I have seen other people's posts about wanting to write, or have written. Sadly, I have heard people say that they already wrote a book, but have no idea how to find a publisher. One nice lady said she has asked other writers who were published and asked for advice, and they would not help her.
Unfortunately I had the same experience lately.
But, here is where I speak of Anne Rice. Some years back, I e-mailed her. I was looking for a publisher for my husband's book. I had been sifting through so many companies who promised to publish, but wanted a lot of cash first. Anne Rice saved my hiney in a big way. My husband was deployed, so we would have paid if needed. We would have been ripped off!
Anne told me that the best way to publish was doing it myself. I was surprised by her answer. She told me that it is very difficult when you are starting out. She had a hard time too, and was rejected a few times, it's not easy. She said publishing companies are very picky. And, that if they do publish me, I would still have to do the leg work on getting to be known, and getting sales. So why pay someone, if you are still going to be doing the work? I realized then that the companies who call themselves publishing companies, are, well.. printers. They want you to buy a big pile of books and pay them thousands, so then you are stuck with a room full of books and you will have to sell them.
I went to Blurb. Blurb let me upload the books through their FREE software. They can assign you an IBSN number. An ID number that catalogs that book as yours. It's your baby, nobody can take it from you. Then you can choose if you want it in the bookstores they work with. You can set your prices, and they show you your base price, so you can calculate it. Be careful the format you choose, I chose one where my book would be $97. it was an accident. I had to go back and choose a novel format and soft cover. Big picture books with hard cover are expensive. Choose simple paper, or it can be expensive too.
I built my book cover myself. please make sure you do not use other people's pictures, you can get sued! If you use a model, make sure you do it right and get a model release. Or you get sued..
Here is a link that may give you ideas. I followed it up to a point. But I made my book cover with pictures of MY legs, taken by my Daniel. (who did a pretty awesome job) I took the pictures and played with Powerpoint and Picassa. PowerPoint allows you to do a type of collage with pictures and letters, and save as a JPEG. The you can trim with Picassa. Make sure to use good quality pictures.
There is also something else you must know. You will need to promote yourself. Yes YOURSELF.
You can build a free web site on Word Press, but I can't figure it out for the life of me. I use Vistaprint and pay, not much though. I forget it was like $15/mo or so. I suggest you attach a blog to the web site to make it look active on search engines.
You also should build a blog. I use Blogger, it is free, and the blogs come out looking great. They are easy to build. You can post whatever you want to communicate to your fans. Excerpts of your books, links to your store, whatever you feel will help you. (I am still working on this myself)
I watched a webinar, that also said that you should build a fan base even if you have not finished your book. Talk about your writing, about your book, about yourself. Talk about it on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram. (I can't still figure those out).
I built fan page for myself as an author, and then one page for each book.
I like Book Candy Studios on Facebook, but I can't afford it.
I didn't use their services, but they do have Open Book Fridays. They start a post where you can share the info and links for your book. Take a look at how others post. I usually just post an excerpt, and then a link to the bookstore on Blurb or my web site.
As cheesy as it sounds, I used Windows live movie maker. I took pictures off the internet and made a kind of slides in Power point. And put everything together there to make it like a mini slideshow. Make sure the music you use is free to use. Not anything copyrighted. Click on the world below, to go to the place I got music from; worked great.
Once you have that, you can place on Youtube and share the link in as many places as you can.
I have given you most of the information I have. If you have any questions, please message me. I asked one other author for advice on publishing, she pushed me off and would not share her info. Said I am new and it would be impossible, she has all the experience. Whatever.. I also had other people tell me I need to take a writing class.
This is not the only way, this is just the way I managed my own books. I am sure there are so many other options out there. I am just sharing what I know so far.
Fortunately Anne Rice helped me and encouraged me. I want to pass on whatever I have learned form this, hopefully help others.
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