Most Helpful Customer Reviews
148 of 164 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't jump into self-publishing without this manual!, January 23, 2001
If you have ever felt that self-publishing is similar to jumping out of a plane without a parachute, have no fear! "The Self-Publishing Manual" is your parachute! On your way to "landing" your first published book, you will learn everything you need to know.
I think of Dan Poynter as the ultimate "how-to self-publish" expert! He will teach you all the tricks of the publishing trade. As an author of more than 80 books, he also has a proven track record of success. He will convince you that you too can succeed.
The strength of this encyclopedic reference is the author's experience in publishing. Dan Poynter is also on the leading edge of technology. He welcomes the new era of book publishing and prepares writers by giving a "New Book Publishing Model."
If you are looking for a complete reference on writing, printing, publishing, promoting, marketing and distributing your new book, look no further. Whether you just have the concept for your new book or have already advanced to the promotion stage, the information you will need to make your efforts more successful is here!
The "Your Book's Calendar" section is like a true gift for the busy author. This section is vital to keeping your goals and progress in check. It will allow you to digest volumes of information in small sections. You can start with what you have started to accomplish, check the suggested readings and then check off your goals as you reach them.
I especially enjoyed reading the section on professional reviewers. The glossary of publishing terms was so revealing. The "resources for publishers" section was detailed and informative.
This source book also has a companion web site. You can find information kits, great book promotion mailing lists, links to useful Web sites and hundreds of downloadable documents.
If you are still searching for an agent, sending out manuscripts to publishers, or writing those endless query letters, it may be time to take off that seat belt which is trapping you in that airplane seat! Then, read this book and jump! There are people who want your book. There are people who need your book. Believe it! Then, free fall to success!
~The Rebecca Review
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111 of 123 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Publish Profitably, July 31, 2002
Publishing can be a tough business, but with the advice of Dan Poynter you can make your book a profitable reality. 'The Self-Publishing Manual' includes great nuts-and-bolts advice and lots of helpful resources for getting your book written, produced and distributed. The templates and forms Dan includes are useful, for everything from permissions requests to requests for print bids to discount schedules. Even if all you use are the lists of publishing web sites, printers, distributors, reviewers, etc., you will more than get your money's worth from this book. Dan's information helped me produce a quality book on a tight timeframe. Not only did I get the book done quickly, it was profitable within one month after release. I teach a course on publishing, and 'The Self-Publishing Manual' is the text I use. If you want to learn about publishing, this is the place to start.
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173 of 197 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
How to be rich and famous. Or at least rich. Maybe., June 7, 2004
Poynter is the guru of a certain type of self-publishing author: The writer/hustler who is interested, first and foremost, in making money -- lots and lots of money -- not merely in making information available and earning enough back to make the effort worthwhile. I've done a certain amount of self-publishing over the past couple of decades (mostly genealogical research materials and local history), and while I'm always interested in what he has to say, I've frankly never found a lot of useful material here. All the way through, especially in the early chapters where he's trying to hook you (and remember that his background is in marketing), he insists this writing-publishing thing is easy. All you do is get an idea, read everything about it, put it all in a notebook (rather quirkily for a technophile, he seems to believe in first-draft writing on paper), edit it into a new shape, and Presto! You have a new book, and it's gonna make you rich! Or something. Among other problems, he seems to have only a hazy idea of how the acquisitions process generally works in a large library system. Not to mention comments like "library loans may hurt sales of fiction," and "libraries tend to do most of their ordering around the beginning or end of their fiscal year." Puh-leez. Then there's this, regarding the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998: "Now, anything printed prior to 1922 is safe." Say what? (Even Cotton Mather?) He also seems to think book-indexing need involve only the "indexing" feature in Microsoft Word. Finally, on the very last page (before the omnipresent order form, that is), he says it doesn't matter who the publisher is: "Who is the author? Is she a credible person? No one ever asks, 'Who is the publisher'?" Au contraire, Dan, the credibility of the *publisher* can be *very* important, especially in technical books. Would you rather buy, unseen, a computer book from O'Reilly & Associates, or from Joe Blow Kitchen Table Press? However, even very narrowly market-specific titles (like genealogy) require some advertising and notification of potential purchasers, so his chapters on publicity and marketing are worth reading, as is the material on cutting-edge electronic publishing, both via CD and online.
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