Making a choice, the first step to Epublishing by Chris Keys

MAKING A CHOICE, THE FIRST STEP TO EPUBLISHING


By Chris Keys



I have to admit, I am a bit overwhelmed. The dizzying array of information about E publishing is mind boggling. So after two to three weeks of, sort of in depth research and blog gogging, (that’s where you read blog after blog for hours) I’ve reached a few conclusions about E publishing.

The first and foremost conclusion, I’ve come to is, you shouldn’t pay to have your book epublished. I mean you can and they will change you as much as a thousand dollars, depending on what you want done for you, but why? The process appears to be very easy, despite the use of words like format, margin and upload. Plus, there are just too many sites where they will do it for free and pay you the lion’s share of the profit, if there is any. The books have got to sell to have a profit and the marketing on all epublish sites is on you to get it done.

After reviewing several dozen different sites, I’ve chosen to use Smashwords to publish the electronic version of my book. They seem to have the simplest and easiest site to work with. Smashwords seems to have at least a minor plan for helping you promote your book, which is all any of them will do for you. Smashwords has a free marketing plan that you can access to help you as well. They also state they will have you listed on Amazon, Yahoo, Ebooks, Barnes and Noble in their basic package.

They state that they are readable by just about every reading device on the market. Including Sony, Kindle, Stanza, Ipods, Irex, IPhone, Ereader, Shortcovers, Aldiko and word player. Supposedly the most in the industry.

Smashwords also is able to provide you with a free ISBN number, free cover art, (a program where you make the cover or you can import one if you already have one) Now the ISBN number is $9.95 unless you join they’re premium program which gets you listed on the lists for sale at Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Sony, plus a free ISBN.( well you paid for it the premium price duh!, which hasn’t been set, at least I could not find it) I saw the premium package mentioned in another blog, but they didn’t mention the price either. Yes, you must have a separate ISBN for each book and each ebook. You can not use the same one for both.

The best feature for me, the most computer challenged individual in the world. That Smashwords offers, is that they allow you to submit your properly formatted manuscript in Microsoft Word. That was the deal maker for me and that they handle the upload to Kindle too. My old computer will not allow me to run a PDF maker like Adobe. I guess I’ll have to use my laptop if I need to make one, because my desk top is too old.

Smashwords does offer help if you want to pay for it, in formatting, cover design and Public relations/marketing. They provide, as most of the publishers do, a marketing guide that provides the same basics as my blogs do.

Smashwords also provides a free author page where you can post your bio, picture and information about any and all of your books even if they aren’t with Smashwords, plus they offer a coupon program to help power up your marketing. I’ll cover that later in another blog since this is about epublishing and not emarketing. They’re similar but different.

Smashwords boasts of paying a generous commission of 85% of after costs profit. The only costs they mention are the PayPal processing fee and the Amazon seller’s commission.

Other costs you will have with any of the publishers is the cost to copyright, found on the Library of Congress website for $35.00 per book or ebook or you can just publish without it being officially marked. Because in 1989 Congress passed a law that states the moment you have written anything, unless you have signed away your rights, (contract work basically) you are granted the copy right. If you chose to go with the law and not get a copyright saving the $35, you’ll want to keep a printed copy somewhere saved complete with date verification just in case someone does try to steal your work. I supposed you could put on a disc and it would be the same thing. It’s what they used to call a poor man’s copy right but the current thought process is that it doesn’t make a difference. The law is the law and the rest is fluff.

You’ll still want to have your manuscript test read and edited. To ensure you have something worth publishing and it is salable. For my book, I‘ve had six different people, not one was a friend or relative, I asked for in depth feed back, before I decided to actually publish. It can be quite the task to get anyone to read your unpublished story, because who wants to read some piece of junk.

Then you’ll need to do all the marketing that you would be doing for any book. You know blogging, twittering, advertising, linking with other authors and maybe even doing radio interviews and reviews.

As this process continues, I will add more blogs so that you can see just how it works out for me. In the mean time, I whole heartily suggest that you do the research for your self. Verify what I’ve said and make sure if you chose to epublish, you know what you’re getting into. You may not care if it’s easy to do. You may want a site that does it all for you and they are out there. You may not like the name of the site so pick another publisher with different name, just be sure you’re getting a deal you can live with. Me, I wanted free, easy, simple, lots of features and fast. As soon as I get the editing done, I’ll be publishing, “The Fishing Trip-A Ghost Story” and the end result I’ll share with you. I may find I made poor choice or I may come back tell you how great it was. So far I’m quite happy with them, but then, I haven’t done anything really yet except check out several dozen publishers and decide on which one I’d try to use.

Chris keys-author of “The Fishing Trip-A Ghost Story” a soon to be Ebook and “Reprisal! The Eagle Rises!” Due out summer 2010.