Hey guys, earlier this year I wrote a book and for the last few months I've been trying to get published somehow. I've heard that self-publishing is the easiest/best way in today's world, but I feel like every company I've talked to is either a scam or trying to cheat me out of my work. I'm damn proud of my book and I would love to see it printed, but I don't want to lose it all or come out in the red to do so. I'm new to this forum, just joined like 15 minutes ago, and I'm just looking for some help. Does anyone have any tips, suggestions, or advice for an unknown author who is trying to get published and make a name for himself?
You can self-publish yourself, and not pay anyone apart from cover art, editing, etc. It's easy to do. As for having another company publish it, find a traditional publisher in your genre. Find out if you need an agent to submit to them. If either the publisher or agent asks money from you up front in order to publish your book, run in the other direction. One way to find out who publishes books like yours is to browse through similar published books and see which publisher is handling them.
Any tips on how to go about that? Or where to look? I'm willing to do the work if it can get me going, but I'd hate to work on option A when I should be on B, ya know? Thank you! I appreciate the help. There's so much information out there it's kind of confusing.
For eBooks, look at Kindle Direct Publishing. That's Amazon. The process is pretty easy, and you can upload an Word file to be converted to Kindle format. You can also look at Smashwords. They have a free guide on how to publish through them. For hard copies, self-publishing, I'd use CreateSpace. They are owned by Amazon, and also pretty easy to use. They have tutorials that will walk you through the process.
Dude, thank you so much. This is more help than I've had all year and I've only just joined. I really appreciate it!
If you want to be read, you'd be better off trying to get traditionally published before self-publishing. The vast vast majority of self-published books only sell in the single or double figures.
And the vast majority of people who go the traditional route never get a contract and therefore never get any sales with that approach. I'd recommend a hybrid approach, at least.
Oh yea? I appreciate the heads up. Any recommendations? My book is fantasy/fiction. I'm just asking because I'm about to have to go to work, but I was already planning on doing some research tonight.
Recommendations for publishing houses/imprints? Not my genre I'm afraid. All I know is Tor is great for fantasy... I believe they only take agented submissions these days, but not sure. For fantasy, I think you're better off with an agent. It's not one of the genres with many open imprints, as far as I know.
Tor takes unagented submissions, or did as of a couple months ago. I believe Baen does as well, though I'd have to check.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a lot of info on her blog: http://kriswrites.com/2016/08/17/business-musings-agent-agreements-contractsdealbreakers/