Print on Demand (POD) is a good way of getting into print quickly and often inexpensively. Here are some things to think about:

• Writing you manuscript and then writing endless proposals with only a small percentage of a chance of getting picked up by a traditional publisher. Rejection is tough.
• If you book is really specialized, it may not get the opportunity to see the light of day with traditional publishers.
• Print on Demand publishers often offer a marketing package, but remember, you are the best person to market your own book and there is plenty of help available to help you understand how to do so.
• You don’t want to wait for twelve to twenty-four months for you book to find its way to the marketplace.

Harmon Press can help you get into print without a proposal. We love to help authors publish their specialized titles, providing they meet the requirements of what Harmon Press will publish. If they don’t we will try to help you find a publisher that will. Harmon Press will show you the marketing path so you can get maximize push for you book. We can usually have a book title ready for print within ninety days.

Go ahead and make the decision and http://harmonpress.com/?p=583

You will want to get as much exposure off line as well. We have already talked about groups that you can join and getting your books in bookstores to do book signings.

Take a look at Harmon Press our frequently asked questions and rates to see which is right for you. Then get started writing and making your dream come true!

One of the best ways to sell your book is online. Your first venue will usually be the self publishing company that prints your book. They not only print books but also sell books that are written by their authors. You can depend on many sales from a self published book from the website.

Be sure to tell family and friends that you have published a book and encourage them to buy it online rather than from you. Most websites rate books on the sales, so you want to make sure that any sales go through the website.

Most of the online print on order sites will list the books on Amazon. Amazon is the biggest seller of books in the world. Getting your book listed on Amazon is the same as having it on a shelf in a bookstore. But remember that if no one knows that you have a book out, they will not find it unless they stumble upon it.

Use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about your book. You can also place links to the book page on various forums. You do want to get a website so that you can spread the word about the book. Developing your own website and getting a host is neither difficult or expensive. You can have a website and host for your book very inexpensively.

You cannot afford to ignore the power of online marketing when it comes to selling your book. The fact is that today that many books are sold online, in fact the vast majority of people sell their books online. You want to be sure that you do your best to market the book as much as possible on the internet.

Digg is another site where you can put comments and information about your book. Digg usually takes articles that can be “dugg” by others. You should have all of your family and friends digg the article up so that others can see it. The more exposure you get online, the better off you are.

Another site that you can use is Propeller. This is the Yahoo site that is similar to Digg. Anyone with a Yahoo account can buzz an article up. If you get enough buzzes to your article, it may appear on the Yahoo home page. You can write an article using a pen name about a local writer who has written a book and place it on these sites so that others will boost it up in the engine. This is one way to get recognition for your book online.

You need to have as much exposure for your book as possible for your online book. Make sure that your book features on Amazon as well as the site where it is printed. Also be sure that you have a website that tells a little bit about the book and gives readers an incentive to buy the book. You cannot get overexposed when you are online and trying to promote your book.

You will find that you get more sales from online sales than you will from book store sales. While it is important to get as much exposure as possible for your book, you need to concentrate heavily on online sales. Get as much online exposure as you can for your book so that you can make sales.

After you have your book published and ready for sale, what do you do? You do the same thing that you would do if your book was published by a traditional publishing company – promote it!

There are many ways that you can promote your book both online and off. One thing that you will want to do is to promote your book by getting some positive reviews on Amazon. If you have your book listed on Amazon, and you will if you publish with Harmon Press, you can get reviews for the book from a book reviewing service. You can send them a disk with the book on it in PDF format and have people read it and give it a good review. The more reviews it gets, the more it will rise in Amazon.

You should have a website as a teaser for your book. When you have a website, you can sell books directly from the site or you can send the buyers to Amazon. You can become an affiliate of Amazon and get paid a commission on all of your sales. You can also have a post office box where people can order you book by mail. In addition, you can also direct them to the self publishing company where they can find the book. You can then market your website using strategies that are used to market any website.

You can place book reviews on the book to various book review websites online. There are many sites where you can place book reviews of your book. You can also put a link to the book website on these sites.

If you book is non-fiction, you want to write articles and place them in article hubs on the Internet. Article hubs will allow you to place free articles online. Do a Google keyword analytic to see which are the right keywords for your book. You can write articles with these keywords and place them on the different sites with a backlink to your site.

In addition to promoting your book online, through the use of the website and book reviews, you can also join writing groups that are for self published writers. There are many sites that are made for self published writers that you can take advantage of and promote your book. You should also look into local libraries that often have groups for self published authors. There are often book fairs for self published authors as well.

You can send your book to different newspapers and local magazines that review books. Bear in mind that papers like the New York Times and magazines like the New Yorker have many books that people want them to review. You have a better chance of getting your book reviewed by magazines that are genre related to the book that you have written.

Small, independent bookstores will feature your book, especially if they are local bookstores. You should take your book in there, buying up several copies of the book for selling and then have a book signing. Most bookstores are more than happy to have local authors visit and sign books. This can be advertised through flyers and in the bookstore itself. As the bookstore gets a commission for each book that you sell, they are more than happy to have local authors come in and sign books. This brings business to the store as well as gets you recognition.

If you have a small local newspaper, you can use them for publicity for your book. Small, hometown newspapers are an ideal way to spread the word about your book.

Take a look at your local parks department to see if they have anything for self published authors. Many parks departments are having book signings for those who self publish.

You can also take your book to gift shops that will sell it on consignment. This is an ideal way to sell cookbooks that are self published. Be sure to match the type of marketing that you do to get the word about your book out there to the venue. Leave no stone unturned when you are marketing your book.

If you run out of ideas, purchase a copy of John Kremer’s book 1001 Ways to Market Your Book. It just jammed with ideas of how to market your book.

Editing your book is different than proofreading. You need to pay attention to style as well as grammar when you are copy editing. It pays to have good grammatical skills and have a certain style that you use for your book when you are considering your own editing.

Most of the self publishing sites offer copy editing services for an extra charge. This can help you over awkward phrases that you may not notice in your book as well as other grammhttp://harmonpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpatical problems. You may say something in a way that you do not mean when you are writing a book. It may make sense to you, but not to others. A copy editor will read your book with a fresh pair of eyes and pick out errors. They will also pay attention to style and pick out any spelling errors that they may see.

Copy editing for a book will also help you tighten up your book. In some cases, they will eliminate repetitive sentences or words that bog down your book. Copy editing is not like regular editing, which will take a good look at your book to see if it makes sense. An editor will usually make suggestions for broader changes than a copy editor.

It is a good idea to pay someone to edit your book. You should at least hire someone to copy edit the book. You can go to Elance for an editor or you can pay for the editing from a self publishing company. Copy editing costs more that proofreading, but can be the best money that you spend when you are self publishing a book. An editor can make sure that everything in the book makes sense and is written in the same style.

Writers often have a habit of switching styles when they are writing. Most writers have a creative streak that causes them to write. It can be difficult for them to edit their own work just as it can be difficult for them to proofread their own work. Spending the money for editing is one of the best investments that a writer can make.

In fairness, you can also print your book yourself. You can do this at a number of different places, although you have to typeset your book as well as prepare it for the printing press. This can be laborious and frustrating if you don’t have the skill set available to do an excellent job.

Online printers will print your book. You can get an ISBN number yourself by going to the site at isbn.org. You need one number per book. You can get them in a barcode to put on your book that you print yourself.

It is less costly to print your own book. You can use an off line printer as well as an online printer. You just have to get everything ready for printing. This includes the cover. The cover will be made of a thicker paper and can be glossy or matte. The cover is an important part of the book, so it is a good idea to hire a graphic artist to design the cover if you are planning on printing the book yourself.

In order to get an ISBN, you have to set up a publishing company of your own. You can do this easily enough and then apply for the ISBN. It can be costly to pay for these numbers on a single basis, which is why it often pays to have the self publishing company print the book for you and get the ISBN. Because they order more of them, they get them at a lower price. If you are planning on printing up more than one book, you can order a series of 10 ISBN numbers and get a discounted price. Self publishing companies order these by the hundreds, which is why they can provide a number for customers included in their printing price.

The disadvantage to printing your own book is that you cannot get it listed on online sites such as Amazon. You can distribute it to bookstores and gift stores, however, as long as you have the ISBN. In some cases, such as a gift shop, they may take books that are just printed crudely without an ISBN on a consignment basis.

Printing your own book is a lot of work but works for some who are on a limited budget and cannot afford a few hundred dollars to use a self publishing company, then this may be the way to go. It takes some knowledge in how to format the book as well as design the cover. You may end up spending money on a graphic artist if you want to get your cover to look professional.

You also have to also figure that you will have to do your own editing and proofreading when you are printing up your own book. This can be very time consuming, which is why many writers prefer to pay the money to a self publishing company.

Printing your own book may work if you have a small literary magazine that you put out. It can work if you just want to distribute books personally and sell them. It can work if you are planning just to sell your book on your own. You have to remember that even with an ISBN a book store may be reluctant to put a book on their shelves that does not look as if it has been professionally printed. Decide how you want to sell your book and where and then decide how you wish to have it printed.

If this sound like way too much time and energy, let Harmon Press publish for you.

It is fair to say that you are reading this information on a print-on-demand (POD) publishing site that helps authors get self published.

Years ago, if someone wanted to get a book self published, they had to pay thousands of dollars. A press would publish the book for the individual and give them a certain amount of copies. All of the copies, plus the fees that were involved in setting the press and printing, were paid for by the author of the self published book. Those who did seek to have their books self published were not thought to be good authors. The name used for self publishing in those days was vanity press. It was thought that those who got their books published this way just had the money, not the talent, that was needed to be a writer.

This is not true today. Because so many people purchase books online, more so than at the bookstore, self publishing is seen as much more respectable. And because a traditional press takes very few authors and is so competitive, it is also seen as a way for a writer to have their voice heard.

There have been stories of those who submitted, just for fun, a first chapter and query letter of a great novel to publishers to see if they actually read them. They were returned with standard rejection letters. Many publishing houses will not take writers who are not represented by agents. This makes it very difficult for someone to get their book published as most agents who deal with these publishers only deal with established authors.

Some decide to publish their books using small press publishers. These publishers will not charge a writer for printing their book, but will also not have the clout to get the book reviewed in the New York Times. The writer has to do all of the marketing for the book and only receives a small portion of the royalties. Needless to say, it makes more sense for a new writer to self publish their book and market it themselves. They can use modern self publishers that print to order and do not charge an enormous fee for publishing a book. The books are given ISBN numbers and are listed on places like Amazon, where most people today are buying books. The author can have their book in a bookstore as long as it has an ISBN. There are many ways for a self published author to market their book.

Since you will most likely do the marketing anyway when you get your book published, you might as well self publish your book with a publisher that does print to order publishing. This way, you get a higher percentage of the profits and the book can be listed online for those who are interested in buying it. Self publishing is the way that many writers today, even those who have been published by small press, are deciding to publish their book.

Harmon Press is a Print-On-Demand printer. We use the same technology that the big boys do. We take you manuscript and give you back a book. You pay for proofreading and a purchase of fifty books at fifty percent off the Suggested Retail Price (SRP). It’s just that simple. You can read here what all Harmon Press authors receive when they publish with us.

Harmon Press prints to order, which means that you do not have to order a bunch of books. We will print a book when a customer orders it and ship it out for you. You get paid a percentage for the books that you sell, which is often higher percentage than what you would get with a traditional publisher and much more than you can get with small press publishing. If you take the time to market your book, which you can do, you can end up making a lot more money and getting your book out to readers.

Take a look online and find a website that will offer you print to order books. After you look around, come on back to Harmon Press and let us publish your book for you.

There are many more options open than ever before for those who want to self publish their books. Because of internet technology and computer technology, it is easy for any writer to get their book published through self publishing. An increasing number of writers are seeking out self publishing to make money and get their books out to the public who are eager to read them.

Print your book on paper for proofreading. You will see things that you will see on a computer monitor. Then, starting with the last page and moving backward, use a ruler to look at each line in the book. This is a tedious process and one for which you can pay a freelance proofreader. You are looking for spelling mistakes as well as mistakes in punctuation. When we read, our eyes naturally gloss over words that we are familiar with and often do not see that they are misspelled. This is why it is important to take your time and proofread your book from finish to start. By going up one line at a time, you will not be reading, but looking for errors that your eyes will ignore if you simply read the book.

You can hire a professional proofreader for this purpose. They will go through the book the way that suits them and deliver you a product that has changes. They will put proofreading marks on your paper of which you should be familiar. They will not make the changes for you, but signal you to make the changes.

It is vital that you proofread your book or have someone else do it for you. If you have a book published by a traditional publisher, this service is done for you. If you are self publishing, however, you do not have that luxury. Although there are many self publishing companies online that offer proofreading services for a price for their clients. These services usually charge more than freelancers that you can find online.

One place that you can find proofreaders who will go over your book for you is Elance.com. This site has a multitude of freelancers offering their services. Be sure to check out their profile as well as reviews from other clients before you ask them to proofread your material. You can put your project on the site for bidding. Be sure that you do not automatically go for the lowest bid that there is and check out the experience and customer satisfaction that signify that the proofreader knows what he or she is doing.

Proofreading a book is not like editing a book. Copy editing is a completely different process altogether. You can choose to copy edit your own book or if you are being published by a traditional publisher your publisher do that job for you. We will discuss editing for your self-published book in another post.

If you decide to proofread your book yourself, take your time and do it correctly. Do not rush through this process as an array of misspelled words in your book will make it look less than professional to the reader. You want your book to be as professional as possible so that the reader will not get turned off. You can keep it free from typos, punctuation and spelling errors by doing careful proofreading or hiring someone who you can pay to do the job for you.

Even if you have someone else who is not a professional proofreader take a look at your book you can have a fresh pair of eyes look at the book so that they can see errors where you cannot. Remember that you have a very strong connection to your book that others do not. You have most likely read it over and over again. Having someone who has not looked at the book take a look for errors can help you out tremendously. Most professional proofreaders will charge by the page. This may be an investment that you will want to make if you are serious about making sure that your book is error free.

Remember, even books published by a traditional press will have errors. Having one error in the book is not the end of the world. Having a chockfull of errors, however, can make your book look shoddy and not well put together.

Ernest Hemingway suggested rewriting a book thirty times before it is ready for publication. His reasoning was that each time the writer goes over the book for rewriting, they have a better understanding into the minds of the characters. The more you get to know your characters, the more you will be able to write convincing dialogue and narrative that will suit them.

One important thing to remember when you are rewriting is to not be afraid of making major changes in your book. If something is not working and does not feel right, change it. It is important not to get married to your book. While you have a natural passion for the book, you should also be open minded enough to realize if something is not working in your plot, you have to fix it.

The best way to start rewriting is to read through your first draft. You can then note inconsistencies and other plot problems that occur with the first draft. You should begin your rewriting from the beginning of the book to the end, especially if you are writing a fiction book that will have character development. Even if you are writing non-fiction, you still want to rewrite your book to tighten it up.

Try not to use a passive voice when you are writing. Passive writing is when you put in words like “would have” and “was.” Try to use more action words in your book, otherwise it may tend to get sluggish. Also, go over the dialog and make sure that it seems natural. You want to look at dialog as well as consistency when you are rewriting your book.

Do not be surprised if your book has an ending that what you imagined. Many times, writers grow to like some characters and dislike others. The creative process takes on a mind of its own when an author is writing a book. This often means inconsistencies in the book and with the characters.

Each time you continue to rewrite the book, you are making it a better story. You have a better feel for the characters in the story with each writing and they become more lifelike to you. So much so that you can figure out what they like for breakfast or what is their favorite color. By including personality traits in the book that are distinguishable to each character, you make them more lifelike for the reader.

The more you get to know the characters in your book, the more lifelike they will seem to the reader. You want to get away from flat characters and breathe some life into them. The only way that you can do this, when writing a fiction book, is to get to know them. This is naturally more difficult to do with fiction than non-fiction because the characters are a figment of your imagination. You have to want to make your imagination come to life on paper when you write your book.

Make sure that there are no loose ends in the book and that every sentence drives your plot forward. Get rid of unnecessary dialogue that will slow down the process of your book as well as unnecessary descriptions. The best books are those that continue to move the plot forward and have meaning in every sentence.

Do not mistake rewriting as checking for grammar or spelling. This will be done when you are proofreading your book, although you should naturally make any corrections when you see them. Proofreading is very different than rewriting and will be discussed shortly.

One thing that you may want to do to make your rewriting easier is to give yourself a rest between the rewrites. This allows you to look at the book with fresh eyes and get a fresh start reading it. If you have a friend or trusted person to whom you can give the book, you can give it to them for a critique. They may be able to see glaring errors in the plot that you may overlook. While you are close to your book, you may also be too close. It is helpful to have a second pair of eyes read the book after you have rewritten it to sufficiency.

You cannot rewrite a book too many times. There does have to be a point where you say that you are satisfied with the story and what it conveys. After you have completed your book and feel that it is publication worthy, you are ready for a grammar check. A lot of author simply abide by the old adage, “a book is never finished, but you do have to stop writing and get it published.”

Go through your book and look for grammatical errors. There are some instances when grammatical rules are broken, especially when it comes to dialogue. You want to make sure that you have proper grammar used in your book. If you have grammar check on your word processing program, use it. You can also use spellchecker as well. But never depend on a spellchecker to do you proofreading for you. When you have finished your book, it is time for proofreading.

Most people equate writing a book with writing a novel, which is a fiction story. This is not the case when it comes to writing, especially writing today. There is a very big market for non-fiction books as well. Cookbooks, how-to books, motivational books and biographies are all examples of non-fiction books that sell very well and are often self published. In order to get a book published by mainstream press that is non-fiction, you have to have a well known name or a very unique idea. You also need to be extremely lucky as there is heavy competition in the mainstream press for authors, especially unknown authors.

Fiction books tell a story. They have a conflict and a resolution. Non-fiction books do not follow along the same lines. There is no conflict in writing a cookbook, for example. There is a calling for all types of non-fiction books and this can be an easy way to publish your first book.

If you are writing a non-fiction book, you need to do heavy research and be very well versed on the topic of which you are writing. You should also have an angle to your book that makes it unique from others. Motivational books are a good example as there are many of them on the market right now. What can you do to make your book different?

One example of a different type of motivational book is the “Laws Of Attraction” series. This series took an old idea, put a new spin on it, and created a series of very successful motivational books.http://harmonpress.com/fiction-or-non-fiction/?preview=true

Biographies do not always have to be about famous people. You can write a biography about anyone who has led an extraordinary life or influenced many people. Cleverly crafted biographies about ordinary people who prove to be inspirational to others are very popular today. You need to have permission of the person about whom you are writing or their estate in order to write a good biography. There have been unauthorized biographies that have made a sensation, but still required the person to do a lot of research on the subject, although they are not given the same amount of respect as biographies that are done with the consent of the author. You also risk running into a lawsuit, such as is the case with Kitty Kelley who wrote a slew of unauthorized biographies about famous people and found herself being sued by the late Frank Sinatra.

Cookbooks are very popular, especially when it comes to self published books. Your cookbook needs to have something different, a unique angle, in order to sell. Why would anyone buy your book of French recipes when they can get the same from Julia Child’s cookbooks? One way to make yours unique is to add a bit of the French countryside and perhaps some fiction in with the recipes. This will prove to be entertaining to the reader as well as informational.

If you are going to write a novel, then you have to prepare as outlined in the previous chapter. Your novel should be of a genre that you like and most of all, something that you would buy yourself if it was available in the bookstore. You can put a lot of creative passion in your novel and turn it into something that will stand out. Many people self publish novels because the competition is so great to get a novel published by an unknown author in the mainstream press.

When you self publish, you do not need an agent to help you get your book to the publisher. Working with an agent is a good idea if you are trying to publish in this way, but the Catch 22 is that some mainstream press companies will only work with an agent. And most agents will only want to work with a person who has a previous novel published. Needless to say, this makes it very difficult for someone to break into mainstream press with their book.

Even if you did manage to get a book published by a publisher, you would still have to market the book on your own. If you self publish, you can do the same type of marketing. Because so many people today buy books online, self publishing is quickly becoming the publishing form of choice for authors writing fiction and non-fiction.

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction is up to you. If you have a lot of creative energy and can make up plots and characters in your head, fiction writing may be for you. If you consider yourself an expert in a certain field, non-fiction writing is for you. You can use self-publishing for both non-fiction and well as fiction books.