Monday, August 19, 2013

Can You Offer Me Advice Regarding Self-Publishing?

Do you have recent experience with self-publishing a book?  I published a genealogy in 1999, but I did it via a bricks and mortar publisher who contracted with a printer.  The landscape has changed greatly since then.  I am looking to publish a 15 year Supplement to it and I have been doing research into self-publishing.  My concern is that there seems to be a wide disparity in the services offered and the quality of the end product.

Have you recently (say, the last couple of years) self-published a book of any kind?  Can you offer me tips on who you used, what went well, what didn’t go well, and/or what you wish you had known before you started?

I’ve looked at CreateSpace.com, which is a subsidiary of Amazon.  The benefits are that they can literally print a single book on demand, which is perfect for the very small market there will be for this genealogy supplement.  People could also order direct from Amazon instead of from me, which also means I would not need to buy a bunch of copies I might never sell.  The downside is that I’ve seen a number of posts on CreateSpace’s boards from people saying that the print and binding quality of the books was sometimes substandard.  That’s not good for a genealogy reference book that is supposed to last long enough to be handed down to the next generation.

I’ve also looked at InstantPublisher.com.  They require a minimum print run of 25 copies (still far better than the 250 I had to buy in 1999).  They do offer more than just paperback bindings, though.  I like the idea of better bindings, but don’t relish being where I was in 1999 with having to buy the inventory up front and then hope to sell it.  Also, Instant Publisher has no message boards so I do not know if there have been any questions with the quality of their product.  They do have a bunch of glowing testimonials, of course, but these usually do not tell the whole story.

Have you tried either of these companies?  If not, have you had an experience that would make you either recommend I try someone else, or caution me to avoid someone else?

Thanks in advance for any tips you can offer.

12 comments:

  1. If you're looking at different options, a friend I know published a short story collection (in 2012) here:
    http://www.lulu.com/

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    1. Was just gonna mention Lulu; heard a lot of good things about them.

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  2. Chip--

    Contact the guy at this website:
    http://bighominid.blogspot.com/

    He's a friend and has done some self-publishing. Use my name when you contact him.

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  3. Wow, I posted this without a ton of hope of getting a response - the fact that it was my 666th post didn't bode well - and here I have three in a few hours.

    @Chris and Adolytsi - I will check out Lulu.com. Thanks.

    @Steve - I remember seeing that site on your list of blog links. I will follow-up with him. Thanks.

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  4. http://www.writersweekly.com/pod-price-comparison.php

    I've taken her newsletter for years. Not actually done any book publishing myself, but if I did, that's who I'd use.

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    1. Thanks. I've looked at it some. The fact that it is written by a co-owner of BookLocker makes the newsletter's recommendation of BookLocker as the only one to go with somewhat suspect, but there were some other good tips on things such as doing your ISBN and LCCN registrations yourself and not paying inflated prices for the POD company to do it for you. I'll continue to poke around into the other tips of self-publishing in it.

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    2. I agree that it's blatant self-promotion on her part. But after reader her newsletter for a long time, I just like her way of doing things. Anyway, it's a list of self-publishers if nothing else.

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    3. I don't want to give the wrong impression. I do appreciate you telling me about that link. From it I found other links with useful tips in them. It was only after delving deeply into BookLocker that I found the connection.

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  5. Hey Chip, my girlfriend is an author and I helped her out a lot when she self-published her latest book. She uses CreateSpace and it works great for her. As for any print and binding quality issues, she has printed thousands upon thousands of books via CreateSpace since December (many of which I have seen and personally handled myself) and I've never noticed any quality issues at all. Nor have her readers commented about any printing/binding issues.

    Hope that helps.

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    1. Actually, that helps a lot. I did look into Lulu and I found that they act as a middleman. When they post your book on Amazon it ends up being CreateSpace that prints it anyway. It looked like it was coming down to a decision between having to buy the inventory upfront or to go with sometimes bad quality to print them as they are ordered. Hearing this from you makes me feel a little more comfortable about CreateSpace as an option.

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  6. I sent you an email, Chip, but I think the above commenters have already given you some very good advice.

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    1. I received the email and just responded. Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. There was a lot of good information in it.

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