One Last Word on Self Publishing

Jus to shave a bit off of my previous post. I do have one more thing IMPORTANT to share about self publishing.

You must know that retailers are not always keen about stocking books from print-on-demand services. The reason being is that most POD services sales are non-returnable. Stores don't like buying things they can't return incase they don't sell.

Also when I looked at Writer's Beware I saw mention of Amazon not selling POD books their Booksurge doesn't print. I haven't gotten to checking up on how things are now though, as that was news they revealed last year. I also don't see how they could get away with it for long before lawsuits being filed.

Now that I've mentioned that. I also want to not that Lightning Source does allow you to set your books as being returnable. I assume that means returns will be deducted from your royalties. On the upside it hopefully makes retailers more likely to stock your books.

I actually contated them about in regards to that as soon as I found that out.

I haven't had a chance yet, but I'm going to ask if retailers when ordering are able to see that your books can be returned or are more likely to carry LS printed books because they give publishers the option of making their books returnable.

As soon as I get word on that I'll post it here!

Back to the Books: ISBN and Barcodes

Ok, at last I'm getting back to my self publishing adventure thus far.

In my previous post I just gave a quick blurb about ISBNs and Barcodes you need for self publishing. Do be sure to check out ISBN.org you'll find lot of important information there.

I'm not simply going to send you off there and let you do figure everything out, nay, I've already done some of that. Especially with the barcoding, they go hand in hand. You can't simply have your ISBN. You can, but without the barcode it pretty much defeats the purpose of trying to publish your book for real.

RR Bowker also has Bowker Barcode Service there are others out there, but I'm just going with them for ease of posting.

Barcoding is a pretty simple thing. Once you have your ISBN assigned to your book, you take the number and use a barcode generator, that such a service would offer. They use your ISBN and, well, generate your barcode. They then send the code off to you, however they will.

So now you have your book, your very own ISBN(s) and a barcode. What's next?

Next will be putting it all together. But first, a special note on ISBNs!

ISBN SPECIAL ALERT!

When it comes to publishing whomever buys the ISBN associated with a book is considered the publisher. Period.

There are services and companies out there that offer ISBN's for sale "affordably priced". The honest ones will eventually tell you the catch, the shadyones won't tell you a thing.

What these places do is buy ISBNs in large numbers from RR Bowker and get a volume discount. They then turn around and sell the numbers individually or at "reduced" prices and make a profit.

What this means for you is, when it comes to the big publishing picture, these companies are considered the publisher of your book. In all the databases and everything your book is attached to their company/or whatever name they registered not you.

Furthermore, very few companies are authorized with RR Bowker to sell individual ISBNs. One being Lulu.com

Anyother company or individual offering ISBNs for sale WILL BE CONSIDERED THE PUBLISHER OF YOUR BOOK.

So always besure to proceed with caution and read everything that affects your works.

When next I post, It'll be on to layout, design, and printing! YAY!