Self Publishing presents the savvy author with many unique benefits. In this 2 part video series, Kristen Eckstein, book coach and founder of www.iampublished.com talks you through the benefits and guides you to self publish your book the RIGHT WAY.

Self-publishing is an option that many aspiring authors are giving more consideration to these days. Therefore, as one chooses, you should consider all that is involved self-publishing. Did you know there is more than one option under the umbrella of “self-publishing?” These include choosing to either use a subsidy or vanity press company or to publish completely independently. Each of these options has its own set of “steps.”

When choosing to use a subsidy press or vanity publisher, you will likely only go through a couple of steps. These include approving the final copy of your book once you’ve submitted it and promoting and marketing, much of which you’ll still have to do yourself.

On the other hand, when publishing independently there are more steps involved, however you will soon understand why these steps are worth the effort. Publishing independently involves finding a contract editor as well as a contract book designer, going through the process of registering your ISBN number, your LCCN, copyrights and other registrations, contracting with a printer, and finally promoting and marketing.

Though it may seem like more work, and it likely is, the benefits are larger as well. When choosing to use subsidy publishing an author will split the profits with the press, most likely encounter quality issues, and run into distribution blocks when promoting to bookstores. However, when choosing to publish independently, you will keep 100% of the profits, end up with a higher quality book, and avoid those distribution blocks.

Ultimately, it is up to you, the author, to decide what option you will choose for publishing. After all, you are the one who must put in the work and who will benefit from the results. Take your time and choose wisely!

I’ve been running a workshop that teaches people the secrets of writing a book since 2002 now. In it, I tell them how I had the first book I ever wrote accepted by the first publisher I approached. How I was fresh out of university, it was a cookbook and that I couldn’t cook.

So, why was I successful?

Was it just a fluke?

Well, back then I thought it was, but now, 26 books on, I realise that I got several things right.

So, I go to the flipchart and start to ask the audience what they think the reasons for my success might be. It always follow the same pattern. To kick off, they suggest things like focus, a good title, the right idea at the right time, a market, a wow factor and authenticity, but then the room falls silent. They wrack their brains. Then someone says, it always happens, someone says: “There’s something else though, isn’t there?” and the rest of the audience begin to nod.

You see, the other reason I succeeded was because I believed in myself. I was 23, I was young, naive, filled with hope. I did not consider for a moment that the fact that I was not a cook and had not been published before would stand in my way. I believed I had a good idea. OK, let me get it out of the way right now, before you wonder how I got away with not being a cook – though I had not written the recipes and could not cook, they had been given to me by French families while I had been living in France. The book was called French Tarts and it was a good idea and, in the mid-eighties, it was the perfect time. I truly believed I had a good chance of the book being accepted.

I believe that self-belief is the number one requirement if you want to write a book. It should not be the last thing on the list but the first. So, what follows, are five ways that I suggest you try to develop this elusive item.

1. Ask for feedback and take it, welcome it, know that without it you will never really know how good you are. Improve your chances by suggesting how you want the feedback to be served. Say you want to hear what they liked, what they felt might be missing and how they might improve it. This kind of feedback is much easier to digest and will leave you feeling good about your work.
2. Write every day. OK, almost every day. If you have a journal and are in the practice of doing ten minutes of what Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, calls Morning Pages, then you will begin to feel like a real writer rather than an imposter. You see, real writers do something phony writers don’t – they write.
3. Read other books in your market. Devour them. Make Amazon your best friend and read everything else out there that is like the one you want to write. You’ll soon find things that you consider not to be so great about each book, as well as things you’d like to emulate in yours. This will boost your confidence in your idea.
4. Get published in a small way. Nothing will make you feel more positive about your potential as an author more than already having your name in print. So write articles, start a blog, write book reviews or theatre reviews. Get your name online and in print, build a portfolio. Not only will this increase your profile and Googleability, but will also develop belief in your writing.
5. Join a class or online program, one that makes you commit to writing, forces you to do homework and ensures you turn up at the class and the page regularly. Being in a class means you get feedback from the rest of the group, if you you are lucky, and from a professional,the teacher. Practice makes perfect and is habit-forming. Try it.

If ever I get stuck or ‘lost for words’ there are a number of books that I turn to that never fail to inspire me and have me heading for the keyboard. I’d like to share them with you now.

1. OK, so everyone knows about The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, don’t they? This 10 week course will get you writing every day, for just ten minutes and will not only get your writing back on track, but will get the skeletons in your closet nicely aired too!
2. Stephen King’s On Writing is about his return to health after this famous Sci Fi author was hit by a car. It talks about how he got his own writing back on track. He is frank at all times and pulls no punches. Just as I was having a lovely old procrastinate, telling myself I’d write my novel after I’d got a new laptop, created a ‘writing corner’ and bought a new chair in which to sit, I read about King’s own experience of this and how, in the end, where he sat made no difference at all. All that mattered was that he just did it. He wrote.
3. I guess Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg was the first book on writing I ever read. It’s about writing anywhere, writing what is in your head, and giving yourself permission to ‘just go’ with the pen. This is the perfect limbering up book for writers.
4. I am ashamed to say that it took me 20 years as a writer before I found the work of Anne Lamott. Her Bird by Bird is a fabulous journey inside the mind of someone who makes her living as a writer. It teaches you, pretty much, as King explains, to cut the excuses and just write. But more than that, it explains how you just need to write in little chunks, just as you would if you were writing a book on birds, cover one bird at a time. Liberating stuff.
5. And the other one, Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, was written in the 50s and it’s another book that aims below the belt and gets me going again. In it she suggests that if you tell yourself that you will, say, write a page a day, or ten minutes a day, and then you fail to turn up, that clearly your desire to fail is greater than your desire to succeed. Boy, did that one get me back to the keyboard.

I hope these five inspire you. Further, I hope  you promise yourself to add every single one of them to your wish list!

A seminar I presented recently at the San Francisco Writing for Change conference, addressed many of the issues raised by other speakers at the conference, and provided some solutions to writers. Here are some of the challenges which face writers when submitting proposals and some of the comments from editors, agents and publishers on those same challenges:

Editors Panel key points:

• “Many writers are not able to articulate what their book is about in a concise way.  Rambling means that the writer is unable to conceptualize and this will discourage an agent or editor.”
• “Often, we receive a proposal where the first 20 pages of their book seem more about the author explaining the story to themselves.”
• “If your material is too unripe you will never be able to get the attention of an agent, editor or publisher”, don’t expect to come to an agent and say “will this work?  We’re not in the business of re-imagining your work”
• “What do you promise your reader and are you fulfilling that promise?”
• “An educated author is a publisher’s greatest asset, pass your work through an expert first, team up with authors who have already published.  The author needs a platform and to make a business case for their book”
• “Your book is not the frontline, it is the author themselves that sell the book, you have to prove your ability to promote your book, your book should be a believable extension of what your are already an expert at, the author is the publishers agent”
• “70% of books published don’t earn back their advances, now days the promotion plan is more important than the content, we’d like to see more authors test marketing their own books using Print on Demand publishers”
• “Self-publishing is not the kiss of death, if an author has proven themselves and is at a highly polished level we would never turn down a successful author”
• “Often a manuscript falls apart because the writer isn’t ready, become a scholar, get help to get it right!”

Would you like to be published by a mainstream New York Publishing house?  Want to know the secret to getting your manuscript considered?

Carefully follow the submission guidelines, here is an example from Morgan James Publishing in New York:

You need to answer all these questions

• Why do you feel compelled to write this book?
• Why will someone want to read it?
• Is there a particularly timely nature of the subject area?
• What are the specific benefits of your book?
• How do you plan on marketing the book?

You must mention any:

• workshops
• Teleseminars
• speaking events which will give you the opportunity to sell back of room
• newsletters
• networking groups
• websites where you can sell your book.

Now describe the contents of your book in plain English. Be as precise as possible, providing both a general overview and a rundown of subjects treated in detail. Indicate how in-depth your coverage will be.