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New Self-Publisher’s FAQ
Welcome to the
Self-Publisher's FAQ site. If you're here, you are probably contemplating
publishing your own work or starting your own press. Good for you! You are
about to follow in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sandburg, George Bernard Shaw, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Upton Sinclair,
Gertrude Stein, William Strunk, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau,
Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf.
Oh, are those too "old time" for you? How about Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Scott Adams (Dilbert), Ken Blanchard, Deepak Chopra, Pat Conroy, John Grisham, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, to name a few.
But there's a lot to know. This website can be used as a starting point to understanding what questions to ask (half the battle is discovering what you don't know). There's a tremendous amount of help to be had out there, via books (lots of them), websites and discussion groups. I hope you enjoy this attempt to make sense of this very complex subject!
This website was written and is maintained by Jacqueline (JC) Simonds (publisher of Beagle Bay Books and Creative Minds Press) who is one of the List Moms for the Self-Publishing discussion group. It is mirrored on the SPAN (Small Publishers Association of North America) website. To find out more about the Self-Publishing List (how the List Moms moderate, the list rules and a picture of the List Moms, see below.
Read Jacqueline Church (JC)Simonds adventure at PMA-U and BEA
Index
Start-up questions
Definitions, Types of publishing, Forming a Company and Funding it
The Next Step
ISBN, LCCN, CIP, SAN and other Alphabetical
Considerations
How to Make a Book: The Interior & Body
Editing, Interior Design, Typesetting, Interior Order
How to Make a Book: the Exterior
Cover, Title, Barcodes, Logos
Create Marketing Plans
Learning How to Sell the Book... before you print it.
Printing the Book
Getting a Printer, Printing Types, Book Formats and Galleys
Learning the Business of Self-Publishing
Setting your book price, Distributors, Wholesalers, Shipping and Returns
What's an Invoice?
Basic Accounting for Publishers
Getting Noticed in the Wide
World
Reviews, Book Clubs, Awards and Big Box
Stores
Tooting Your Own Horn
Press Releases and Press Kits
Internet Marketing
Setting up your Website
On-Line Bookstores
Amazon and Barnes&Noble.com
The Invisible
Brotherhood
The On-line Publishing Community
Pack That Book!
A Shipping Primer
Miscellaneous Questions
SPAN, PMA, Publisher's Liability, Associations, Trade Shows, Book
Festivals, Just for Fun
The Self-Publishing Discussion List
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The SPAN Self-Publishing List Moms finally get together ala Charlie’s Angels. Marion Gropen, John Culleton and Jacqueline Church (JC)Simonds (picture taken by Shel Horowitz). Washington, D.C. 2006 |
What the List Moms Do / The Self-Publishing Discussion List Rules
