Asterius Online

Opportunities for self-published authors have greatly expanded due to technology.

Your book manuscript is not earning you money if it sitting at home in your bottom drawer.
You are a writer. You have written a novel. But your novel hasn’t exactly set the publishing world on fire. Despite your aspirations, you are flummoxed and frustrated by rejection and have become a little gun-shy about submitting your work to yet another agency or publishing house. If so, maybe it is time to consider alternatives:

 
1. Try a smaller, independent press

Smaller publishing houses are typically much more willing to work with new, unagented writers. True, they don’t offer large advances, but right now your goal should be to get that novel out there.

2. Self-publish

Self-publishing doesn’t have the same stigma attached to it that it once did. And no, I am not talking about selling your first-born to pay and vanity publisher for a handful of books you cannot sell. I’m talking about self-publishing with a reputable service and doing so with a plan.

• Pay a professional editor to edit your manuscript and help you polish it until the words sing off of the page.
• Layout your book (or hire someone to do it) using In Design or similar program and get it into print-ready format.
• Have a professionally designed cover.
• Publish as a Print-on-demand book and in various e-book formats. Lulu.com and Amazon’s CreateSpace are good options for POD. Formatting for e books is not too difficult. Amazon Kindle formatted can be done using Mobipocket creator. You can create E pub documents using InDesign. Also, a free program called Calibre can produce E pub from other documents formats. Open Office also has a plug-in that supports E pub

Whether you try a small, indie press or self-publish, you should realize that you will have to do most of the promotion and marketing yourself. So the last point I want to make is have a marketing plan! Don’t think that you can depend on spontaneous sales based on nothing. Readers have to get to know you and your work. Use press releases. Do readings and book signings. Use social networking. Build websites. Blog about your book and get others to blog about your book. Send out review copies. Whatever works. Otherwise, except for sales to your grandmother and maybe 3 or 4 of your closest friends, no one will buy your book.