design a cover. It could be as simple as a white background with your book's title, the blurbs, and your name, or it you could get an artist to create a picture to your specifications for the cover. In the case of having an artist produce a picture you have to be willing to give them a lot of creative license, as most times what looks great in our heads will turn out not as good on the cover.

3. A re-designed and formatted interior

What this means is reformatting everything as if it were a book (rather than a manuscript). If you want a fancy script for the chapter titles and first few words you must do so, or if you want several pictures or maps inside the book you must put them in. Most of the more advanced programs for writing have the capability to add pictures in, and so this won't be a huge difficulty. Everything must be laid out how you want the end product to turn out however, so make certain that you are happy with the end results, instead of simply satisfied.

Do you want to learn how to write a book in 24 hours? Take my brand new free course here: http://www.learningcreators.com

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.

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