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5 Questions About Self-Publishing Your Non Fiction Book

Guest post by: Kaya Singer

Article Overview: If you are thinking about finally writing your non fiction book, here is some great help around self publishing.

5 Questions About Self-Publishing Your Non Fiction Book

These days everyone wants to write their book! Why not. It is easy to imagine the great feeling of seeing your book in print. It is such a tangible symbol and manifestation of success in the eyes of most people. It seems like anyone who touts themselves as an expert at anything, also has their book to validate it. That first book has become a benchmark for many, many entrepreneurs.

However, the jump from deciding to write a book and actually having that book completed and in print is huge. For some people it feels like an insurmountable task and it is so easy to get lost along the way, blocked by obstacles or just lose the inertia.

Here are five important questions to address, that will make the process much easier and more fruitful as well.

1. What is your purpose in writing the book?

Your business plan needs to reflect where your book will fit in to the overall picture. Why would this be important or unimportant for your business? After people read your book, what do you want them to do?

How will your book help your business grow?

2. Who are you writing it to? Just like any product you are marketing, you need to know your target customer. You need to know who they are, what they need or want and the benefits they will receive. Once you can answer these questions it is easier to know what to write and how to write it.

3.What’s the style? A non-fiction book often teaches something, as in, “How to” books. They can be motivational and inspirational as well. They can be essays on a subject. The style of your book needs to make sense to the person you want to communicate to and what you want to accomplish.

4. How to publish it?

If you want to become a household name than you might feel you need to get a conventional publisher. Many people think that getting a publisher will be cheaper. Not true if you look at the whole picture. Unless you are already a famous person, you need to have an agent first. You have to write a book proposal, which can be more laborious than writing the book. I did this 15 years ago. It took me three months to do my proposal. I sent it to many agents and luckily someone took it. If she had managed to find a publisher, she would have taken her percentage of each book sold. The publisher will pay you possibly 6-8% of retail price. At the end of the day you might end up with a couple dollars per book! It is also a mistake to assume they will market it for you. If you are unknown, they expect you to do your own marketing. However they will get your book in all the large bookstores via their distribution channels as long as the bookstores order it.

Self-publishing is the other option. Ten years ago I self-published two books. I had to print at least 1500 to make it worth it. It was a large outlay of money. These days print on demand gives you the ability to digitally print a small amount at a low price and have total control, sell them on your website, with no one taking their percentage out. You still have the option to put them on other websites, in bookstores or anywhere and create your own wholesale price. If you are going to do all the marketing yourself, why not earn more money? Now, 1o years later I have published my recent book this way. I have used LightningSource.com and they have excellent customer service. I highly recommend them. Lulu.com does the same service with virtually no support except online.

5. Who is on your team?

It requires a skilled team to help you get your book out. Actually writing was the fun and creative part for me, but I needed help with editing, layout, cover creation, mentoring, book naming and more. It is important to find the right people who can support you, understand the project and want to be a part of your process. Without a good team you will never make it to the finish line.

Follow these five steps, answer all the questions I have posed, and you will be much more equipped to move forward and begin your project. Just imagine your book in print and the smile on your face at the end!

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Article Tags: book writing, marketing, self publishing



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My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Quote of the Day - "Don't be embarrassed about asking "stupi - One of my favorite requests when leading a class, workshop, lecture, interview, whatever... There are no Stupid Questions, don't be afraid to ask - someone else has the same question, but is afraid to ask On the other hand - try anticipate the questions Back to the first hand - Some People ARE dummer than a ROCK
Re: Marketing ideas? - Questions will set you free... And make you Rich [quote="KH_Global":349pds7c]Just ask ask ask. That is it.[/quote:349pds7c]
Re: Contact Information - Another idea would be to have an email form in place to accept "ticketed" inquires (if people are afraid of spammers seeing their email address). However, I hate how some sites try to persuade you out of sending an email by bombarding you with lists of "Frequently Asked Questions & Answers" as I find they're rarely helpful.


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