Publishing Your Book: Introduction

The old adage that “everyone has a book in them” is, in my opinion, true. that is, everyone has a story that could entertain, teach, or inspire others. Of course, Christopher Hitchens take on the saying was “everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” I assume he meant that it should stay there because, even though you may have a story, you do not know how to write. (Though I admit he might have meant some people are too boring or stupid to have a story—he was quite capable of being an arrogant cad, despite his great intelligence and writing skills (or perhaps because of)).
Until recently, anyone who had a book in them would never write it, or, if they did, would never see it published. Publishing was an expensive and time-consuming proposition. Before the invention of the printing press, it was done by hand with various methods. In those times, producing enough copies for the public to read was almost impossible. After the printing press was invented, mass production became possible. As technology advanced, the automated and eventually computerized process made it possible to produce more books, and more copies of those books.
Yet the bottleneck were the people who decided what was to be published (or not). Acquisitions editors are almost always smart people, with discerning eyes—and the most successful can both spot the diamonds in the rough and know what the “next big thing” can be. But there are countless stories of publishers missing that one great book, and someone else publishes it. Sometimes rejected works are found quite by happy accident. What about those that were never found? What of authors that labored for years writing and writing, never to be published—until after they were dead and someone discovered their genius?
Decades ago, the music industry was much the same. If an artist wanted to write songs, or perform songs, it necessity finding an agent or, more rarely, getting the attention of a producer. So, like writers, musicians were often at the mercy of people who worked for record companies, and at the mercy of chance. That changed with advances in technology. Today, a musician can produce high quality music on their home computer and upload and sell their songs through Amazon, iTunes, and a variety of other outlets with little capital investment.
The computer side of writing books has been around for decades, too. Low-cost computers, word processors, outlining apps, timeline apps, and so on have made the task of research, writing, editing, and formatting a book within the cheap grasp of anyone. While the internet allowed any writer to easily (and cost-free!) write a blog, the process of publishing hardcopy books (or even standard eBooks) took longer to develop. Today, with the advent of mass market print-on-demand services (CreateSpace, Lulu, Picaboo, Blurb, etc.) an author can produce and distribute a book almost as easily as a musician can produce and distribute an album. The ease of bringing eBooks to market has also arrived (Kindle, iBooks, Nook, etc.).
The question is: if you have that book in you, how do you take advantage of these modern options? Much of that will depend on your purpose. Do you want your book in print for posterity, but care little about writing a second book? Is the book to be in support of your business? Do you see yourself as a prolific writer with something to offer the literary world? Maybe you want to attract the attention of a major publisher, or perhaps you already have a following through a blog and want another way to reach your readers and make some money.
The process of publishing a book outside the traditional method is somewhat complicated because there are a lot of options for you. You can do everything yourself: writing, editing, designing the layout and cover, formatting, submitting, and publishing to print-on-demand and electronic forums. You can do part of the above, and farm out the rest to the myriad of people who do that sort of thing (such as what we do here at Sulis). Or, you could pay someone else do do all of the extraneous work, while you simply write and approve edits, covers, and layouts.
It is all possible today, and it is exciting what can be accomplished, and it has challenged traditional publishing houses to examine the way they think about authors and publishing. Of course, one should not be misled: the technology also means that thousands and thousands of other authors are doing the same as you, and marketing is difficult for an author without an agent, a publicity department, or promoter. But creative types are finding ways, thinking beyond the traditional boundaries, and many are making a good living at it.
This is the beginning of a series of posts by the authors and editors here at Sulis. We will review and discuss how we go about formatting and publishing our own works and the books of those who hire us. We’ll discuss the tools we use (Scrivener, Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, iDraw, iBooks Author, Adobe Digital Editions, Scapple, and more), and the services we work with (Amazon CreateSpace, Apple iBooks and iTunes, Smashwords, and more). We will discuss why we chose these tools and these services rather than others, and we will discuss the process of publishing through them. Tips, tricks, and methods will be included, based on our own experience.
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