I heard that the new edition of your Publishing Basics is now available

I heard that the new edition of your Publishing Basics is now available – Yes, and as before, it is offered at no cost to any author who agrees to read it.  The 1st Edition of Publishing Basics was published almost ten years ago.  It is interesting to see how much has changed over the years.  The one thing that has not changed, over the years, is its straight forward, plain English approach to self-publishing.

Back in 1999, an old buddy of mine, Bob Johnson, and I were looking back over his years of self-publishing. I first met Bob in the middle 70’s while I was selling printing and he was publishing a small local magazine.  Over the years Bob and I collaborated on a variety of different publishing projects, sometimes as printer/publisher and other times as partners.

This particular day, Bob was lamenting over the fact that there had been no “Guide to Self Publishing” for him to follow and that he learned, primarily, through hard knocks.  I had started RJ Communications in 1994 as a printers’ rep organization, calling on large publishers in the New York Metro area.  I got involved with the Internet, early on, as a means of generating leads for me to follow-up on to sell printing.  By 1999, my business had evolved from printing for a handful of large publishers into helping hundreds of small publishers, print books, through my website, www.BooksJustBooks.com.

While I had been dealing with a constantly changing group of independent publishers, the one thing that never seemed to change were the basic questions they all had about the process.   After 20 years in the business, I had the answers pretty much memorized to most of these questions.  Unfortunately for my buddy Bob, my early advice to him, came from Ron the in-experienced printing salesperson.  That advice almost always included encouraging Bob to print as many copies as possible so he could get a lower unit cost and I could earn a larger commission check.  By 2009, Bob and I were both quite a bit older and, hopefully wiser and wanted to find some way to help others learn from our experiences.  The idea for the first publishing basics book came out of this conversation.

The original concept of the book was to provide easy to understand answers to the most common questions that virtually all self-publishers shared.  We agreed to keep it straight talking and to the point. Black and white with as little grey as possible.  There was already enough misinformation out there on the market.  What was missing was a little straight talk. The POD Vanity publishing industry was picking up steam and lived by the motto, “There’s a sucker born every minute”.  Somehow the new vanity model of deceiving thousands of people out of hundreds of dollars was thought to be different than the old vanity press model which deceived hundreds of people out of thousands of dollars.   Our goal was to combat that philosophy and replace it with “Knowledge is Power and Ignorance is Not Bliss”.

The first edition of Publishing Basics was 80 pages and produced on five different papers and printed using three different printing processes so readers could look, feel and see the differences between the different processes.  The first edition printed five times before a second edition was produced, three years later.  The primary difference between the two editions was the addition of 32 more pages where all areas of publishing were covered in greater detail.  We also had an additional three years of experience working with self publishers and learning from their successes and failures. The one thing that had not changed, during those three years, was the deceptiveness of the vanity press industry. This new breed of vanity press, unfortunately, had plenty of money driving this deception and a target audience more gullible than ever.  In addition, the industry was luring a somewhat lazy media, who was more than happy to prostitute itself for a few pages of advertising, into pushing their nonsense on to the unsuspecting public.  Like the first edition, the second edition was printed on 5 different papers using two different printing processes.  In addition to the 2nd edition of Publishing Basics, the Publishing Basics newsletter was launched in 2003.  The newsletter, which you are reading right now, has been published monthly since 2003.  The subscriber base has grown from a few thousand to over 65,000 subscribers monthly. The idea behind the newsletter was to supplement the information contained in the book and making it available, at no cost, to anyone who wanted to learn.

The changes in the industry continued at a lightning pace.  By 2006, a third edition of the book was published.  As with the first editions, all the information was updated to fit the current technologies.  Anyone who has read my column with any regularity knows that I am not a fan of eBooks in general (no matter what Oprah says), at least if you plan on making any money with them.  But as a method of distributing information to significantly more individuals at a fraction of the cost, they’re great.  The eBook of the 3rd edition was downloaded over 50,000 times. Anyone who downloaded that edition knows that sometime after the download, you got a personal letter from me asking if you’d like a printed version too.  This combo worked out quite well for all parties.  Authors got the information they needed, and I saved a bit on printing and postage.  This is an idea that many of you authors out there, might want to adopt.

In late 2008, it was decided that it was time for a 4th edition of the book.  Unlike the other three editions, the 4th edition is printed using a single text paper, 50# offset.  Why I would do that, you might be asking?  The five papers using the 3 printing processes was a pretty good idea.  This decision was similar to the decision to make the 3rd edition available as an eBook.   This time, though, the book is not only available as an eBook, it is also available via the Thor POD Distribution system.  Not to get too Orwellian on you but Thor Distribution is basically a repackaged version of Lightning Source’s POD program.  Before you ask, don’t confuse POD, the printing process, with POD Publishing, one of the many names adopted by today’s vanity presses.  The system itself is great.  I have written about it quite a few times so I won’t go into any more detail here other than to say that the 4th edition of the book is now available through all the online outlets serviced by LSI (Lightning).  Offset printed copies are also available.  All copies are identified on the back cover as to whether they were printed digitally or on an offset printing press.

What is the best way to order?  You can download the eBook version, at no cost, by clicking here.  You’ll be able to start reading it within minutes.  As with the third edition, I’ll send you an email in a week or so asking if you’d like for me to send you a printed copy.  The printed copy will be an offset printed book and will be sent to you at no cost but if you are getting close to publishing your own book, the best deal is to buy the book through Amazon.  Why Amazon, you ask?  (The Amazon book costs $9.95) Well there are two reasons.  The first is the book will be representative of a book printed POD through the Thor distribution program.  The second, is that all copies purchased for $9.95 (or whatever Amazon decided to discount it to) contains a coupon worth $25, which can be applied against any purchase through www.selfpublishing.com.

As always, I look forward to your feedback on the new edition.  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.  The subtitle of the new edition is Navigating the Self Publishing Minefield.  I thought it was a little more to the point than the old subtitle, A Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher.

See you next month

Last 5 posts by Ron Pramschufer

• It’s 102 degrees out... it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas - August 19th, 2010
• ATTN: Vets…Don’t leave it to the historians. Have a story to pass on? - July 20th, 2010
• How did Book Expo America work out this year? - June 30th, 2010
• How did that Publishing Basics Seminar, in New York, work out for you? - June 30th, 2010
• Do you have any plans for Book Expo America this year? - March 19th, 2010