Many aspiring authors wonder how the self-publishing process works. It’s quite different from the route authors take with a traditional publishing house. You may want to know ahead of time if self-publishing is right for you. It is not exactly the same with every self-publishing house, of course, but there are similarities from one self-publishing house to the next. Here at Izzard Ink, we are a full-service self-publishing house, offering a full slate of services to our authors.
1. Set Up a Meeting with a Self-Publisher
The first step in the process of self-publishing a book is to set up meetings with self-publishers you are considering using. Depending on what you hope to accomplish, this can be as simple as a phone call. At Izzard Ink, we offer clients a free 15-minute phone call during which they can get their questions about self-publishing answered.
We also offer a manuscript assessment. Authors give us their manuscript — or as many chapters as they have finished along with a full description of their idea — and we provide feedback. This includes helpful ideas and suggestions for story and character development, recommendations for improvement and more. With this manuscript assessment, you can see how we work at Izzard Ink and the quality and value of the services you get for your money.
2. Learn More About Professional Options
When you work with Izzard Ink, we have professional editors, illustrators, graphic artists and others who can help you turn your manuscript into a masterpiece!
Skipping professional editing, while an option, is usually a mistake. Editing adds the kind of polish to a book that most authors just can’t achieve on their own. This has nothing to do with the experience level of the author, either. All good authors want feedback from a respected editor. While you should always edit your own work, a book’s author should never be the only person to read it. You can miss all kinds of errors or areas where the text is unclear. Editors are an important component of the revision process.
We also offer the services of our graphic artists to design your front and back cover. We cannot overstate how important the front cover of a book is. It’s the single biggest reason people pick up a book to see if they want to buy it. Even shoppers browsing online are highly influenced by a book’s cover.
If you want to use our graphic arts services, we allow you to look at the work of all our graphic artists and then pick the one you feel best matches your style and ideas. You will work closely with this person to develop your book cover until it looks just as you imagined it.
3. Self-Publishing Your Book
Once your book has gone through the editing process and you have picked a cover design, you are ready to publish. However, publishing entails much more than simply printing.
Before your book is published, our marketing team is at work creating a buzz about your book. The timeline is important — you want to make sure potential readers and reviewers know your book is coming out. Once the book is out, however, you want interest to remain high, and our marketing team is on it.
Marketing your book may involve placing ads; sending complimentary copies to reviewers, bloggers or podcasters; sending out press releases; or working on getting you booked on radio or TV programs or live readings in bookstores or at book fairs. We also work to stir up interest with appropriate book clubs, based on the content of your book.
As important as marketing is, it’s less effective without a good distribution strategy. Marketers get people interested in your book; distributors make sure the book gets into readers’ hands. That means ensuring the book gets into local bookstores. Imagine your book on the shelves of a Barnes & Noble or featured as part of a display or on an endcap.
Because so many more books are sold online today than in brick-and-mortar bookstores, marketing techniques such as search engine optimization and smart use of metadata make a huge difference in selling your book online.
We have spent years building our distribution network, and that kind of experience and connection is invaluable when you are self-publishing a book.
Izzard Ink: The Self-Publishing Process
We offer a lot to our clients at Izzard Ink, but that’s the keyword: offer. One of the biggest benefits of self-publishing a book is that you, the author, get to make the decisions instead of a stranger at a publishing house. So we don’t require you to use editing or marketing services. We explain to you why we think they are important, but the final decisions on everything about your book lie with you.
We believe that the reason so many of our authors are successful is because we offer them the tools they need to turn out a better product. Some self-publishing houses are, in contrast, vanity presses that merely print your book for a fee. No one looks at it or offers suggestions. And that works for some people, and we can work with you if this is your plan. However, we see ourselves as a valuable alternative to what big publishing houses offer, and we know that if our authors take full advantage of our services, they will have a greater advantage.
If you think you might want to work with us to self-publish your book, set up a free consultation or a manuscript assessment today. The world is waiting for your book!
