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How can I publish my book? I have written my first book and want to publish it in Los Angeles. What are the best companies (and most reliable ones)?
I've checked the draft on https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check and sent it to the editor and typing expert at https://essaytyper.pro/ Ulrich Brecht.
It's a fictional story (psychedelic genre).
Answers
Contact a local publisher. I have done this before when I had a good idea for a book one time. Yellow pages or Google search then make the call. Good luck!
Congratulations on completing your book! Are you wanting to publish the traditional method or have you considered self-publishing online through channels like Amazon and Createspace. You get official ISBN's, a larger market, less hassle with publishers requirements on contracts, and you receive full profits. Let me know if your interested in how to go about this and we can look at tips and techniques for creating a BestSeller!
It's your first book, and I know you probably have a vision of perfection in your mind, and would love to oversee every detail of printing.
But you'd be much better off to go with a "print on demand" (POD) service. With POD services, you don't have to pay a cent to print your book, unless it sells. So you always make a profit.
If you choose, instead, to print a big batch of books, not only do you have to pay the up-front costs, you also have to store those books and ship them when someone buys them. I remember an author friend telling a story of how shocked he was to see how big a crate of 5,000 books was when they first showed up on his driveway.
The one downside of POD services is that you don't have total control over every aspect of printing. Only standard sizes are available, and sometimes the print quality from one copy to another is slightly off.
Most people don't know the difference, though. I only do because I'm a designer. When I showed my friends the differences I noticed (basically how well-centered my title was on the spine), they laughed that I even noticed.
The beauty is that whether you sell 5 copies or 5,000 copies, with POD you're always making a profit. If you sell millions of copies, you can always get a bigger print run done (at that point, the per-unit cost of a print run would give you more profit). Or, those who hit it really big can get a traditional publishing deal. This is what happened with E. L. James, who wrote 50 Shades of Grey, and Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian.
I would recommend Amazon's KDP and/or Ingram Spark as POD services. However, it's ideal if you buy your own ISBN, then do the initial setup of the book, with that ISBN, on Ingram Spark. That way your ISBN won't show up as an Amazon book when booksellers around the world look up your book in their system – which may prevent them from ordering your book.
Amazon KDP will give you a free ISBN, if you don't mind this limitation. It can be fine if you're focusing on Amazon and want 90% of the sales with less expense and hassle. Otherwise, in the US, you have to buy your ISBN from Bowker for about $125.
My book, "The Heart to Start" is available through both Amazon KDP and IngramSpark. I set up my ISBN on IS first, as described, and have sold copies all over the world. But the majority of my sales are through Amazon, and having it available on KDP means no issues with it being available for Prime shipping, which can sometimes happen – so I hear – if you go exclusively with IS.
For what it's worth, the books for which I just took Amazon's ISBN still get some sales through "extended distribution." I have no idea whether it's bookstores or B&N or where they're being sold.
If you want to buy a bunch of POD books on a discount for having at events or giving to friends, you can always order author copies. These are available both through KDP and IS.
If you want to do the layout yourself, I hear Vellum is a good app. I do my own layout since I'm a designer. You can also find professionals for interior and cover design at Reedsy.
I hope that helps. As you can see it's a complicated world out there. Feel free to book a call with me if you have more questions.
Related Questions
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Is it worth it to hire writers to help me with Kindle Publishing? How much would it cost me to get a quality product?
Basically, the question is this: Are people reading the book for your writing, or for your ideas? If it's for your writing (say, if you're a fiction author) then you should probably write it yourself. It'd be disingenuous not to. If they're interested in your ideas (which is the case with most Kindle non-fiction books), then what's important is that your ideas aren't lost. That doesn't mean ghostwriting is fine, only that you need to find an efficient way to get your ideas out without wasting your time writing. Basically, the process I use is to outline the book myself, sit down with a microphone, and talk through the entire book (basically recording a really rough draft of the audiobook straight from the outline). Then I transcribe it, and then hire a "writer" to work from the transcription to the finished text. That way it's high quality and maintains my ideas, but I don't have to do all the work of typing. I wrote a book that breaks down the process in a bit more detail (especially the process of outlining, how to record effectively, how to find that editor, etc.), but basically what I said above is all you really need to know. Here's the link if you want to check it out: www.amazon.com/Book-Box-Method-Quickly-Easily-ebook/dp/B014EUTYGM/ZO
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Can I expect book sales if I upload my ebook on Kindle Direct Publishing and do nothing to promote it?
While you might be able to expect initial sales from family and friends who know about it, actual sales from people stumbling upon your book depends on a few factors when you upload it. 1.) Have you chosen the correct keyword phrases and categories? 2.) Are these categories extremely competitive? 3.) Did you incorporate these specific keywords and categories in your title, subtitle, and book blurb?(Note: not everyone can finagle a way into putting the word thriller in their title, but some can do it in their subcategories although at times that may seem too sales pitchy, not that anyone but authors who know what you're doing would notice or even care). 4.) Do you have between one-hundred to three-hundred people ready to buy your book when it is released? (family, friends, subscribers) When you can sell around that many copies the first three days of your release, Amazon's free marketing kicks in. Hot New Releases List, Those Who Bought This Book...etc. That's pretty much awesome sauce if you can manage it. 5.) Does my amazon page look inviting? 6.) Is there too much front matter before the actual sample chapter begins, thus impeding your readers from getting into the book right away? If the answers to these questions are a big fat no,(or a big fat yes to questions 2 and 6) then uploading your book and walking away from it is going to get you nowhere. You essentially need to take your writer's cap off and get serious about marketing. An indie author doesn't get to be complacent in that respect. Becoming a book marketing guru can be daunting and overwhelming when looking at it as a whole, and figuring out where to start has made many authors give up before giving it a chance. Which is why I am super happy to be answering this question for you. Not that you asked how to market your book. I suppose I've basically answered your question, but I'd like to take it a step further and give you a place to start so you aren't flailing around in the deep quagmire of marketing do's and don'ts. Amazon's search engines are designed to find books listed under popular categories and niches so keywords are going to be your best friend. One book that is absolutely stellar at explaining the process behind researching keywords is a book called Making a Killing on Kindle(Without Blogging Facebook Or Twitter) and another book called How to Sell Fiction on Kindle. The Reader's Digest version is this: go to Amazon.com and start typing in your genre in the search tab. The goal is to take your main genre and find subcategories that are popularly searched on Amazon. So when I type in the word Thriller I get "thrillers in books, mysteries and thrillers new releases 2016", etc. Now type in "thrillers a" and you get "thrillers and suspense books" etc. these top key phrases are the ones that are searched the most by people interested in that genre. Now try typing in "thrillers b" and you get "psychological thrillers books" and other key phrases, but this is an important thing to discover. Many people are searching for psychological thrillers. Does your book fall under that category? Is it a psychological thriller, a serial killer thriller, or possibly some other type of thriller that can be narrowed down to a specific niche? This can be a long and arduous way to research keywords and phrases, which is why I think grabbing those books that I mentioned above and memorizing the very dickens out of them is a great beginning for your marketing guru journey. Why? Because most of the research has been done for you, and you get a list of the most highly ranked keyword phrases for your specific genre...all current. You are also given instructions on simple html coding to help make your amazon page sparkle. I hope this information is helpful for you, and good luck with your book. I hope you are able to get it uploaded and visible on kindle as soon as possible. If you’re interested in learning more about the best practices on marketing your books feel free to visit me on my website at The Blond Guerrilla: Guerrilla Marketing, Writing, and Self-Publishing Your Book. http://theblondguerrilla.com Or set up a call and we can work on a plan to help you sell your books. I’m always excited to help fellow authors in their quest to get their books discovered. Happy marketing my author friend!CA
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What is the best way to go about outlining a fiction book?
When it comes to writing a book, there's some groundwork that needs to be done beforehand. There are even a few things you need to know before you begin to outline. Every good story is comprised of... 1.) A protagonist 2.) main goal/conflict of the book 3.) multiple tries and fails to accomplish said main goal and overcome main conflict 4.) satisfying resolution There are obviously more moving parts to this outline, but that would take a really long time to get into, and I'd rather have you go watch the video tutorial I did on how to outline a novel since it's free, it isn't too long, and it will break up the process of outlining a novel into actionable steps that make sense and are easy to understand. You're welcome! https://youtu.be/rlQDW9n0NyECA
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Personal branded domain (mattpeplinski.com) or a branded domain (empiricspirit.com) to promote books?
Both domains are very important. I suggest that you use both of them in different ways. If you believe that your empiric spirit domain is a "company" that you would like to support in social media and in articles, etc., for years to come, support it on its own domain separately from your personal domain. However, I surmise that your personal domain is where you will (and, in my opinion, should) be driving up your social media presence and content. So, I recommend that you direct all book traffic there. So, create a subdomain for your site, or a subfolder, and "point" your book domain to that subfolder. Write about the book in your social media and blog, and all traffic will come where you want it to ultimately come - your website. It's important to maintain a website for the success of your book - for informational purposes, and to show people where to purchase the book. But it is important that you use social media like a pro, and become a guest blogging expert and frequent guest on radio programs... Those things matter much more. Direct all traffic where you want using bitly links, and track what is most effective. Good luck! Enjoy the journey :)KG
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What would be better, publishing my novel on Kindle Direct Publishing or publishing it through Penguin?
If you are a self-published author, you may want to consider publishing via both options. I just remembered a survey I did with US-based readers when I published my book. I initially wanted them to just be on print versions to hold a special offering for the books. However, 80% of the readers say they rarely read print books nowadays and most of them consider continuing the books via Kindle. Though, one answer struck me the most. One guy said, it's not up to us to decide the definition of "reading." It's up to your audience. So, if you're thinking of publishing your book, it's better of have it either way because the end goal, aside from profit, is having your books read by your audience. Whether it's on kindle, android or live book, they should have the option to choose.PV
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