3 Eggs of Self Publishing Advice

Three eggs of self publishing advice to nest with.

Some self publishing helper companies may charge you for things you can do for free if you own your ISBN number… so you should know about 3 things you can do for free as a self publisher.

  1. You can create your own cover using the print-on-demand’s online software for no additional fee, although I strongly recommend you get your cover professionally done. This is true for any author actually. You don’t have to have your own ISBN number. It depends on what POD service you choose. Both Createspace and Lulu offer a free cover creator tool.
  2. You can register for a Library of Congress Control Number yourself, for free. (You must mail them a copy of your published book).
  3. You can list your title in Books In Print for free.

Also, consider this when evaluating a company’s service pricing:

You can register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office for $35 – $65 (and, depending on your project. You must mail them a copy of your published book)

You can get your book on Amazon.com yourself by using the right print-on-demand company. Research LightingSource and Createspace before paying a company to put your book on Amazon. Expanded distribution will cost, but putting it on Amazon may not. I have used Createspace and I’m happy with their service and product, but there are other companies out there that I haven’t tried yet (future posts!). If I have an affiliate link on this site to a company, that means I’ve used the service and I like it… and I’ve probably got a post in here somewhere reviewing it. Createspace is in, and you don’t pay extra to get your book on Amazon, because Createspace IS Amazon.

As with everything else, if you do decide to pay someone else for a service you could do for free… there is value in the fact that you don’t have to spend your time whacking away at the search engines and web portals to get it done. But my mission in my self publishing journey is DIY and DIFF. Do It Yourself and Do It For Free.
Because knowledge is power.

 

 

 

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