Publishing F.A.Q.

Self-Publisher’s FAQ

Thank you to Creative Minds Press for providing the content for this FAQ.

Welcome to the Self-Publisher's FAQ. 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). Beyond SPAN there's a tremendous amount of help to be had out there, via books (lots of them), and websites. I hope you enjoy this attempt to make sense of this very complex subject!

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

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

Online Bookstores
Amazon and Barnes&Noble.com

Miscellaneous Questions
Fair use, Publisher's Liability, Associations, Trade Shows, Book Festivals, Just for Fun

Thank you to Creative Minds Press for providing the content for this FAQ.