Job Discussion Forums

[Hatcher]

Does anyone have any experience publishing?

Any help would be helpful.

[doogsville]

Publishing is the easy part, and just the beginning. If you want to sell your self published work these days you also have to do a lot of marketing, usually in the form of blogging, having a Facebook group, a Twitter feed and maintaining a website etc. I'm dipping a toe in those waters myself. The writing part I like, but all the other stuff is hard work for me.

Obviously, a good and reliable vpn is going to be a must. Then you need to do some research. A quick Google will throw up some useful information, but only if you can use it through the aforementioned software.Then look here https://kickass.so/usearch/self%20publishing/ and also here https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A37Z49E2DDQPP3&ref_=gs There are also a ton of blogs about various writers self publishing experiences.

I've published a book on Amazon, I won't publicise it here, since I never really intended to sell it, I just wanted to try out the experience. The hardest part for me was creating a cover for the book. I'm not an artist, and even if I had wanted to really sell the book I couldn't afford to pay for professional artwork just now. Similarly, I didn't pay to have the book edited, and now it's been published and someone bought it they published a review that basically says it's full of grammatical errors. Most of them will be typos I think, since my grammar is usually pretty okay, but it's a bit embarrassing to see such a review of my work, so next time I will only publish after I've had the manuscript professionally edited. Again, this can be a considerable expense if your only income is from teaching in China.

There are markets other than Amazon of course, but they are probably easier to use for the first time self publisher.

[Bud Powell]

I've monitored the online and self-publishing "industry" for several years. I wouldn't consider publishing anything in China for the simple fact that piracy is rampant here. Traditional publishing is probably preferable, but once one sample book is distributed out by a publisher, it's as good as in the public domain. FTs are probably as guilty of piracy as are Chinese teachers. (My experience is that my schools have frowned upon it, but one FT managed to download a whole Longman Series grammar textbook and copy it en masse). I am sure, however, that someone has actually made money from publishing in the PRC.

I think doogsville is on-target about everything. You must self-promote not only as a writer but as an educator, assuming that you are considering publishing a school textbook. (This is true in the traditional publishing industry. Publishers won't go out on a limb for an unknown). Traditional western publishers readily accept books for publication from established American university professors because the professors have a built-in readership. It is expected that the professor and his cronies will make the book required reading. (I am still smarting after having blown a couple hundred dollars through the years on faculty-authored books that were never read).

Copy editors are a good idea. They catch the typos and grammatical errors as well as awkward language. Content editors can help you trim your manuscript and eliminate unnecessary verbage.

There's a pretty good online forum for writers and publishers. It may be found at http://www.writers.net/.

[RiverMystic]

You can get editors dirt cheap on elance.com. Post a project, and you'll get probably at least 30 bids. If you go for less experienced editors, and/or those from places like India and the Phillippines, it costs almost nothing.

I've published several mainstream books, and quite a few self-published. It's not easy marketing. I write weekly for a popular American online magazine, and often link the topics to one or more of my books. I get anywhere from 50-1200 likes for my articles, but that still translates to only about 2-5 book sales per article. My most recent article has got 500 likes so far, and I've sold two Amazon books during that time. So that tells you how challenging things are.

You can self-publish hard copies cheaply through companies like Lightning Source. They also link you to Amazon or other book sites.

[Bud Powell]

What is Amazon's current cut on its published books now?Is it still 68%/32%?

[RiverMystic]

[Non Sequitur]