Best Self-Publishing Companies (preferably free)

rosepetal720 said:

I am getting ready to self-publish a book, and I am overwhelmed by all the companies out there. Which ones are the best? I would prefer not to spend a fortune on this. Are there any good companies that don't require a lot of money up-front? Do any of them sell books to major bookstores? (I've heard of self-publishing companies that can get you on the shelves of Barnes and Noble, but I'm skeptical.)

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Which companies are you talking about? My suggestion would be not to go with a company that charges. You can do it yourself without paying a dime!

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, etc, you don't need to pay a penny to get an ebook out. Look into self publishing with Amazon to get on Kindle and Draft2Digital to get to B&N, Kobo, etc.

You will probably want to save your money for editing and good cover art.

I'm not experienced enough with self-publishing to give you advice about formats or avenues.

Avoid paying someone to publish your work. This isn't self-publishing, it's vanity publishing. When you self-publish, you're spending only in your capacity as publisher: to hire an editor, to hire a designer and/or cover artist, possibly on specific publicity--not overpriced, comprehensive marketing plans.

The landmines are the promises to do all that and then some. Truth is, self-pubbing is tough work. There's no easy route to publicity. There's no real way to get your book on mainstream bookstore shelves because you don't have true distribution--learn the difference between a book being available for order and a book being available on a shelf.

The best thing you can do is learn as much as you can. AW has a plethora of great resources for self-publishing, and many people here have done it themselves and will be able to give you far more granular advice than my general warning to stay away from the predators.

The only companies that can get your books onto bookshop shelves with any certainty are good, larger, trade publishers.

Companies which offer to self publish for you are vanity publishers, and will be ripping you off.

You can self publish pretty much for free if you do everything yourself. But you'd be wise to spend some money on editing, and on good cover art, at the very least.

Good luck.

rosepetal720 said:

Are there any good companies that don't require a lot of money up-front?

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Yes, but only for e-books: just create the book yourself and put it up with a Amazon. Your book will be out there for the readers to buy straightaway, no printing costs upfront. But since there are millions of books on Amazon, you will need to do something to let people know your book is out there.

rosepetal720 said:

Do any of them sell books to major bookstores?

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If you self-pub a book, it may be put on a list of available books. Then bookstores get such lists and choose what to buy. But since there is no vetting process for the self-pub books, the bookstores have to jump in the dark. And they don't like to do that. There is no guarantee what's inside a self-pub book. While if a book has gone through a publisher such as Penguin for example, it would have been through a long process of vetting and polishing and the bookstore will know what they are getting.

Curlz said:

If you self-pub a book, it may be put on a list of available books. Then bookstores get such lists and choose what to buy. But since there is no vetting process for the self-pub books, the bookstores have to jump in the dark. And they don't like to do that. There is no guarantee what's inside a self-pub book. While if a book has gone through a publisher such as Penguin for example, it would have been through a long process of vetting and polishing and the bookstore will know what they are getting.

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Note also that bookshops usually only buy as a result of some very specific things:

1) A sales rep from one of the big distributors, or from the publishers themselves, will have made contact, told them about a new book's forthcoming publication, told them about all the money and effort they'll be spending on promoting that book, and has offered them a decent amount of discount off the sales price.

2) They'll know the author's work well, and knows they'll be able to sell their next work too.

3) There's been a huge amount of media coverage for the book already.

Bookshops do not just take a punt on self published books that have ISBNs. Your local bookshops might be persuaded to carry a few copies if you approach them, and offer them the terms they want (sale or return, strong discounts, etc) but your book won't get into bookshops nationwide unless you've got a sales team behind you--and for that, you almost always need a trade deal.

What is your plan for self-publishing? Would you like to do only an e-book, or do you plan to do a paperback also? If you're going to do only an e-book, that's pretty simple to format and you can probably do it on your own (and save yourself some money!) You'd need to hire someone to make you a great looking cover (PM me if you'd like the name of my cover designer, or there are plenty of threads here on AW with names of cover designers who are great) unless that is a skill set you have.

Is your plan to put your book up just on Amazon (and do Kindle Unlimited), or did you want to go wide, and do other online markets like Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc? Figuring out which way you want to go is another decision to make.

If you're self-pubbing, probably getting into bookstores isn't the first thing I'd worry about (it may not be a realistic goal.)

Gah, this sounds like my twitter discussion last Friday with someone who equates hybrid publishing with self-publishing because why not just pay someone who's got access to editors, designers, etc. instead of hunting them down yourself.

Oh, I don't know, besides being able to check for quality before hiring the people as opposed to the "self-publishing company" hiring amateurs (or worse) to do your stuff and you having no say over it, as one example.

I swear, the more I delve into this, the more I'm running into people who're jumping into the deep end without any floaties, much less looking for alligators in the swamp.

Richard White said:

Gah, this sounds like my twitter discussion last Friday with someone who equates hybrid publishing with self-publishing because why not just pay someone who's got access to editors, designers, etc. instead of hunting them down yourself.

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In other words, laziness. People wanting to self-publish without realizing what self-publishing, like all publishing, actually means--WORK.

Agreed. He thought spending $5000 to have all the work done by this "hybrid" company, Notebook Publishing was a bargain. I also noticed that company and one of their editors were quick to like "his" posts and ignored mine. He said they were doing everything but weren't taking a cut of the royalties and publishing it under his name, so they weren't a vanity press but a "author self-service publisher". Not sure where the ISBN/ASIN was coming from though.

I note he's still out $5000 and still has no control over the quality of their work.

I'm at roughly the same spot as you, rose petal.

I believe you do need to hustle yourself if you want your book on shelves. Otherwise it is print on demand from the buyer.

Sales diaries are kept by some self-pub authors here. The numbers are not high. Scout around and take a look. On the other hand, people are paying for their work. People will pay for your work.

Some say the real hustle is to keep building a fan base. that means keep putting out quality work. That means enjoying the process.

There are a few posters around here who work in bookstores and ordering, so they might be able to shed more light on this. And I can't get links for you until I get back to my main rig.

But generally, stores order from distributors. Distributors are separate companies from publishers. They have an existing, often long-term, relationship with a publisher and take on all or part of a house's catalogue. It's a complex business relationship, and not something a self-publisher can easily get access to.

rosepetal720 said:

I would like to do ebook and print. I heard that Amazon Exclusive is best for ebooks, and that you can't publish your ebook through anyone else once you go through them. But I also heard that you can still publish your print book elsewhere, and Draft2Digital seems like the best choice for print books. But I'm just not sure!

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If you want to enroll your book in Kindle Unlimited (where readers can use their subscription to KU to "loan" the book out and you get paid by page reads), then exclusively Amazon is the way to go. When you do that, you agree to enroll 3 months at a time. So if you tried being exclusive for 3 months and didn't like it, you could cancel, and go wide after that. Or you could do the opposite, start wide, then decide you just wanted to do Amazon, and pull your book from the other sites. What genre are you writing? Some genres (like romance) have a lot of readers who subscribe to KU.

rosepetal720 said:

From what you're saying, it sounds like I have no control over whether or not the stores pick up my book, and that it might (unlikely, I know) happen without me doing anything?

....but this makes it sound like I have to hustle my book by calling the companies myself. I'm just not sure how the process works.

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I'm not sure I would focus my energy on getting a self-published print book into bookstores. I think the likelihood that's going to pan out for more than maybe a copy or two at your local bookstore where you shop regularly and have a strong relationship with the bookseller is quite low. Or you might get to do a book signing at a local bookstore and sell a few copies.

Booksellers have very little shelf space, and there have been other threads about how they get many, many requests weekly from self-pubbers wanting them to stock their books. They don't have shelf space, or time to manage all the requests/inventory.

I would suggest putting your energy towards online sales of your e-book and print book (and writing your next book!)

The reality of the situation, at least for everyone I know involved in this game, is that there is Amazon and then there is everyone else. Amazon is, arguably sadly, the big dog. The real decision is whether to participate in Amazon KU, or go to the rest via an aggregator like D2D or Smashwords. My personal experience is that KU is toxic to authors, and I would advise against it.

95% of my revenue comes through Amazon. The remainder mostly comes through D2D editions of my ebooks, mostly from Barnes & Noble, followed by Apple. I hardly sell any through Smashwords so I don't even bother with them anymore.

There is a new player on the marked, called Publish Drive. They are a D2D competitor that claims to have an expanded market share that includes China. I tried publishing one of my older books through them, and found that they have some major problems with their uploader/converter, in terms of botching the formatting and stripping out front material. Maybe if they work the issues out I will give them another shot.

My personal experience is that KU is toxic to authors, and I would advise against it.

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What do you mean toxic to authors?

I though KU was a good thing?

For reference, this is a similar thread about the bookstore/marketing issues and included one of the best posts on the issue of stores stocking self-pubbed books I've seen on AW, from someone with first-hand experience.

https://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?340438-The-Problem-How-To-Get-My-Book-in-Actual-Stores&p=10503039&viewfull=1#post10503039

rosepetal720 said:

From what you're saying, it sounds like I have no control over whether or not the stores pick up my book, and that it might (unlikely, I know) happen without me doing anything?



....but this makes it sound like I have to hustle my book by calling the companies myself.

I'm just not sure how the process works.

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Yes, if you self publish, you have to do everything yourself, including selling your book to retail outlets where you can.

Trade publishers use distributors (note, this is not the same sort of "distribution" that you get from Amazon etc) who, generally speaking, handle all their sales and shipping for them. They sell into bookshops, process orders, deliver, and invoice for the books. And they accept returns. Distributors don't usually work with self published writers.

Bookshops are usually pretty reluctant to shelve self published books. There's no gatekeeping, so they don't know if the quality of the writing, editing and so on will be there. And self published books are usually print on demand, rather than offset printed, which means they don't withstand shelf wear nearly as well.

You might be able to get your local bookshop to stock a few copies of your book if you work on your sales techniques. But you're not going to get it onto many bookshop shelves, so you'd be wise to consider those sales as bonus copies sold.

The idea that I might be able to get my book on store shelves is almost too much to wrap my head around!

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Only a commercial publisher has the distribution and resources to get your book shelved in any store.

If that is your goal then get to a store, check their poetry section, and note down the names of the publishers of those poetry books. Then begin the submission process, following their guidelines.

Poets used to be the rock stars of literature, not so today. It's hard to sell and to a small market. Many poets turn to self-publishing, which is perfectly fine, but they know from the start their books won't be in stores.

Kindle Digital has been suggested, paired with Amazon Digital Services for print on demand copies.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-ac...d=AZFooterSelfPublish&topic=200260520&ie=UTF8

Here's the catch: You HAVE TO READ everything in their rules until you thoroughly understand what everything means. If you don't, bring questions here to AW for help. You've got about 7,000 friends to watch your back, so don't be shy about asking. What you don't understand can be a problem down the road.

Your Kindle version and the Amazon digital version will get their own page on Amazon.

You can order your own copies of the book to hand sell at events. For everything else, you set up a nice website, a Facebook page, do the Twitter thing. Again, don't expect clamoring fans anxious to read your words, poets don't get no respect, and there's lots of competition. You're doing this out of love, not to make money.

That said, here is a legit organization to check out: https://poets.org/

Above all, NEVER pay to publish. The vanities and other rip offs will promise the moon and praise your work to the skies, but all they want is your money, period. They cannot get your book into stores, not ever. Stores and libraries are on to the scams and do not shelve such books. Stores don't have room for all the commercially pubbed titles released each year, never mind the vanities and indie writers.

Next: go to the library and see if they have a copy of Poet's Market. Read it. If they don't, they can borrow from another library for you. https://www.amazon.com/Poets-Market-2019-Trusted-Publishing/dp/1440354391/

It will have information you need to navigate publishing this specialized literature.

Please be aware that scammers are well aware that poets are desperate to get their words out and they will have tons of ploys to grab their money -- all the time being VERY nice about it! So the more you know about the business side, the safer you will be from the sharks.

https://poets.media/poetry-publishing-scams-to-avoid

http://www.writing.org/html/a_poetry_scams.htm

One of my friends got taken in by these rotters. He was told his poem would be the featured work in a prestigious collection. He did have to help with "production costs" and buy a certain number of copies. He lost a bundle on that one and sadly, still thinks he won their "contest." The reality was a softcover book where his poem was mushed in with 800 *other* poems. It cost a LOT.

Many of these scams prey on schools, which makes my blood boil. The kiddies make up poems, the "service" puts out a winners collection, and 500 parents are out 80 bucks each (often more) to buy a copy that cost 3 bucks to print.

So keep writing, but be careful out there!

Patty said:

What do you mean toxic to authors?

I though KU was a good thing?

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Two years ago, there were allegedly groups of illicit promoters gaming the system by generating false page reads for certain authors. In response, Amazon stripped royalties from authors suspected of using illicit promotions, except that a lot of legitimate authors got caught up in the witch hunt and had their royalties stripped too. And there was nothing they could do about it. In fact, it was the subject of a class action lawsuit against Amazon. I do not know the outcome of the lawsuit.

Basically, if you are more successful in generating KU page reads than getting outright sales, Amazon will flag you and strip your KU royalties. I've had it happen once, and I'm not letting it happen again so I've pulled all my books out.

KU is not a good thing. It is a bad thing and I hope it dies.

Plenty of people who earn mainly through borrows had no issue so it is not quite that much of a blunt instrument. Amazon is an automated systems so whenever they have to chance a fraud algorithm it goes badly for a while. IMHO if Amazon went away it would just not be there for the most part, or would be replaced by something run the same way. The way the market works-- large, automated and prone to false positives is where the money is.