As I've mentioned a few times in the general writing section, I've written over a hundred essays in the past couple of years and plan on publishing a collection of them. I do have a (simple?) question about this, so just hang on a bit and I'll get to that at the end. In the past few months, I've been delaying my efforts with publishing. Why is that? A combination of dreading change, preferring to keep my life and opinions to myself, having to think about getting my work out in the public eye, as well as the lack of day to day support in my life. Last but not least, is the growing realization that the market for an unknown publishing a collection of essays is extremely small and may be non-existent. That's based on what I have read and heard over the past year. I still enjoy writing and believe there should be some way for me to make a decent living with it. However, I will have to try a different approach in the future. At least I can tell myself that I did my best and can move on from here. The idea occurred to me yesterday that I shouldn't let my one hundred plus essays, a few hundred thousands of words in all, to go to waste. Why not just go ahead and self publish them? I have started editing them and plan on using most of the essays in my book. Even if no one bothers to read it, at least I can say that I am a published author. The thought of doing this seemed so overwhelming until I went to a presentation in Boston early last month. The speaker, who was trying to have people sign up for her 1,400 dollar program, made it seem so complicated that I felt like walking out the door and never writing again. I met someone afterward, and he who told me the process was much simpler than I had imagined. CreateSpace.com would make it fairly easy to publish my collection of essays. All I want right now is to make this as quick and easy as possible. I just want to get the book in my hands. I can then say that I am a published author and haven't wasted my time writing these hundreds of thousands of words. I don't care if no one reads it. I may try to sell some copies in the future, but it's not a priority now. Formatting, pdf files, cover design – I would rather not have to wrack my brains dealing with all that. I am not a visual or emotional type person, and those who might enjoy my essays are not like that either. As for editing, I will be doing that myself in the next week or two. What's the simplest, easiest, and least expensive way to self publish a book.? I don't want an ebook – just something I can hold in my hands and tell myself I have actually written a book and not wasted all this time with my hundred ten plus essays. I haven't been to CreateSpace yet but will be doing so within the next few days. Any information or advice would be surely be appreciated. Bill
Createspace is the cheapest way, I think. There are other print on demand places but Createspace is the only one I've seen constantly mentioned on the forums.
I think the main decision for self-publishing POD books is between Create Space and Lighting Source. There are some others out there like Lulu.com, but their product tends to end up being too costly (the retail price ends up being too high to attract readers). Here's an article that directly compares Create Space and Lighting Source--what each offers and the cost comparisons. It may help in moving in a direction or at least open one's eyes as to what to expect, not only via costs, but ISBNs and distribution channels and more. Link: Paperback Distribution: Createspace vs. Lightning Source (Note: Link goes to an article at the Huffington Post)
I wish I knew how printing on demand worked, and what its limitations were. Mayhap consider breaking it up into two books so that it's easier to manage? A couple hundred K words sounds like a lot to fit into one tome, and in one's hands. For cover design, I think there are some places that let you buy book-face worthy images for around $5. After that, you can probably get away with a quick text overlay.
