Future Books from Silver Sands
The 100 Worst Self-Publishing Misteaks
How amateurs can publish books like professionals - or even better!
The ease of self-publishing has led to the publishing of many substandard books. The bad books sell poorly, get negative reviews and disappoint their authors. Even worse, each bad book makes it more difficult for other self-published books to achieve artistic respect and economic success. This book can help to raise the standard by helping writers to learn from the mistakes of others—even from less-than-perfect big-name publishing companies.
This book is informative, useful, easy to understand and often funny. It covers writing, formatting, choice of title, cover design, interior design, photography, marketing, publicity, pricing, grammar, spelling, printing and more. The book does not merely offer general rules. It is illustrated with many images of actual book covers and pages that show what not to do. "Misteaks" includes a Publishing Hall of Shame which highlights books that are so pathetically bad that they deserve special notice. There is also an authoritative appendix with grammatical pitfalls and useful info for all authors. (Although the title says "100 Worst," the book actually includes about 130 mistakes. A title had to be chosen before the writing was finished, and 100 is an impressive number.)
Authors Sheila M. Clark and Michael N. Marcus have many years' experience in writing, editing and publishing. They have known each other since grade school and this is the third book they've worked on together.
PUBLISHED 2/1/16
TYPOGRAPHY FOR INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS
Don't just dump words onto a page!
Just as Lady Gaga never looks the same in two appearances, no two words have to look the same. Not even two letters have to look the same. There are many thousands of different typefaces and infinite variations including size, boldness, slant, color, shadow, embossing, distorting, outlining, filling, etc. If you wait until next week, there will probably be even more faces and modifications to choose from.
The choices can be overwhelming if you are a D-I-Y book designer. Choosing the right faces and knowing how to arrange them artistically and effectively requires a mixture of knowledge, experience and artistic ability. Even if you've been good at painting portraits, weaving tapestries or arranging bouquets, don't assume you know enough to design a book cover or format the interior pages.
A survey revealed that 70% of self-publishing authors design and format their own book pages and 59% design their own covers. Lots of them look terrible. Many authors lack the skills, knowledge and experience to produce attractive books. Even sadder, many don’t know what they don’t know—and produce really ugly books that are hated by readers and condemned by reviewers. It doesn’t have to be that way.
This informative and easy-to-understand ebook will help prevent your book from being laughed at -- or cried over. It won't turn you into a pro, but you can be better than most other amateur designers. You'll even learn tricks that some of the pros may not know.
If you think that pica is only a mental disorder, or don't know whether an em dash or an en dash is bigger, or what a swash, virgule and fleuron are, or how to pronounce "leading" -- you need this book.
Publish Your Book Without Losing Your House
business basics for self-publishing authors
In publishing, if you’re not careful, you can lose your shirt, and maybe your pants, your retirement fund and your house. It’s critical that you remember that self-publishing companies make most of their money by selling services to authors — not by selling books to readers — and you must be very careful in selecting a company and its services. Although some of these companies advertise “FREE” publishing, or have fees starting as low as $39 or $199, it’s possible to spend many thousands of dollars, and pur¬chase useless and over¬priced products and services, and have no hope of selling enough books to make money. One company the author contacted while researching this book wanted him to spend nearly $5,000 for its services, and 100 books. In order to make back the investment and earn a decent profit, the author would have to sell those 100 books for about EIGHTY BUCKS EACH. How many would you like to buy? Another company pays a small royalty on each book sold, and charges such high prices for promotional materials, that the earnings from a $19.95 book would not pay the cost of sending out even one promotional postcard to sell the book! Other companies charge as much as $99 for doing a few keystrokes and mouse clicks to register a book with the Library of Congress. A writer can do it for FREE.
This book provides important help for all authors, regardless of their path to publication. Extensive sections include such topics as: e-books, book publicity, the Library of Congress, Lightning Source, CreateSpace, ISBNs, reviews and blurbs, websites, sales channels, book pricing, starting and running your publishing business, getting help, and income tax. There are even “bonus sections” with writing tips and publishing terminology.
No More Ugly Books!
Design help for writers who don't hire artists. Get the most from Microsoft Word.
The low cost of self-publishing both printed books and e-books has encouraged thousands of writers to quickly become publishers. Sadly, many lack the skills, experience and software to produce attractive books. Even sadder, many don't know what they don't know; and either out of ignorance or out of financial necessity, they decide to design and format their own books.
Because of this, self-publishing authors often produce really ugly books that are hated by readers and condemned by reviewers.
It doesn't have to be that way.
In this comprehensive, yet easy-to-understand book, former art student, bestselling author and experienced publisher Michael N. Marcus provides the information and advice that can help self-publishing authors to create much better books. The books might not win trophies or become bestsellers, but they shouldn't be laughed at.