I often talk to authors who are shopping their latest work around to agents and publishers. Many get disillusioned about the whole traditional publishing game, because it isn’t really interested in unknown writers. The point at which writers contact me is when they start to consider self-publishing.

Recently, Alan Shelton of Red Hatchet Press, a distribution client of mine, did a post for Joel Friedlander’s The Book Designer blog (if you don’t read Joel’s blogs, or follow his monthly ebook cover awards, you are simply missing out on one of the self-publishing world’s greatest information treasures). Alan detailed his path to publishing—and was [...]

Last week, I had lunch with a Barnes & Noble Community Relations Manager (CRM). As usual, she had a lot to say about self-publishers. I’ll just hit the highlights of our talk.

We took a look at what goes into a print bid in Print Bids – Parts I and II. Now let’s look at the information we get back from the printers.

In an era of ebooks and POD (Print on Demand, also digital printing), it may seem old fashioned to discuss bidding a book for an offset print run. But regular printing still happens more often than not, and I thought I’d show what goes into a print bid and how to evaluate the responses you get back.

Stop worrying about “Is Publishing Going to Die?” or “Are Books Dead?” Instead, focus on what your market needs. And recheck every couple of months. Be the expert, rather than the follower in your genre.

Starting a publishing company is a non-trivial task. It takes planning, the development of a vision and persistance. It’s frustrating, time-consuming… and about the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done in my life!

I’d like to react to a wonderful little moment I picked up from the O’Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) newsletter, which called the act of publishing – and especially starting a publishing company – delusional.

Here’s an economic conundrum for you: as you’re probably aware, Amazon has a base-model Kindle for $79. But according to this article, it costs them $84 to make. And that’s before packaging and shipping! So how does this make sense? Amazon often seems to exist in an economic reasoning-free zone, especially when you consider their pricing [...]

This posts comes from an exchange I had on the SPAN Self-Publishing Discussion List with a new self-publisher who was becoming confused about the difference between Distributors and Wholesalers. But then I saw an opportunity to point out the flaws in the system.