Follow the John 3:16 Network Author Page on Pinterest

Showing posts with label Create Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Create Space. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Should You Purchase Your Own ISBN's and/or Form A Publishing Company?


by Lorilyn Roberts
First, buy your ISBN’s from Bowker – not from a secondary vender, though they are a lot cheaper – but you will end up throwing them out. They are worthless.

Should you incorporate or make yourself a publisher? What I did is I used my business name, Roberts Court Reporters, as I am already incorporated and have been for about 20 years. 

The only advantage to getting your own ISBN’s (rather than using Smashwords or Create Space) in my opinion is if you want to try to sell to bookstores or more easily to libraries. If you use the Create Space ISBN and publish only through them, you will never be able to get your book into bookstores unless the bookstore is willing to open up a Create Space account and buy directly from Create Space. If I were a betting woman, I wouldn’t count on it.

I want to get my books into bookstores. Why? I don’t like having just one revenue stream for selling my books. While Amazon is a big part of the pie, it just makes business sense to “spread the wealth” – and yes, I consider my books an asset, even if nobody else has figured that out yet.

Okay. Don’t mean to be cocky, but the point is, you are limiting yourself if your dreams begin and end with Amazon. I got my ISBN’s, and I will be publishing through Lightning Source shortly. I honestly don’t know if you can publish through Lightning Source as an independent author. I think you have to become a publisher. You also have to show credit worthiness, which is why I went with my business name – too many hoops otherwise. Maybe an LLC is easier. It’s about $500 in Florida to incorporate, and unless you are making a profit, I don’t know whether it’s a good business decision to do it. You will pay more in taxes – CPA fees, et cetera, to help you not pay so much in taxes.

But if you want to get your book in bookstores, you have to have returnability of books, and Create Space won’t give you that.

This is what I am doing: I am republishing with Lightning Source, using my own ISBN that I bought from Bowker, both for the ebook and the print copy, you need two different ISBN numbers because then you have to go back and register those books with Bowker. I will republish with Create Space using my own ISBN number for both ways of publishing. 

I also got a Library of Congress number – and that was not easy because I didn’t know how to do it, and I did it all wrong. YOU MUST GET YOUR LIBRARY OF CONGRESS NUMBER BEFORE your book is published. After it’s published, you can’t get the number.

I wanted the number to help get my book into libraries. Plus it just looks good. I believe it will help me to get some reviews from people who review books with those numbers, because libraries use those numbers to determine which books they want to order.

I know you don’t have to be incorporated to publish with Lightning Source or to get a Bowker number, but you need more than just being an author. Essentially you become a publisher. It’s a lot more of a hassle, but anything worth having sometimes just takes a lot of work.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

HOW TO PUBLISH MY OWN PROFESSIOINAL-LOOKING BOOK FOR FREE


HOW TO PUBLISH MY OWN PROFESSIOINAL-LOOKING BOOK FOR FREE
Publishing Made EZ by Jon Roetman
Review by Lorilyn Roberts

Publishing Made EZ is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to publish his book without spending hundreds or even thousands. All that is required is a "wee" bit of patience and a "wee" bit of Microsoft Word knowledge. If you have written a book, you have far more than a "wee" bit of what you need to use this book and do it yourself. Publishing Made EZ makes the whole process seamless and even fun.

I was very impressed with the step-by-step instructions and photographs that were easy to follow. The writing style was straightforward without the usual technical jargon. I was so pleasantly surprised, in fact, after reading Publishing Made EZ that I am going to use Create Space for my new YA fantasy book. I had planned on using the POD publisher that had published my two previous books, but with this great resource, I can publish Seventh Dimension – The Door far more quickly and save thousands. The only real cost is for an ISBN number, which is minimal.

The number one reason why authors pay someone else to do publishing and marketing for them is because they don’t know how or don't have time. With Publishing Made EZ, YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF. I lead a large network of authors and am glad to know about this book.

No matter which publishing company you use, just the information to put your book in ready-to-publish format is awesome. As usual, anything is easy once someone shows you. I am not technically inclined and tend to become easily frustrated. This book made EVERYTHING SURPRISINGLY SEAMLESS! I highly recommend Publishing Made EZ.