Ottawa Book Self-Publishing offers 7 advantages for writers

The most successful authors are ones who have been published by an established publishing house. However, it is not easy for an unknown author to get a manuscript accepted (ask J.K. Rowling). The alternative is self-publishing. There are three ways to self-publish. The first, somewhat risky, method is to be your own publisher, financing the project yourself and taking your book from concept through writing, editing, design, and marketing into the hands of eager readers. The second is to forget about print and go straight to an e-book, and the third is print-on-demand publishing.

There are many advantages to self-publishing. Here are the top seven.

1. You can publish anything – a memoir, a cookbook, a political rant, a philosophical essay. Many topics have no commercial appeal for a publishing house, which has to make a profit. But once a marginal subject is in print and doing well, a publishing house may pick it up.

2. Speed: A self-published manuscript with AgoraPublishing.com can be on the market in a matter of weeks, while a traditional publisher may take up to two years to get the book out, if they do at all. For topical subjects, this is just too long, as usually the moment has passed and the book is no longer relevant.

3. Self-Control. With self-publishing, the author has considerably more control over the planning, editing, and marketing process. Even if using a full-service POD publisher such as AgoraPublishing.com, the author can work with Agora’s professional staff and guide the design process towards his or her personal preferences.

4. Retention of Rights: In most cases as far as corporate-oriented trade publishing, rights - movie, foreign, games, digital – belong to the publisher rather than the author. With a self-published book using AgoraPublishing.com‘s services, the author is the publisher and therefore retains all rights to the book.

5. Limited inventory. Self-publishers are advised to print only a small number of books at a time. The unit cost may be higher, but the overall outlay is minimal, and sale of the first run provides the wherewithal to pay for the next. The print- on-demand process, that is printing the book to fill an order, has no inventory.

6. Money. The author keeps the full sales price of a self-published book with AgoraPublishing.com, instead of a small royalty per copy sold from a traditional publisher. With print-on-demand sales such as through AgoraPublishing.com, the author is paid a higher royalty, and the author gets the money much faster than with traditional publishers.

7. The book stays in print for as long as the author wants. With conventional publishing, four months is about the average time a book stays of the shelves before often being pulled to make room for something new. You will never see a self-published book remaindered.

AgoraPublishing.com opens new and exciting avenues for first-time authors to get their books into print. Promoting your book can be hard work (promoting a conventionally published book can be just as hard), but self-publishing with AgoraPublishing.com can get your name out there and possibly catch the eye of a publishing house which will then take over the hard work and make you rich and famous.

Contact agoracosmoplite@on.aibn.com for more information. Are you in the nation’s capital? Join their meet-up group