The other major motive for self-publishing is self-publishing for quality, that is using it as a way to produce the best possible product. This may sound like something that people shouldn’t do, because as someone once said to me “it’s all about the money”. But in reality there is an awful lot to be said for this approach to self-publishing.
Assisted Publishing
Self-Publishing for Profit
One distinct trend is that there seem to be distinct themes in terms of self-publishing books, self-publishing for profit and self-publishing for quality.
While these two aims aren’t mutually exclusive, there are definitely two schools of thought regarding self-publishing, those people who want to self-publish books to make money and those who want to self-publish to create a really fantastic product. This is subtly different from the distinction between business and a hobby. To achieve complete success on either path then you will need to run your self-publishing exercise like a business, but to begin with the hobbyist path provides an opportunity to try things out and achieve initial success.
In this episode I consider what I’ve learned in terms of self-publishing for profit, that is the objective of making money from self-publishing books.
As any half-decent business person knows, you make a profit by earning more money than you pay in costs (in strictly accounting terms this is actually cashflow, but in layman terms this is correct). So to self-publish for profit we need to ensure we pay as low costs as possible and make as much money as possible.
The Dark Side of Assisted Publishing with Chrissie Parker
In this show I talk to (eventually) successful author Chrissie Parker about her experiences using the Author House assisted publishing service in 2008-2009, which in the end turned out to be something she found profoundly unsatisfying.
Using an Assisted Publishing Service Successfully with Lucienne Boyce
In this show I talk to Lucienne Boyce, a successful Historical Fiction and Non-Fiction author, about her experiences using an assisted publishing company, Silverwood Books. In general many assisted publishing companies have a very poor reputation. So it was nice to hear of someone who has found a decent company to help her publish. I talk to Lucienne in this interview about her experiences.