Help please.....?

Question

I am a new author i have just published my first book on lulu.com, a self publishing website. I don't understand the methods of promoting and selling my book. can anyone offer any legitamate tips or suggestions on this subject?

Thank you in advance for your help,

Silver

I know that i never should have followed a self publishing website. At the time that i published the book i did not have the money to pay a company to publish my book. I am tring to sell some copies so that i can republish it under a real company but in order to do that i need to get the word out on my book.

I have done research most of the publishers i have found say that they will publish my book for a fee. But also they do all the leg work including the cover art. only thing i would have had to do was submit a manuscript.

If anyone knows a link to a publisher that does not charge please feel free to post it, I will gladly look into it.

Even Barnes and Noble charged me, I think they said $650.

Answer 1

I hate to say it but you made the biggest mistake of your life. You should have done your research before you signed with Lulu. You are on your own now. You technically aren't even an tutor. You are just someone who send something to Lulu and your check cleared the back. They will publish the Chinatown phonebook as long as I pay for it.

Lulu will do nothing for you. Let me tell you a statement I recently read from Lulu - We would rather sell 100 copies of 5 million books than 5 million copies of 100 books. It is all about them. As long as you pay, they don't care.

Did you at least get an ISBN number? Without it you are truly sunk.

You might as well face facts. Your books are not going to be on the shelves at Barnes and Noble or Borders. You are going to have to fill your car with books and go bookstore to bookstore giving out free books (at your expense) to the buyers and beg then to stock your book. Some actually may, but not many.

I have heard of cases where self published authors were literally booed off the stage at writers conventions. I recently read of a woman who refinanced her house to the tune of 60 thousand dollars to publish and market her book. She is about to lose her home. Self published books are cheaply made, horribly printed with terrible cover art. I know of an author whose book had entire chunks of paragraphs missing. His self publisher did nothing.

At this point, you have to invest money. You can write letters and send flyers to ever bookstore you can find an address for and beg them to publish your book. That will cost you about a buck a letter. You can drive to bookstores and visit in person. That will cost about 3 bucks a gallon in gas plus wear and tear on your car. Or you can spend about 4 thousand dollars and hire a marketing company to push your book for you. It is the proverbial literary black hole.

I think that I (and others) must post here 40 times a day advising against self publishing. It is a shame nobody reads what we write. We know what we are talking about. Go to my profile and weed through the starred Q and A - you will find dozens and dozens of posts anti-self publishing. The average self published author sells about 100 books - or roughly 2/3 as many books as they have family and friends.

If you believe in your book and in yourself you owe it to yourself to spend at least twice as long trying to get your book published traditionally as you did writing it. Instead, you went for the short cut. What mattered was just getting your name on the cover of a book. It was the wrong decision.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the world of self publishing. They prey on young writers at forums like this and encourage them to get their books published free. Only free has a high price on it. You didn't go through any type of screening process with agents or publishers. Nobody selected your book for publication. Lulu publishes ANYTHING.

The best you can do is push this one as best you can and start writing another book. This time, spend the 30 dollars to buy yourself a copuy of Writers Market and learn how traditional publishing works. It will take time, you will get rejections, but so what? Gone With the Wind got 50. That is part of the business. At least when you do finally find a traditional publisher, you won't be left in the dark with a box of books and nobody to sell them to. They will be in bookstores for people to buy.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this is the honest truth. In the history of self publishing NINE books have hit the best seller list, and it cost those authors MANY thousands of dollars to do it.

Pax - C

Answer 2

I just wanted to comment on your statement that you didn't have the money to pay a publishing company. It shows that you really aren't aware of how publishing works, and you need to read up on it. You don't pay a legitimate publisher.
If you have no money, you don't need to worry. You don't even need to buy "Writer's Market." You can look at it at the library. Look up all the publishing books you can find. You need to do the research first.
When you look up agents, research them. Find out everything about them. Visit the agency website. Visit the agents' blogs. Look for information on their reliability. Read what they represent to see if any of it compares to your book. Read what they are looking for, what they want sent to them, whether they're on holiday during a certain month and won't respond. You need to know it all. It takes a lot of time, but you're asking them to take a lot of time working with your book.
The more research you do, the better you craft your query letters, the more personal the replies will be. Yes, the odds of rejection are high (I have the huge stack of rejection slips to prove it). But sometimes you open a letter and it says something like, "I would love to see your full manuscript...."
And if you find the right agent and that agent sells your book, you have someone who wants to see it sell as much as you do.

Answer 3

I realize you've heard this already, but NO PUBLISHER SHOULD CHARGE YOU TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK. Publishing is an extremely competitive field, and many authors spend years trying to get their work noticed. There aren't any easy shortcuts.

However, since you've already done it, there's no point harping on the issue. My advice to you is:

-Market your book locally, promoting yourself as a "local author"

-Try to get in at libraries, book stores, schools, etc. to do readings and promote your work

-Set up your own website/blog where you can link to your work

-Make sure your writing is the best it can be. You might want to check out internet resources to make sure your grammar and spelling are impeccable. My website, http://www.futurewords.net, contains links to some free resources

Good luck!

Answer 4

Can you send me a link? Look for websites that do reviews about that genre and send them a copy. Order a few copies for yourself and put together a publicity package. A short letter explaining your book and asking if they would please publish a review or even possibly conduct an author interview. Get up a blog or a website and make sure you update it timely, so people can go there and see that you're a real person. Make sure you keep contact info on your sig on all correspondence. Good luck!