Book Publishing Questions

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POD Book Publishing

Publishing Questions

Questions, Comments

Please Read Before E-mailing Me

I just spent a few days going through some hundreds of publishing related questions I've answered in the past couple years, and boiled them down to a representative group of questions and answers. Both the questions and answers are mine, ie, I rewrote questions for answers I'd already written to protect the innocent. Why did I bother? Primarily because I get asked the same questions over and over again, often by people who haven't even read to the bottom of whatever article or book excerpt it was that drew them to this website:-)

There are two particular types of question I'd prefer not to see any more of, and the first is any variation on, "I don't have the time or money to do this myself, will you do it for me." I'm happy to try to answer questions for people who are willing to help themselves, but I'm not here to do your homework for you. The other type of question is any variation on, "I know I've sold 100 copies of my book because all my friends and family bought one, but my subsidy publisher claims I only sold 3 and I want to sue them, so can you send me proof?" No, I can't send you proof, but if your friends and family really bought your book, they can. Just have them send you the receipt, or tear out and send you the title page of the book. If they can't do that, they're the ones lying to you, not the publisher.

Questions about book contracts, royalties, copyrights, etc, often under the subject of "I think my publisher is stealing from me."

Questions about book design, primarily using Word and converting files into PDFs.

Questions about Print-on-Demand, frequently confusing the POD technology being used by most publishers in the US with the subsidy presses who also use the technology.

Questions about book sales, ie, "How many books am I selling?" Again, these questions are often prefaced with, "I think my publisher is cheating me!"

Questions about book marketing and promotion, or at least questions that I answered explaining that the person asking needs to work at it.

Questions about self publishing and e-books, like, "How do I get started?"

Questions about how to go about submitting a book or an unfinished manuscript to a publisher.

Questions about subsidy publishers, and which of the big three (Authorhouse, iUniverse and Xlibris) is the lesser evil:-)