Sunday, May 20, 2018

Summer project turn your travel tales into a book

Problem
How do I record my travel tales?

Answers
Go onto a self-publishing site to see the options. For example, lulu.com

Here are some of the decisions you must make:
Size of book if paperback?
Or ebook?
For friends and family or as many people reading as possible?
An ISBN number is needed for distribution through bookshops. It's just a barcode which gives everybody ordering the code for the publisher, title and author. (Otherwise you'd get the wrong book written about or by John Brown.)
Your real name - or a pen name.
Why choose a pen name?

Here's a page of choices. You are offered loads of help - so much that you can spend hours reading all the guidelines.

A 100 page book costs £2.95 to manufacture. That means to print a paperback book A5 with a colour cover but no pictures.  However, if you need to pay an author, add colour pages, pay royalties for photos, or pay a bookshop, or make a profit, you need to add that cost, plus the cost of postage.

That is just printing without money spent on marketing.

Just one copy of a book for yourself is very cheap. Even with colour photos, if the cost went up to £25 or $30, that would be the cost of a meal out or a new piece of clothing. You could also give it as a free gift for a birthday or Xmas or as a thank you, cheaper than a bottle of Champagne.

If money is no object, you might pay an editor, and commission artwork, pay for publicity, and go to bookshops to do signings, visit clubs to give free talks and sell books.


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