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So You Want to Be a Published Author?

You've written a Novel, a book of Poetry or a Collection of Short Stories and you want to have your book published. You send it out to Harper and Row and guess what? A Rejection Slip. You send it to Random House. Another Rejection Slip. Avon Books. Another Rejection Slip. They all say the same thing,"Not accepting unpublished authors at this time." BUMMER! Soon you'll be able to paper the walls of your office with rejection slips.

Take heart. Don't give up. The Publishing World is changing.

Today, "Print on Demand publishing or POD" is the name of the game. When an order comes in, the book is printed. No longer do many publishers print thousands of copies in the the hope that the books will sell only to have them stacked in warehouses gathering dust. Many of them are printing books as the orders arrive.

Many Publishing companies have sprung up embracing the POD concept. Here are the Publishers you should be seeking.

Amazon saw the light and purchased a company called Global Book Publisher and re-named it Book Surge Publishers. Random House in turn purchased a company called 1st Book Library and re-named it AuthorHouse.

There are many other POD Publishers; WordClay, Miracle Valley Press, Lulu, Wingspan Press, I Universe, Aventine Press, Booklocker.com, Foremost Press, Outskirts Press. Xlibris and more.

You may plug the name of the Publisher in the search box of your browser to find out more information on any of them or you may use the Google Search Box provided at the end of this article..

They will design your cover, obtain an ISBN and Copyright and print and market your book through the major online distributors such as Amazon, ABE Books, Alibris and others. They will also prepare News Releases. However none of this is free. They will sell you a package with different levels of service starting at around $200 up to about $1,500. As always, you get what you pay for.

Remember that before the POD publishing companies came on the scene most writers only way to publish was "Self Publishing" through the Vanity Presses. With them you had to pay thousands for the minimum book run which they prescribed. I self published my first book more than 15 years ago. I started with 2,000 copies at a cost of $2,500. Two years later I had at least 1880 copies sitting in a storage locker. Now I'm down to a few dozen. Thanks to my wife, most of the rest have been spirited away.

I selected AuthorHouse for my first book, "Baja Diaries, Chronicles of a Paradise Lost." It will be in print shortly. I picked AuthorHouse because several of their authors' books have been made into movies. Two come to mind immediately; "Legally Blond" and "Proof of Life," which stared Russell Crowe. I feel that I will have a better shot at a movie in the future through AuthorHouse though not necessarily with "Baja Diaries." Later I found out that two of my friends had published through AuthorHouse.

Contact me at epgeorge007@gmail.com and I will direct you to my author representative. I think he's the best.



You can also find inexpensive printers for your book. Just plug "Book Printers" into the search box and go. The least expensive printers will probably be in China. Why should you look for printers if you are using a POD publisher? Print on Demand is more expensive per book than printing 1,000 copies of your book. Use the POD publisher to see if your book will sell to more than just your friends and family. Then make the decision.

If your book has staying power, having several thousand copies might be the way to go.  Non-fiction books tend to have a longer sales life than fiction. My first book was "Video Vision." It showed how you could make money in the video business without owning a brick and mortar store. It was non-fiction but it was rendered obsolete by technology. You see the book was all about buying and re-selling VHS Movies. The book does still serve a purpose. Whenever I tell someone that I have published a book and they say that I'm "less than truthful," I refer them to Amazon.

One of the unanticipated benefits of POD publishing is the high re-sale value of books. With books being printed almost as they are ordered there are not many copies going to the secondary or re-sale market. The result has been higher prices on used copies. You will not find 100 copies of "Give Your Teacher This Note" by Gwendolyn Cheatham, PhD, for sale for as little as one penny. New, it sells for $12.00 and the re-sale value is nearly $8.00. The book has a publication date of July, 2008.

What does the high re-sale value do for the author? The author receives no royalties from re-sales. That's very true but consider this. Many times you will find books for sale online where the price of the used book is within a dollar of the price of the new. Whenever I find this to be true I almost always purchase the new book. Besides, I feel that I will receive the book faster from Amazon and there is the element of trust.

I have recently discovered a Forum on Book Publishing, billed as "An Incomplete Guide to POD Publishers. Quite frankly, I wish I had discovered this resource prior to starting my publishing venture. Go to booksandtales.com and click on their Forum Link. They have threads on all the major POD Publishers where authors go to vent or to sing the praises of their publishers. Remember, however, there is good and bad about every publisher. You just have to find the one with the least bad things written about them.

The booksandtales.com Forum also has a resource section. Here you can find Cover Designers, Website Designers, Editors, Illustrators and Translators. What else could you need?

Perhaps you are having trouble finishing your book and you need some help in this area. Have you ever considered a Ghostwriter? Did you know that 40% of published books are Ghost Written? It's true. For a fee there are Ghost Writers for any project. Take a look at Elance.com or Ghostwriters.com. At these two sites people will bid on your project. You set a specified period of time for the bidding process, review the bids and the bidders' qualifications and the price and then make a selection.

The Publishing World is changing and POD publishing may be your one great chance to become a Published Author.

Next in this series, "EBooks as an Alternatives to Paper & Ink Publishing"

The author of this article, George Puckett is a writer, a former loan signing agent with a number of years in the field as a successful agent, a former Realtor and loan officer and a former Missionary. He drew upon these experiences to write a very successful and informative e-book on Loan Signings. The book is entitled, "Notary Riches." You can find more valuable information on the book at http://www.notaryriches.com


If you wish to know more about any of these companies just type their name into the Google Search Box Below.