Congratulations on writing your first book! And you want to sell it. Here’s what you need to do.

1) Write a book proposal. Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? You already have a book why write a proposal?

This is what agents and publishers want to see.

A book proposal gives a summary, an outline of each chapter, and A MARKETING PLAN. It’s up to you to sell books, not your publisher. Who’s your market, how big is it, how are you going to get in front of them, etc.

Few authors make money getting published conventionally. Pennies for the author. Pennies for the publisher. New media and the economy are taking an even bigger bit out of the profits. That’s why publishing companies are going out of business.

The money’s in self-publishing.

2) If you self publish, I recommend going the route of Print On Demand (books are printed when sales come in) over printing $20,000 books and store them indefinately. Use a company that accepts returns. If you’re going to sell to book stores or Amazon, you have to be able to accept and refund returns.

3) If you do print the $20,000 of books ahead of time (profit margin’s much bigger that way), hire (more…)