Customer Reviews

Book Publishing Encyclopedia

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dan Poynter's _Book Publishing Encyclopedia_ reminds me of John Kremer's classic _1001 Ways to Market Your Book_. It's a smorgasbord of ideas--and especially, online sources where you can find further information, advice, and products. Arranged in alphabetical order, it touches on everything from how to get an ISBN to creative book-packing ideas (balloons, anyone)? An excellent complement to a process-oriented publishing book such as Poynter's _Self-Publishing Manual_. You'll probably get your money's worth after five minutes of reading.

Dan Poynter has been showing new writers the ropes to creating book and publishing them for almost 30 years. If you're totally new to the subject, you should be sure to read the 15th edition of his classic, Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual. But if you think you have just one question, you'll find it easier to start with Dan Poynter's Book Publishing Encyclopedia. Presented in alphabetical order, you'll quickly locate key ideas, tips and resources to implement what interests you.

I thought that this book was so well done that I read it cover to cover . . . and kept learning things that I didn't know that I didn't know . . . even though I've written four books and am in the process of finishing a fifth. As you can imagine in this Internet age, Dan can send you to lots of great Web sites (many of which are ones that he has developed).

Every new writer should have both the self-publishing manual and the book publishing encyclopedia. Every experienced writer should have the book publishing encyclopedia. It's great!

To give you a sense of how thorough this encyclopedia is, the references for Amazon take up 6 1/2 pages . . . include many bits of information that I suspect less than 1 percent of all authors know. You'll find ways to contact Amazon, how to use book reviews on Amazon to be more successful, what the sales rankings mean in terms of sales, tracking your book's history at Amazon, how to use Booksurge to be even more successful at Amazon, changing titles, checking prices with a cell phone, e-books, getting your cover image up faster on your Amazon sales page, large print book publishing at Amazon, keeping in stock, other ways to sell collectible books at Amazon and tracking your sales.

Can you afford not to know those things? I thought not!

This book is not an encyclopedia. It's a collection of internet links. Many of the links take me to the author's own website, where there is one teaser paragraph and a link to purchase an article. Why should I pay this author twice? At least there are links to other resources that actually exist as articles and not ads. Unfortunately many of these links are out of date. "Encyclopedia" is a grandiose overstatement of what this book is and I'm very disappointed in it. It is doubly discouraging to feel suckered by a book that pretends to be helpful, "how-to," and a resource for beginners when it's really a profit center for the author. Welcome to publishing, indeed.

The "encyclopedia" needs to be within reach on every publisher's desk. It has been an invaluable resource for me in the publishing of my first book! Thank you, Dan! Donna P. Savage, Author of The Man and The Shark: A Modern Day Fable of Awakening and Rebirth

If you are an author or publisher, it is agreat reference book by an author who is considered to have lots of great books on the subject.

Dan Poynter's book is a virtual gold mine for authors and publishers. He shares his years of experience in the publishing business with a dictionary of every aspect of publishing, promoting and sales of books. Dan shares the secrets of e-books, audio-books and where to go to get the author's books changed to digital copies for mass marketing on the internet. This is his best book yet.

Poynter's Encyclopedia and Shepards' Aiming at Amazon are both perfect manuals for anybody interested in self-publishing. Brief, informative, and easy to use - what else is needed? Highly recommended.

Yuval Lirov, Practicing Profitability - Billing Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinics and Chiropractic Offices: Collections, Audit Risk, SOAP Notes, Scheduling, Care Plans, and Coding

This book contains some of the same information as Don Poynter's other book, "Self Publishing Manual". However, its all organized alphabetically for easy reference. This book works very well when used in conjunction with "Self Publishing Manual", as it allows you to quickly review the piece of information that you know you read from the manual. A useful book.

Book Publishing Encyclopedia: Tips And Resources For Authors And Publisher by Dan Poynter (the legendary guru of small press publishers) is an in-depth, knowledgeable, experienced based and "real world tested" compendium of useful, practical, and helpful information pertaining to the difficult and somewhat complex process of publishing and authorship. Providing a "user-friendly" guide to saving time and money in the publishing process, the utilization of internet resources, and more then 1001 tips, techniques and strategies on how to write, publish and promote a book, the Book Publishing Encyclopedia deftly informs novice publishers of the most effective approaches to profitable book publishing in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The Book Publishing Encyclopedia is very strongly recommended for all readers and writers searching for the ultimate and concise reference for publishing an authored work. Indeed, no personal, professional, or community library "Writing/Publishing" reference collection can be considered complete without the inclusion of Dan Poynter's Book Publishing Encyclopedia which is available in a variety of formats including soft cover, large print, LIT, PF, MobiPocket, and Palm. See the Dan Poynter website at parapublishing.com for specific ordering information.

There are an awful lot of books written.

With modern print on demand publishing it's even easy to get published.

Then the fun begins.

The day you publish your book, there will be another 600 books published. How do you get any attention at all for your title. First hint, if you happen to pick a day when something like the next Harry Potter novel gets published you'll get no attention at all from the magazines, the book stores, or just about anyone else.

This book is largely on the business of books. And the business of books is mostly marketing. It's format is encyclopedia like, that is, hundreds, maybe thousands of short entries about various subjects. On the first page for instance are: Greeting cards that are in the shape of bookmarks, comments on the signature you use on e-mails, plastic nametags for trade shows, and refrigerator magnets. There's a big section on Amazon.com - the 900 pound gorilla of the book business.

The format of most entries is to refer you to a web address. Obviously web addresses change frequently so don't be surprised if it doesn't work. You might try Google to find the information you want. For instance, there is an entry on getting prices at Amazon by cell phone. You may instead want to visit EnterISBN.com (add the www) with a web enabled cell phone to get prices.

This is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in publishing. All of the ideas won't appeal to you, but just one or two ideas that pan out will yield you far more than the modest cost of the book.