The Self-Publish Pledge
I've been working with self-published authors since 2009. This 'pledge' essentially sums up what I wish all authors knew before they published. I usually go through each of these in greater detail during an initial consultation.
I ________ (state your name), agree to abide by the following:
Writing
- To hire an editor (if not a professional editor, than a group of trusted friends or colleagues).
- To print a Bound Galley/Advance Reader Copy and have at least 2 other people review it.
- To publish an Kindle edition without an ISBN to give advance readers a page to post their review.
- To wait until I have positive feedback to assign an ISBN and release it for sale in print.
Title & Cover
- To hire a professional cover designer.
- To check Amazon to see what other titles already come up on Amazon when I search for my title.
Pricing
You need to consider pricing at IngramSpark first because of the additional markup involved in selling through a distributor (Ingram). In the case of KDP, there is no distributor because your books are only sold on Amazon and Amazon owns KDP.
- For print, I'll determine my pricing using the IngramSpark book pricing calculator.
- To set the wholesale discount to 50% and allow returns (at IngramSpark).
- To never let KDP assign me one of their free ISBNs (doing so prevents you from utilizing IngramSpark to sell to other retailers & libraries).
Metadata
- To request an LCCN from the Library of Congress.
- To setup metadata for my ISBN with Bowker and confirm that it is valid at bookwire.com
Publishing
- To hire a professional interior designer and confirm the conversion from my source manuscript was accurate!
- To setup my eBook directly with the 3 major marketplaces and avoid third party aggregators/distributors.
You can also read more tips & recommendations on the AuthorDock Q&A board.
My best,
Brian Schwartz
SelfPublish.org