How Can I Publish My Book?

I was recently asked: How can I publish my book?

These days it’s easier than ever to publish a book.

Whereas in the past you had to get an agent or send your proposal and a few chapters to a traditional publisher – hoping to avoid the slush pile – things have definitely changed in the last few years.

There are now many more options available. These are the three main ways most people publish their book.

1. The traditional route where you pitch to a mainstream publisher or seek an agent.
2. The partnership or hybrid route where you work in partnership with a publisher and pay for their support, advice and expertise, but they publish your book for you.
3. Self-publishing, where you do everything yourself or find your own team to get your book out there.

There are various pros and cons to each option, which I mention at length in section 5 of Your Book is the Hook. However, these days more people than ever before are selecting options two and three. They are either getting support to publish their book or going down the self-publishing route. And here are the main reasons why they choose one of these options:

• Your book can be published quicker and you can control your timescales.
• You retain control of your content, so you can ensure that the topic and focus is aligned to your business.
• You retain copyright of your material, so if you wish to use this for products or programmes which come off the back of the book, there are no problems in doing so.
• As long as your book shares your best content, a well produced book will help to establish you as an expert.
• Your book is simply one part of your business marketing plan and your goal is to use it to raise your credibility and profile, and reach more people with your wisdom or story.

But there are problems with doing it yourself. Time and time again I see business owners who think they can do everything. Although you may be able to produce a reasonable product, it may not be the best use of your time.  If you’re using your book to establish you as an expert, it makes sense to get other experts to help you! If you skimp on editing, design or even structuring your topic in a cohesive way, it may not do you any favours.

One of the reasons why I became a Book Mentor was to help more business authors to produce professional books, in terms of the content and quality. This is also why I set up our own publishing imprint, Librotas Books, earlier in 2017 to help authors with option two and produce a brilliant product from their expertise.

Here are the things that I believe are important when publishing a book, and these are all areas where we can help you.

1. Write a high quality book

Whether you get a book mentor or work with a coach, ensuring that you share your best knowledge and expertise in your book is essential. Your book needs to be readable, well structured, and aligned with your business.  Please don’t skimp on this if you want your book to become an effective marketing tool. If you’re worried about affordability, one thing that we often do when we work with clients is look at how they can recoup their investment before and after they publish their book.

2. Seek support to get published

If you want to produce a book that reflects your brand, builds your credibility, and enables you to step up into your expertise, then you’ll want to create a book that looks and feels great!

At the very least bring in a copyeditor and proofreader to check your work. Also find a great designer to help produce a cover that sells and will typeset your book professionally. This will ensure the book looks good when it goes to print or is downloaded as an eBook. We can help in both of these areas!

In my view, it’s a false economy to do everything yourself. You may end up with an inferior product, one that doesn’t do what you wanted it to do in the first place, i.e. build your business. And it would be a shame to spend months or years writing your book for it to flop once it’s been published.

3. Find the right publisher

Even when you’re publishing your book yourself, there is a difference between publishers. The company we use distributes your book to dozens of online retailers at the press of a button – both eBook and print copy. You can also print your book on demand, meaning that you can print one copy or hundreds of copies, and when someone orders a copy of your book via Amazon or another online book store, you don’t need to do a thing.

The problem with many self-publishing platforms is that you’ll have to set up the distribution channels individually, which can take time and a lot of research. Each time you do this, you’ll have to set up your profile, details about your book, and upload your manuscript. We don’t have to do this.

Another issue is that many self-publishing companies give you limited options when it comes to print sizes and quality. With the company we use, there are multiple sizes and paper quality available with the option of internal colour as well. Having this choice allows you to make the most of your book.

Ideally you want a publisher who distributes your book for you, ensures it’s on all of the main online platforms, and enables you to set up a print and eBook with ease. And all you need to do is to promote it and accept the royalties!

How Librotas can support you to write and publish your book

When I set up Librotas, I wanted to provide a one-stop shop for clients. And we launched Librotas Books earlier this year to fulfil this goal.

For me the book mentoring comes first, as I believe it’s important that you write the right book for your business, and have a great structure that is aligned to how you wish your business to develop. When you have this structure, this can feed into other products and programmes that you can sell, as well as making it easier to write it!

Then we can keep you accountable to finish it, help you to polish it, manage anything that gets in your way, and then edit, proofread, design and publish it for you, so that you end with a brilliant book for your business.

If you’d like to find out more, please get in touch to arrange a complimentary consultation.