How to self publish: Part 1 - Options for Self Publishing
@Rohvannyn (3098)
United States
December 14, 2016 2:18am CST
Whether you have a novel, a series of short stories, a poetry book, a manga, or a children's book, there's an option for you. It's very possible to publish both print books and ebooks yourself, without paying a cent.
There are many good and reputable sites out there - Lulu.com, CreateSpace, SmashWords, just to name three. My advice when starting out is to steer clear of any place that makes you pay for services.
There are free ways of getting cover art, formatting your book, designing your book, and everything else. I'll be going into more detail in other posts. All the different publishers work pretty much the same way - you format your book, upload it and the cover, wait a few days for it to be looked at, approve your proof, pick your pricing and territories, then click submit. You will usually do most of your own marketing unless you buy a marketing package.
For these examples, I'll be using CreateSpace. They have great free options, allow you to easily port your work over to Kindle, automatically put your work on Amazon, and actually do some promotion for you. I'll never forget the day my novel was suggested to me by Amazon! Altogether, it's a good deal. They will give you a percentage of each sale. Right now I get about $2 for a $7 book. Not bad, really, considering I do no shipping or handling of money.
In upcoming posts, I'll explore:
Formatting your book and getting a cover design
Uploading your work - tips and tricks
Marketing your book
Stay tuned for more. And feel free to search through the topics at the right side of for more articles about this same subject. It's an ad-free site.
12 people like this
11 responses
@Bluedoll (16770)
• Canada
14 Dec 16
I have a few questions since I've never used any publishing service. Since taking initiative to create your webpage and use create space to self publish did it generate reasonable sales? I know that is a question you may or may not want to answer directly and the answer will vary from author to author but asking it to get a further understanding between self publishing or anything else.
For example the promise of being professionally published as a service might be appealing for some authors in order to generate more sales but is it worth the cost? This is a topic I have very little understanding of. Really impressive website by the way. 
1 person likes this
@Rohvannyn (3098)
• United States
14 Dec 16
A person's sales vary more based on their subject and following than by how much they spend. I've sold somewhere around 12-15 copies of my latest book, and invested zero money. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's just in a couple of months and I've only done a few author interviews and some blogging to promote it. Also, joining Goodreads and hanging out in their author forums has helped a lot too.
Your mileage may well vary, but I've also seen people spend money on marketing and still get no sales, and seen people make thousands by doing all their own self promotion. I"ll be posting what tips I know, and explaining what I've done so far. If you want to look at my books you can check them out on the "books " page on my site. Thanks for looking at it!
@Bluedoll (16770)
• Canada
14 Dec 16
@Rohvannyn Thanks for the detailed answer. I'll look forward to your posts following this one. I know I wrote sales but that doesn't mean it is all about money. More about getting the book in the hands of the reader I was thinking about and you have accomplished this. That's very encouraging.
I am thinking I would rather have one person that read and then gave feedback whatever that feedback was than one thousand that bookshelfed them. Of course one thousand copies is not expected, and so self publish for myself makes much more sense.
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
15 Dec 16
yay, bookmarking these for rereading, was hoping you would post a guide up on this
1 person likes this
@Rohvannyn (3098)
• United States
15 Dec 16
Yep! Glad it's useful to you. I'll write more soon.
1 person likes this
@Rohvannyn (3098)
• United States
14 Dec 16
You're right, doing it for ourselves can be great for that reason.
1 person likes this
@KrauseHome (36445)
• United States
2 Jan 17
I need to take the time and work on some of my stuff I would Love to have published this yr and then go from there.
@arthurchappell (44941)
• Preston, England
2 Jan 17
useful advice. I have had modest sucess with Lulu Press though with Amazon Kindle sales increasing Lulu does less well these days
1 person likes this
@Rohvannyn (3098)
• United States
14 Dec 16
Lulu is fairly easy, that's true, however Createspace gets books in front of more readers in more countries and really isn't much harder at all than Lulu. Still, I'm glad you found a service that works well for you. They are where I started.
