Simple Process, but Long Process

by Casey Bell
(Old Bridge, NJ, USA)

The Diary of Stephanie Dane

It started with me simply writing the book. It took me two days to do so. The next step was geting it edited. I know it's best to get proffesional edited, but I didn't have the money. So I gave to this lady at my church and she was kind enough to do so for me. This was back in 2005, she retyrned the edited copy to me in 2006.

I then went searching for book companies and was ready to submit my book. Before I got the chance to submit the book, another lady at my church went to a self-publishing conference and told me all about it. She gave me the book that she brought. The book is titled "The Art of Making Money as a Self-Publisher", by Lilisa J Williams.

I read the book and was a little confused. The first thing I knew I had to do was get the book copywritten. I sent my manuscript in October 2007. As I waited I vistied the websites that were mentioned in the book and I read everything that the websites were saying. It became a little easier at that point.

To back track in April 2007 my church invited Lilisa J Williams to do a seminar. I learned alot more. The one question I had was about cover design. I knew I didn't have the money to pay someone, so I decided to do it myself. I actually self-taught in graphic design and have been designing business cards, flyers, brochures, etc since 1998. So, I knew that I could learn to design book covers.

The next step was to find the right website to publish my book. The first website I went to was a great site. The have a free book to buy or download and it gave me much insight on self-publishing. I didn't use them though, becuase It seemed a bit much for me. I personally didn't think I was ready to use them just yet, but in the future there is a chance. The second site I went to, for whatever reason I couldn't understand the site at first so I passed on that one too.

The last site I visited was 48hrbooks

This site was easy to follow. I decided to choose them. I used them to publish my first book "CrazyFun", which can be found on my website.

I liked the job that they did, so I decided to use them again for the rest of my books. This was in July 2007. Between July and October I worked on about four books to be published. I sent them to the US Copyright office. As I awaited, in August I went to a conference and there was a lady there giving a sermon. She was using information from her book and she mentioned lulu.com

I kept that in my mind and when I got home I went online and read about it. At that moment I knew that lulu.com would be the site I would use to publish my next book. In December 2007, I got the chance to help someone else self publish their first book

I used 48hrs and when she was ready to publish the next book I was eager to try lulu.

I didn't realize that once you hit the publish button that the book would be ready for purchase. Once I found that out it was so cool, becuase unlike 48hrs I didn't have to purchase and try to sell the books myself.

At that point I was eager and awaiting my certificate from the US Copyright office. I started counting down and was wondering what was taking so long. Their website mentions 4-6 months. I sent the manuscript in October 2007, so when April 2008 came around I started to wonder. I went back to their website and emailed them and they replyed, (thank God).

They told me that they had recieved it and gave me the registration number. They pretty much said they were backed up and the process was taking up to nine months. They mentioned that I could use the registration number to publish, so I was happy. My cover art and context was ready so all I had to do was publish.

Publishing it was pretty easy. The marketing is what was pretty hard. You pretty much have to do everything yourself, unless you hire a publicist.

I published it on May 8 2008. So from writing it (2005) to getting it edited (2006) to learning about self-publishing (2007) to actually getting it published (2008) it was a three year process, but self-publishing never has to take that long.

Depending on when you get the copyrights back, the longest it takes is 4-6 months or maybe nine.

And if it is an autobiogrpahy you really don't need to copyright that. It's kind of hard for someone to plagiarize or copy your life story.

Anywho, now about marketing.

The first thing I did was advertise on my myspace and multiply page.

I also was given a website that allows free posting for writers.

I went to a couple of the websites and posted.

The last thing I did was send out an email blast to all my family and friends.

At this point I am not done yet.

Although you have to pay for the books on 48hrs, because I like the format of the books a little bit better than lulu once I get the money I plan on buying about 50-100 and I will start selling them.

I also plan on having a book release party and inviting a bunch of people.

Self-Publishing is fun for writers, the only thing is marcketing. But once you make it on the map the rest is easy.

To be honest the only difficult part about self-publishing is not procrastinating and sitting down to actually write the book

Visit Casey's site.