Full Circle Associates

Friday, September 14, 2007

Self Publish? Advice please?

As many readers of this blog know, ad nauseaum, I have been working on a writing project with Etienne Wenger and John Smith. Originally it was an update of a report on technologies for communities of practice. It has evolved into a short book on Stewarding Technology in Communities. Grown like some darn fungus, more like!

We are in the final throes of editing, finding a graphics-angel to convert our rough diagrams into useful informational graphics, adding in stories and narrative bits AND figuring out the publishing stuff.

As this started as a report, we never looked for a publisher. Now it is a book and we are going to self-publish. For me there are two strong reasons for self publishing. Once this is done, we can just GET IT OUT. And we can revise if we need or want to. Second, we can price it so the book is a fair offering, with flexibility for those in developing country situations. In other words, we can be flexible and make it fairly affordable. (We know this is not a money making venture, but we'd love to recoup the hard costs we've put into it. This is an act of love, though.)

I'm reaching out for advice.

What are the things we should attend to as we self publish?
Any mistakes you made that we can avoid?
Would you do it again?
What self-publishing company would you use? (or avoid?)
What has been your experience of offering downloads and/or print versions? Free or paid for downloads?
What about the cost/benefits of having color images inside? (I don't think we can afford them, but I'd like to know what you think.)
What else should we know?

Now, one more question. If you were buying a book on technology stewarding for communities, what would you consider a fair price?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Signed

Novice book author...

(I also realize why I love the blogging format. I don't have to worry about a lot of those book things! )

9 Comments:

Daryl said...: Hi Nancy,

David Maister is also in the midst of writing a book and getting it published. He's decided to self publish and has been discussing on his blog. Perhaps worth a read?
http://davidmaister.com/blog; 5:36 PM
Nancy White said...: Daryl, great lead. He has been posting on this the last few days!

http://davidmaister.com/blog/475/Self-Publishing--Shining-Examples

http://davidmaister.com/blog/482/Self-Publication--Publication-Date

http://davidmaister.com/blog/463/; 6:00 PM
jay said...: Nancy, I'm experimenting with a variety of self-publishing formats. If you're selling an electronic version, a service called Files Forever can take care of the entire billing and fulfillment function without hassles.

See http://internettime.com/?p=920 for an early example.

Books being a dying form of communications, I'm looking into the optimal way to publish reader feedback for prospective buyers to read.

I'm also considering some $1 or $5 offering to let folks see if they want more in the same vein.

jay; 10:49 PM
Fannyanntut said...: Hi Nancy,'
Have you looked at this page?
http://www.knowingknowledge.com/book.php
I am not sure if that is 'self-publishing' but if it is, check it out and maybe contact George Siemens.; 4:08 AM
surya.n.saripalli said...: Nancy,
we were discussing certain issues at Kpublic,JAM,.That is if you remember me.Before i leave any of my experiences,may be tomorrow,wish have a look at
my google groups
surya narayana saripalli,india
Click on
http://groups.google.com/group/books-in-to-training-the-construction-manpower/web/parts-of-book-for-training-the-trainer-in-to-construction
- or copy & paste it into your browser's address bar if that doesn't
work.

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Bill Harris said...: Nancy, I'd check out Lulu as one option. I've seen one perfect-bound paperback they did, and it looked nicely done. I'm told by the editor of that book that they did it on schedule, too.

I've subscribed to WritersWeekly for some time, and they are run by Booklocker.com. They sound good; I have no experience with them.

If you like supporting your local vendors, check out CyberRead in Mukilteo.; 7:55 AM
Nancy White said...: Thanks for all these leads. This is really helpful. And I'm feeling encouraged about self-publishing!; 7:58 PM
Britt Bravo said...: I've had Dan Poynter's book, The Self-Publishing Manual, recommended to me.; 9:45 PM
J.M. Earley said...: Nancy,

When contemplating whether or not to self-publish it is imperative that you consider marketing, promotion, fulfillment,and distribution. As one who recently self-published my first book (and am publishing my subsequent books as e-books), I was not really prepared for the amount of money and time that it would take to get “my name” out. Writing the book was, by far, the easiest thing to do. Marketing has been the most challenging. I have probably spent upwards of about $15,000 to date (including printing costs). Another major hurdle was getting distribution. Without distribution, you will not be able to get into most retail outlets. While attending the BEA (the Book Expo America), I found that Baker & Taylor has a program that will distribute self-published books for a nominal fee. One last thing to consider is whether or not you will be starting your own publishing company as that is the only way that you will be able to get an ISBN.

I hope this points you in the right direction…

Jennifer Mitchell Earley
President & CEO
Aphesis Publishing, LLC
http://www.aphesispublishing.com; 1:14 PM