8 Steps to Self-publishing Your Own Book
Phil Robinson
phil@bpic.co.uk


I wanted a book I could sell through my web site (http://www.bpic.co.uk)
to help manufacturing companies with planning and control and
also give away on our training courses. Self publishing is not
difficult PROVIDED you know what you are doing. From my
experience here are the 8 steps to publishing your own book.
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Step 1 - Write the book - this, believe it or not, is the easy
bit, most people have a book in them when they get round to it.
n.b. I am sure e-publishing will not replace books in my lifetime.
Books are the most commonly bought item on the internet, what
does that tell you?

Step 2 -Think of a really good title - I called mine "Business
Excellence" but I am sure a title like "Sacred Cows make the best
Hamburgers" or "Quality is Free" would have sold better.

Step 3 - Get an ISBN number from your country's Standard Book
Numbering Agency (e.g. Whitaker, 12, Dyott Street London in the
UK) - you cannot get far without this and it costs nothing.

Step 4 - Get a good cover designed by a professional. Nearly
half of my printing cost was the cover but it was worth it.
The cover design and printing was the slowest part so start
early.

Step 5a - Look for a publisher - this should be the easiest way
but no publishers were interested in my book unless I could
pretty much guarantee sales in which case they would charge
about £35 per book and give me a 10% royalty on sales including
any I bought and/or sold myself. I discovered that in the UK
only about 0.5% of books written ever get published, 5% of the
books in print account for 50% of the sales, it takes on
average 2 years to get a book from agreement to the bookshelf,
promotion for a new author is only about £200 and selling 2,000
copies is seen as a big achievement! Pretty depressing stuff for
someone who has devoted every free moment for a year to writing
his or her masterpiece.

Step 5b - Give up on publishers, do it yourself - get quotes from
2 or 3 local book printers for 2,000 copies in paperback form.
Don't worry about selling them all. I decided to sell my 250 page
book for £14.90 and broke even when I sold about 300 (i.e. £4,500).

Step 6 - Get your partner, friends and anyone else you know to
proof read the book. However many times you proof-read some
mistakes will still slip through!

Step 7 - Print the book in camera ready copy to be sure you know
what will be printed, using a laser printer (600 dpi minimum), on
high quality printing paper (e.g. Mellotex) which the printer
should be able to provide. Camera ready copy has the advantage
over supplying material on a disc that you can see and correct
mistakes with illustrations or layout before printing. Most
printers will print exactly what they receive (if you are lucky),
they will not correct obvious mistakes or lay out the page, so you
must give them exactly what you want printed including a diagram
showing where you want the print on the page. Print on A4 or
quarto in the aspect ratio you want and they will reduce the
print to fit onto the page size you specify. Look at your
favourite books for size and layout ideas.

Step 8 - Promote the book on your web site, this is the fun bit.
I have listed my book along with other relevant books and have
direct links to Amazon.co.uk (see www.bpic.co.uk/books.htm).
Print reviews, endorsements and extracts, 3 of each if possible
on a detail page, have a look at www.bpic.co.uk/be_book.htm which
sells about 80 of this technical book p.a. through the web from
about 1,500 page views p.a..

Conclusion - Self publishing is not difficult if you follow the
8 steps above but do not expect to make your fame or fortune
writing a book. Having a web site helps to sell but few authors
break even so publish for fun, prestige or, like me, as an
additional source of business leads. The old saying goes that
to make a small fortune as an author you need to start with a
large fortune!

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Phil Robinson is a business consultant specialising in
manufacturing planning and control.
Phil also teaches "Business Excellence" on public courses with
MRP Ltd. and on his own in-house, private courses including
MRPII, ERP, JIT and TQ.
Please visit Phil at : http://www.bpic.co.uk