| Why Hang Around When You Can POD |
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Your life has been such an interesting one and it's the perfect time to tell the whole wide world. In fact, for the last dozen months or more, you've been working your socks of on an autobiography manuscript, a masterpiece destined to become a book. It's a common sort of scene, believe it or not, repeated many times right across the globe. Hundreds - probably thousands - of would-be authors, slaving away over the keyboards of their computers as you look at this, are dreaming about the day some publisher takes them by the hand and turns all the effort and sweat into a best seller. Dream on my friend. You're more likely to win the lottery! But don't let that little fact stop your dream. Grab a quick list of likely book publishers from Bing. Navigate to the publisher's webpage explaining how and where and to whom to submit your autobiography to. Most publishers will allow you to submit the opening chapter via an online form. Others will want a hard copy, perhaps the first two, maybe three chapters or more. Usually, they say, you won't hear anything from them for some considerable time. Please take note of the paragraph that says if you ain't heard from the publisher in three months, assume your autobiography manuscript has been given the thumbs-down. OK now it's all about patience. Weeks and months drag slowly by. Doubts are beginning to creep in. It's easy to justify the zero response. After all, what do publishers know? Not much judging by how many publishers let Harry Potter slip through their grasp. Plenty more on the list to submit to. Months now turn into yet more months. Time is moving on. The doubts come creeping in but you're not ready to give up. Someone mentions book agents. Fantastic idea. Yes, get someone else to do the legwork. A 10-15% commission rate seems very reasonable. Before you realise it, you've cobbled together another list after another quick search on Google. Again some agents allow you to submit your work online. Others want a chapter or two to hold in their fingers. Sounds a bit too familiar. Don't it? Then it's back to waiting, and waiting. That's probably when the real doubts begin to niggle. However, the belief your story is good enough for general consumption is still intact. Well, almost. Perhaps it's at this low point the penny finally begins to drop. You look at all the best seller offerings on Amazon and realise the number of celebs dominating the listings. When you also start reading about some of the lesser well known authors, telling all about how they got their book published, you also realise how lucky they were to have had a friend of a friend who happened to have a contact in the industry. However, my dear author, all is not lost. Because a new phenomenon is shaking up the printing world and it's called Print On Demand (POD for short). And the most casual of searches online uncovers a large number of companies offering the POD service. Without doubt, one of the best is The Choir Press. So how good are they? Follow the link in the resource box. It'll take you to a page and a book called No Easy Road by Patsy Whyte. Buy the book. Not only will you enjoy this autobiography, but you'll be able to see and hold and touch a quality product. POD costs, but it's maybe a price worth paying just to see your story in print. And there's no requirement to physically stock the books yourself, either. That's what POD is all about. Print one book order or 100, whenever the customer requires it. Little wonder increasingly more and more would-be writers are considering POD and bypassing the traditional route into book publishing. There's money to be made, too, if you can connect the marketing potential of the internet and Print On Demand. But that's another part of the equation. Perhaps you, too, should be looking at the possibilities of POD? No Easy Road by Patsy Whyte is a childhood memoir of real quality. It's sad, funny and a true heartbreak story that's extremely hard to forget. Go to http://www.freebieads.co.uk/childhood-memoir.html for more details. Read more at: http://www.ArticlePros.com/writing_and_speaking/self_publishing/article-332091.html. |
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