Self Publishing Gives Budding Authors The Write Stuff
MIAMI (CBS4) - Rochelle Weinstein is a wife and mother who gave up her busy music advertising career around 10 year ago to spend time with her family. That's when she wrote a book, a love story of sorts called "What We Leave Behind."
"It's about anyone who has ever loved and lost and wondered what could have been," she said.
But like many authors, she learned writing a book can be easy compared to getting it published. Rochelle wrote letters to many publishing companies with high hopes for a book deal.
"It's almost like matchmaking," she said. "It's a very difficult process."
When a local book club read the story and have a positive response, Rochelle started thinking about other options.
"Self publishing started to emerge and I was like absolutely no way I will ever do this. I poo-pooed it," she said. "I want to be a rock star and I wanted to have it published in the traditional way. But I realized it wasn't going to happen that way."
She went online to Amazon.com's self publishing website called Createspace, and with a few clicks - including using the picture she took of the street she grew up on as the cover - Rochelle created her book and became a published author overnight.
"I controlled everything that was happening," Rochelle said. "I controlled my cover, my pricing, where it was, where to go. I eliminated the middleman."
Thanks to digital technology and the emergence of all-digital E-books, theself publishing trend is growing.
In 2006 there were around 51,000 authors who self published books. By the end of 2010 that number had exploded to more than 133 thousand.
Those writers keep more of their earnings. For example, createspace offers writers as much as 70% of revenue on digital books, depending on the retail price. By comparison, traditional publishers typically pay their authors 25% of net sales and even less on print books.
The cost for a DIY book is flexible and depends on how much you want. Extended promotion and detailed editing costs more, for example, but you can create your book for between $1 thousand and $3 thousand.
Weinstein's "What We Leave Behind" is available in soft cover for $14.99 and as an ebook for $9.99.
Her book has been on the homepage of createspace.com as a hot seller and she checks those sales daily.
"When I first did research in self publishing what I was told was statistically that a self published author sells 150 books a year.They figure it's your friends and your family and that's it.
"I'm now a little over 2 months and 750 books and I'm starting press and publicity today" said Rochelle.
You can find "What We Leave Behind" locally at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, Turnberry Hotel and online at Amazon.Com and other e-book sites.
For more info on self publishing;
http://www.top10tag.com/top-10-self-publishing-services/
