With a recession now upon us, many people are scrambling to make extra money, and one of the best ways is to write a book. You might think this is a long, drawn-out process, and indeed, it can be if you publish through a traditional publisher. After writing the book, it can take six months to a year or more to find a publisher (if you’re lucky), then a wait of eight months to a year before it is published. You can get around this, however, if you publish the book yourself, in other words, self-publish it. There are, indeed, several advantages to self-publishing, and you can be making money within a few months of starting your book.
Among the advantages are:
- You won’t have to spend months (and maybe, years) sending out hundreds of query letters, and dealing with rejections.
- You get a much larger fraction of the retail price of your book. Publishers usually give you ten percent; as a self-publisher you can get forty percent or more, even after expenses.
- Self-publishing is much faster. Once your book is written, it can usually be set up on a disk and sent to the printer in less than two months. In the case of a traditional publisher, even after the manuscript is accepted, it can take a year or longer before you see a copy of your book.
- As the publisher, you have complete control over your book. You can decide what you want on the cover, and what you want for the overall appearance of the book.
- You can continue selling the book for years after it is published. Books from traditional publishers usually remain in a bookstore for only a few months, depending on how well they sell.
You will, of course, have to sell the book yourself, but many sales channels are now available to you that weren’t available a few years ago. Most of them are associated with the internet, and one of the most important of them is Amazon.com. Furthermore, you no longer have a large up-front investment in that you don’t have to publish a large number of books. You can publish your books one at a time as they sell via POD publishing (Publish-on-demand).
