I, myself, have never been published before, and way before I even attempted to send my book to a publisher of any sort, I did five years of research of what to do, what I should know, what happens, and what should be done, everything else inbetween too! And, so far, I haven’t run into any problems with bookstores, marketing, anything, it’s all smooth sailing, and it’s all what I expected.

If a teen can do research and publish and market and promote, anyone can, ANYONE! You just gotta know what you’re doing and even after you know what you’re doing you gotta know more!

See, what isn’t common knowledge among aspiring authors is the amount of PROMOTION necessary to actually sell the books. The difference between the “sweat equity” required on the author’s part is nearly identical between POD publishing, self publishing and traditional publishing. Many, many aspiring authors think that going with a traditional publisher means that all the ugly “marketing” stuff will be taken care of on their behalf. Oh, NAY NAY!

I’ve known many “traditionally” published authors, which is one of the reasons it took me 20 years to finally write my first book (and why I chose to Booklocker as my POD publisher when I finally did take the plunge).

What the traditionally published authors I know ran into was that they had a very short window during which they had to generate “buzz” for their book. If they didn’t generate enough “buzz” to create sales success, then their title was dropped. In return for their substantial promotional efforts, they were rewarded with a very small % of the sale price of the book.

Booklocker does an OUTSTANDING job of detailing what they will do for an author. It’s also a great place to test and hone your book marketing skills. With booklocker, if it takes you 18 months to get up a head of steam with your marketing campaign, then it takes you 18 months. You don’t have to worry about the “ax” dropping on your book before you’ve mastered the basics of marketing your book.

If you just want to get out and work your ARSE off promoting your book for a very small cut of the profits, the find a traditional publisher.

If you want a bigger piece of the action, then be prepared to deal with processing orders, dealing with printers and mailing out books, in addition to working your ARSE off promoting your book, then by all means, self publish.

If however, you want to write a book and then spend your time/energy promoting your book and let someone else take care of the “details,” then POD publishing is the way to go.

Thanks Angela and Richard for providing a safe place for my book to spread it’s wings.

As to appearance of our POD books compared to the “real” books, I love the appearance of my book, inside and out–and I agree that POD can look classier than a lot of the stuff on the Borders/B&N, etc., bookshelves! “Degrees of Murder” certainly does.

As to sales, that’s my responsibility–and there are many more successful POD authors out there, sales-wise, than I–but I know where the fault lies, in that regard, and it is not with Booklocker.

So, stay with it Angela and Richard. You do an excellent job in a field where few–in my opinion–do well by their clients.

Hang in there, Angela–Spring is coming! (Was it just a few years ago when the Maine newbie said, “Oh, boy! Real snow!

Regards,

Kevin

Fern Reiss wrote: “Bookstores don’t carry subsidy books.”

Well perhaps that’s true of big stores like Barnes and Noble. It’s not true of smaller stores. I know of several smaller stores in this area alone that are more than happy to carry subsidy books if the author is local. I’m pretty sure that Eragon is a subsidy book, I know it’s self-published, and it’s in all the book stores.

Fern Reiss wrote: “Your book won’t look great. Almost everyone in the publishing industry can spot a POD subsidy book a mile away…”

Not only is that an incorrect statement, a large part of the books that Barnes and Noble have on their shelves right now look like ******. The cardstock for the covers is thing, art is non-existent, the content is drivel and there are quite a few typos. Marketing’s all the matters any more, not quality.

Fern Reiss wrote: “You’ll pay through the nose.

Let’s see: All the money you invest in your book is a business expense. It’s a commercial venture and you (the author) are the business owner. It all comes off on your taxes, or does if you are smart. Not bad for starting up a business in my opinion, you can’t even get into Tupperware that cheaply.

Good response. I, too, often warn readers and clients about being too eager to sign with a fee-based POD publishing service. Nearly as often, I ultimately say, “And if you decide to go with a POD, consider Booklocker.” My main concern for hopeful authors is that they don’t do their homework. They don’t really know what they’re buying–they don’t understand the publishing industry to begin with.

I reviewed Mark Levine’s new book, “The Fine Print of Self-Publishing” for SPAWN and was pleased to see Booklocker listed among the “Outstanding Self-Publishing Companies.” I’ve been telling everyone who will listen about this.

Congratulations and keep up the good work. Also, thanks for reminding us that when we write or talk about “PODs” we must distinguish between apples and oranges. You have to admit there are some companies that are not as straight-forward as Booklocker and many countless hopeful authors who aren’t approaching the industry with enough information.

Patricia Fry