FriesenPress

Excellent advise DK. I never thought of one of those. BTW, I clicked on some of your YouTube book links and sent my fiancée to check them out. They seem to be up her alley.
Thanks again.

Great advice from DK! It is difficult for first-time writers to stop their minds running away with themselves. You say that you just want to see your work in print, but at the back of your mind, a little gremlin is saying that it will probably sell if only you can get it out there ...

The truth is that, without a great deal of time and effort spent on promotion (the parents of Eragon author, Christopher Paolini, took a year out to travel around the States promoting and selling his novel), the book will not sell no matter how good it is.

If you want to hold a book in yout hand, at no cost, send it to PublishAmerica. Buy a few copies for yourself and sell them to your friends -- you'll make a loss but have the pleasure of seeing your work in print with very little effort on your part.

DK's first book is a PublishAmerica book, as is mine. We have moved on to other things; you would be able to do the same.

Thanks for referring people to my books! I learned about publishing and marketing with my first novel, Arirang: The Bamboo Connection. Fortunately, it was publisher ready when it went to PA, so those who bought it received a grammatically correct, well-written book with some fascinating parts that held the reader for whom travel, adventure and a touch of romance was their genre. With hard work and all I learned at the Publish American Message Board from other struggling authors, I sold a lot of books even though the initial price was around $35.00 for a trade paperback book. Six years later, it still is listed for $24.95 as a paperback. Because of PA's reputation for accepting and publishing books of lesser quality, some of that stigma had to be overcome. I received my ebook rights back from PA and initially published the ebook at $9.99 with a spark in sales along with my newly published Ghost Orchid advertising and promotion (constant promotion by the way) and short stories in other anthologies with other publishers whose print copies were a more rational price (and also fewer pages - my first novel was nearly 500 pages, cut from over 1000).A lot of the energy that went into promotion for Arirang: The Bamboo Connection came from "new author" energy and belief that I had a best-seller that would take me far. That belief kept me going for quite a while until I was caught by the words of a bunch of negative people whose words ate at my confidence " in a book by PA " until I lost that energy and sales dropped for the hard copy. I believed book stores would turn down my signings; I believed people would think I was less of an author because I used PA; and my beliefs alone began to fulfill themselves as I did less promotion and had less confidence to seek signings and garner press support even though I had no more of those experiences initially than any new author with any publisher.

My belief system changed with Ghost Orchid, and that promotion went very well. I had a mainline, though small, publisher at no cost to me who really wanted to sell books to the public; they don't have their own bookstore online but promote the bookstores that sell their books, print and ebook. I have no trouble with getting it into stores, signings, etc.; only limited by my personal energy level which has been sapped a bit recently from personal things.

No matter how well a story is written or reviewed, the competition is very stiff and a lucky break makes all the difference. Some authors make it to the top by sheer hard work, charisma, self-promotion and persistence. Others with all of that get nowhere. For some, a celebrity endorsement is the key. For some a recognized name is the key. I have often said, it's like any art. Local artists are everywhere hawking their own cd's and singing at fairs and churches, displaying their works at traveling art shows and self-promoting at every opportunity until they are "found." Some will never be "found" except by the discriminating few. For them, the art itself compels them to continue anyway.

Well, thank you for the advice on joining a critique group. I joined 'Critters' and have already critiqued 1 other persons material, and sent in some of mine. I am not used to critiquing other people's work, but I guess I will get used to it.
Does anyone know a way to find a specific small press in a certain area? When I use Google and type in searches for certain parameters, I get a bunch of, what we here in Indiana call,...crap.
I want to try and find a small press in the area of Indiana,(or surrounding states), that are accepting fantasy manuscripts from the author. I am thinking that may be a better option for me than the large commercial press' like Balantine or Ace. I will still send my manuscripts there, but I figure I may have better luck with a smaller press. If I can even find one...-.-

lowen wrote:

Does anyone know a way to find a specific small press in a certain area? When I use Google and type in searches for certain parameters, I get a bunch of, what we here in Indiana call,...crap.

What a coincidence. They call it the same thing here.

lowen wrote:

I want to try and find a small press in the area of Indiana,(or surrounding states)

Is there a specific reason for wanting it to be nearby?

Well, I guess there is no real reason. I was thinking about doing a couple book signings and and a spot in a couple conventions around here. I was thinking a press nearby would be easier to do that with. But now that you mention it, I guess the only thing it would do is make shipping less costly.

When I was looking for a small press I looked at the EPIC award winning authors and who was publishing the most award winning books.

I also looked at the preditors and editors poll to see whose books received votes and who published them.

I am going to be brave here and write a post. I have been reading up on publishing companies and discovered the Xilbris is scamming people which I am glad to find out.

I am looking for a good route to go to publish a book on my life and condition I have and how it affected myself and those around me.

I am trying to figure out what the best route is to go with this, the best mode to get it out there and still be able to make a little money on it. I guess on of the things that confuses me is whether or not I am supposed to pay for publishing packages or if it is taken out of the book sales.

TOO much information lol.

I went to site called virtualtales.com but it is now called barkingrainpress.org.

You seem like a down to earth group of people, and I am getting overwhelmed with all the info on the internet.

I thank you in advance for your advice. Thank you.

The easiest and least costly way to publish your memoir/self-help book would be to upload it to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). You can sign up here:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Take care with your manuscript; Amazon's customers can view the opening of your book and download a sample. If the book is badly written, customers will not pay to read your book.

well i happen to like working with this company, my poetry book will be out this oct/nov 2012. i self promote on facebook and i have over 900 pre- orders. my first book sold over 1500 copies the first 4 months, it was with a different company but self publishing has worked well for myself

even though xlibris did scam people, i did sell over 1500 copies with them. i wont use them again because they didnt report some of my sells...now im with friesenpress and have a new poetry book coming out this oct/ nov 2012. i self promote on facebook and to date i have 900 pre-orders, my goal is to sell 100,000 copies. my book is all written in poetry about the late tupac shakur. the first poem i ever wrote about him gained over 300,000 likes when i had it posted on facebook back in 2010...and one company wanted to purchase the entire book from me, but they want to retain the copyright and all rights resevered...and i turned them down because no one should ever get credit for anything pertaining to art, unless they are the creator....tanya

Congratulations on your success. I think the type of book makes a difference in terms of how it is published and marketed. For the standard fiction novel, I like Kindle. I also like some small and boutique presses. It depends on the genre and promotional plans. If you are a major social networking guru you can just about sell anything.