So, you’ve got your book written and edited, along with a cover design and interior layout configured.  Now what?

It’s time to make it available to the world (or, at least to your particular audience). Of course, if you did the market analysis at the beginning, before you started writing, you’d know just who’d be interested in buying your written work and in what format those people would like to receive it.  Should it be electronic (eBook) or paper (pBook)?

eBook or pBook

There are advantages to both formats. With an eBook, there’s no printing cost (you still have the time cost of writing it, plus the cost of using an editor and designer). You don’t have to print a thousand books to get a decent cost per book. You can make instantaneous changes if you find an error or want to change something.  You can easily bring your facts up to date. Unless you’re writing a novel, little stays static in our fast-moving world.

On the other hand, even though there are printing costs to publish a pBook, it’s a marvelous visual to wave around when you do talks. They’re great for back-of-room sales to those who want to leave your talk with something tangible in their hand. Many people prefer a paper version of certain types of books, such as reference books, cookbooks, and picture books. There’s still something nice about the feel of a new book. Brick-and-mortar bookstores need pBooks. That used to be true of libraries, but eBooks are now becoming more available through libraries.

To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish

While it seems like you’ve won the lottery when you’ve gotten signed up to a contract with a mainstream publisher, it’s probably not the pot of gold you’re hoping to get. If you’re not President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Danielle Steele, Stephen King, or J.K. Rowling, just to name a few big names, any mainstream publisher is going to expect that you’ll be doing the lion’s share of the marketing. But why would you want to put in so much time and effort on marketing when you get such a small percentage of the sales? It’s just no longer an effective business model for many authors.

It’s also not easy to get published by mainstream publishers because most of them won’t even talk directly to the author. Authors are expected to have a literary agent representing them. So, now you first have to convince a literary agent to represent your book, before he or she can convince a publisher that your work is worth publishing. This is a long, drawn-out process. If your book is a time-sensitive, trendy book, you might not even get it published in a timely fashion to take advantage of the trend.

Even though many traditional publishers believe that self-publishing has unleashed a plethora of poorly-written work, writers today can use services such as Affordable Editing Services to help them produce work they can be proud of. AES is here for you from the beginning of your project to the very end, when the champagne bottle gets uncorked and the sales begin.

The most fundamental reason for self-publishing is to stay in complete control of your project. It’s your vision. Traditional publishers might tweak your vision so it fits in with their catalog of books. And as a result, as they say in the movie industry, much is left on the cutting room floor. Sure, you’ll be happy you got a published book, but may regret that it really wasn’t THE book you were wanting to write.

Why You Need AES as Your Publishing Consultant

There are so many questions you need to ask yourself. What format do you want your eBook to be in? There’s Kindle, PuIt!, epub, and others. Should your pBook have a paper cover or be hardcover? What type of paper should you use? Should you do a print-on-demand (POD) book or go directly to a printer to print a large number of books at one time? Should you do both an eBook and a pBook? Should you own the ISBN or take the ISBN provided to you by the publishing company?

These questions only scratch the surface. AES may be able to advise you on many of these and other issues. Sometimes we think that, by doing everything ourselves, we’ll save money. Unfortunately, that’s often not the case. When you make mistakes because you lack the knowledge of how the system works, you’ll soon learn that using someone who has experience will cost you less in the long run. While experience may be your best teacher, you have to ask yourself how often you’ll get to use this new knowledge that you’ve gained by doing this on your own. Could you have already been out making money with your book if you hadn’t been spending so much time on the learning process?

Our Approach

To give you peace of mind, we sign a confidentiality agreement that will safeguard your project.

Because we work as a team, you get the benefit of at least two pairs of eyes reviewing your project, at no extra cost to you.

Our Other Services

No matter what stage your writing is at, AES can be of service to you. We can be of benefit from start to finish through our writing coaching and editing services, as well as our publishing consulting service.

We offer a FREE consultation and FREE estimate. We look forward to the opportunity of working with you. If you’d like to see a sample of our work, just ask when you contact us.
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