Self-publishing: a phrase with a boatload of baggage, evoking stereotypes of vain, amateur, would-be authors, desperate to see their work in print at the cost of shoddy production value. Not to mention nearly losing their shirts as they purchase a garage-full of books they'll never be able to sell. Stories carried recently in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other national publications, have related such tales of woe as if they were the only side to the self-publishing story.

Certainly, self-publishing has meant all of this to many people, but Peter Bowerman, author of the award-winning The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book Into a Full-Time Living (Fanove Publishing, 2007, $19.95; www.wellfedsp.com), as well as two other highly successful volumes for freelance writers, is living proof that a self-published work of nonfiction can not only garner respect and critical acclaim, but can also be a financial success.

The Well-Fed Self-Publisher contains advice on producing a book indistinguishable in quality from  those produced by major publishing companies, in addition to packaging Bowerman's knowledge on product and brand promotion gathered from nearly 30 years of personal and professional experience. Exhorting his readers to shed their "starving artist" self-image-- the "fundamental belief that you don't really belong" in the big leagues-- Bowerman stresses that the key to sales and marketing success is a sharply focused, targeted marketing plan, and work, work, and more work to implement it.

"If you want to see a roomful of right-brained author-types sweat," quips Bowerman, "just say the words 'sales' or 'marketing'." But "S&M," he contends, is not an elusive or overly complicated beast. Success depends largely on employing the same proven strategies over and over again.

The Well-Fed Self-Publisher reveals how little most traditional publishing houses do to promote individual titles. "By doing a better job of marketing and promoting your title than a publisher ever could or would, you can make far more money from your book than you ever would with that publisher." Bowerman even backs up his strategies with a 100-page e-book "toolbox" (the Well-Fed SP Biz-in-a-Box): templates and ideas for producing marketing documents such as letters, press releases, websites, samples-- an arsenal of concrete, useable tools authors can personalize when going public with their books.

Bowerman is his own best test-case for the success of his methods: with more than 50,000 copies of his books in print, he has built a franchise that has made him self-supporting for the last five years-- no small success by anyone's standards. Having learned from his first two books, the award-wining Well-Fed Writer titles, that readers want information spelled out in detail, he doesn't just tell them that they need a good press release or an ezine; he provides step-by-step information on how to produce them. And, in The Well-Fed Self-Publisher, he outlines tools and strategies so that virtually anyone willing to put in the time and elbow grease can duplicate his success. As advertising icon David Ogilvy explained, "It is useless to be creative unless you can also sell what you create."

Bowerman's conversational, approachable style, a quality much praised by his readers, arises from his perception of himself as a fellow traveler. "I'm just like you," he says. "I don't like to work any harder than I have to, and I certainly don't have it all figured out. But The Well-Fed Self-Publisher provides all the how-to stuff delivered through the filter of someone who's made a healthy living with his books. That has to count for something."

Stressing that self-publishing success is far more a function of process than aptitude, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher turns stereotypes on their ears. Because self-publishing authors retain complete control over their product and the outcome of their sales and marketing activities, Bowerman suggests that self-publishing, not a traditional publishing house, should be an author's first choice.

Writers who enter the process armed with the information provided in this volume do so with the knowledge that self-publishing is an eminently viable option, albeit one requiring a tremendous amount of effort (and a fair amount of working capital) at the outset. Done properly, though, it is, indeed, possible for an author to transform a non-fiction book into a full-time living.

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