I have written a book and want to self-publish it and sell it. How do I do this LEGALLY?

Question

I have written a book that (I think) will be useful to professors of certain college courses (to use with their students).

The book is written. I can have it bound and copied easy enough (just a simple self-publish). I want to write a letter and send out sample copies of my book to college professors-- along with an invitation to purchase copies for their class.

How do I do this legally? Can I legally start copying my book and sending out these letters? Do I have to officially apply as a business somehow? What about taxes-- I suspect most books would be sold to out-of-state residents, but I cannot be sure.

What do I have to do?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Thanks for the advice so far.

I don't need information on printing or publishing... I can handle that. It's the legal/business end of it I need.

No, I doubt I'll sell too many copies-- it's a pretty specialized book. I'll be lucky if I sell any. Best case scenario, a couple hundred (but that's optimistic).

Thanks for the answers so far... keep 'em coming. :)

Answer 1

I'm quite astonished by the answers above - most of them are flatly incorrect, and others are merely misleading.

You do not need any permit from any government agency in the United States or any subdivision thereof to publish any book, in any format, ever. You, further, do not need any permission to attempt to sell it by writing letters. Not from anyone, ever.

You may, in fact, simply start copying and sending.

If you want to be perfectly legal with regard to sales tax, consult the tax authority in your state. If you want to *protect* your copyright, you may register with the Library of Congress's Copyright Office, but there is no requirement that you do so - your copyright exists, automatically, by operation of law.

Answer 2

First you need to copyright the book this will cost you around $50.00 if you do it yourself. After that you can try to get a publisher to publish and distribute your book or you can self publish the book and try to distribute it yourself. I would look at www.lulu.com as an option for self publishing. In order to self publish you should probably start a corporation so you can get a tax ID number and a corporate bank account that way you can collect credit cards etc you can pay your taxes as the corp but you can also just sell the book and report the earnings on your income tax return as an individual and it's legal as long as you also collect and report sales tax for in state sales.

Answer 3

You will need to check with your city/county level government for a selling permit and see if it is necessary. You will probably have to get a "doing business as" permit which are nominal in fee and different cities/counties will have different regulations for applying but generally require a newspaper publication for 2 months or so.

As far as applying for a business license, you probably won't need one unless you start selling tons and tons of books. You do need to keep track of your expenses and profits for the purpose of paying taxes. You may be able to file this under your personal income tax. Again, the pros and cons of this will depend on how many books you actually sell.

Answer 4

Sure, you can print it yourself and market it yourself. If you are selling entirely by mail, I doubt you need a business license -- but double check with your local city clerk to be sure.

Taxes for out of state residents are tricky. You are supposed to collect them, unless the provide proof that they have paid the taxes locally on their end. Almost nobody does.

As a side not, check out the US copyright office (http://www.copyright.gov). It costs $50 (plus postage) to register the copyright for your book. And if you plan to sell it out of state, it's worth it.

Answer 5

You should be able to google publishing kits. I had one a long time ago, so I forgot the name. But that kind of thing iS out there.