I have a very good friend, Chris Nicolaisen, who has been living in Alaska for a few years now. During his time there he has served on a fishing vessel and has experienced some truly horrific sights during his service. He has recently written a book under the title Just Once. You can learn more about it on his Kickstarter page, please take a look and if you can, help a first time publisher out. Here is his story of how he came to write this book:
Step by Step Self Publishing
I have only heard of a few people that have tried to self publish and it seems like quite the process. I thought I would look into what it takes and what step he is on.
Step 1 – Publishing Imprint
The publishing imprint is basically the name of your publishing company and is often written on the spine of a book. You can do this by registering some fictitious name with the local government in your area.
Step 2 – Register the Business
After you have your name registered, it is important to register this name as a “Doing Business As” or “Sole Proprietorship” with your local government.
Step 3 – Purchasing an ISBN
This is the step Chris is on and one of the reasons he is using Kickstarter. One place to do this is isbn.org (the official US ISBN supplier) there are other places that you can pay to have them get you an ISBN number but it is always better to go to the source. You need one ISBN for every type of your book that you are selling , i.e. one for a paper back and one for an ebook.
Step 4 – Library of Congress Control Number
The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering cataloging records in the Library of Congress in the United States you can register for one here.[1]
Step 5 – Print your book
There are many ways to do this including printing it yourself but this is not recommended. There are several services out there where you pay a high upfront cost for an initial upfront cost but then the cost per book is much lower. Create Space is one place that provides this service but there are many others if you look around.
Step 6 – Ebook
Ebooks are relatively easy and places like Amazon and Barns & Noble will be able to help you out with converting your book into the proper format and listing it in there ebook stores.
Step 7 – Sell your book
Now that you have registered a company, an ISBN, and have access to printing it is time to sell your book. You can do this on Amazon, Barns and Noble, EBay, and local book stores. I highly recommend getting your book to some key people that have influence as often a recommendation is the only way many people will pick up your book and start reading it.