"Hold please", the voice on the other end squawks.
"Okay", you reply, but they're gone before they get a chance to
hear your answer.
Is this a familiar experience you've had with your publisher or agent?
Are you an author who has never been published before and you're trying
to decide what you should do? The future of your book is always in your
hands, from the time you write the first sentence. This article will present
both ways to get published, helping you to decide which choice is best for
you in your present circumstances.
This series of articles will not only deal with the subject of getting
published in print, but it will also touch on the possibility of getting
published in e-book format.
Let's make the assumption that you have never been published before. You
have written a book that you're just aching to share with the world, but
you're not sure if you should allow a publisher to handle it all, or if
you should market your own book.
Unfortunately, even if you make the decision to let a publisher handle
it all for you, you're not going to want to put the promotion of your book
on complete autopilot, unless you're that trusting. You'll probably want
to have some participation in the process. Why? Not all publishers have
the time to devote to your book the way you might.
"I don't have any time to devote to marketing my book", you might
say.
Ok, but I could almost bet you might do a better job of letting others
know about it than your publisher ever would. Unless you're that lucky star
that has a book that just sells all by itself, you'll want to be involved
in the promotion of it.
If you don't take some role in the marketing of your book, you might feel
like you don't have control over the process at all. If you're a control
freak like I am, you've probably already answered the question of whether
or not you should self-publish. If my book fails, I want it to fail because
I failed it. I don't want to look back and say that it failed because someone
else did not do their job.
Who knows your book better than you? Who knows who would love to read it
more than you do? You may have to do some soul-searching to figure out who
your target audience is because sometimes target audiences morph right before
our very eyes.
One moment we think we know who would love to read our book. Before we
know it, a completely different "crowd" is buying our book. We
have to turn around, shake the rocks in our head, and start over in our
marketing efforts.
Don't worry too much if your target audience does change. Your readers
may not really be who you think they are. That is a normal process of figuring
out what your book really is.
We'll make the assumption in the rest of this series that you have decided
to self-publish. Even if someone else published your book, don't let that
stop you from reading the rest of the articles in the future. Even if you
have decided to let someone else do it for you, you'll still learn valuable
marketing secrets to get your book in front of others.
Enjoy figuring out what your book is really about and who would really
love to read it, and I'll see you next time.
