As anyone will tell you, I’m a big fan of self-publishing and self-published authors who take the bull by the horns and prove they have the chutzpa to publish a book themselves. That’s why it brings me great pleasure to bring you a wonderful guest post on the subject of self-publishing from Kenny Scudero, author of the humor fiction novel, Comfortably Awkward.
It’s All About Luck in this Dog Eat Dog Publishing World
By Kenny Scudero
So you wrote a 75,000 word manuscript and you are ready to get it to a publisher. You have faith in your story and in your writing and you know that you should be able to get your book to a publisher. But what do you do first? I found myself in this situation several months ago and I learned a lot about the publishing business. I learned how to write a query lett er to literary agents and I began sending out many of them. After about twenty-five rejections or letters without a response, I discovered self-publishing.
Everyone wants to get their book published by a huge publishing company but more important than hard work, in this business, is luck. You have to hope the right person reads your letter and is intrigued by it otherwise, you’ll become extremely frustrated. I wanted to continue sending letters to agents but I couldn’t wait any longer. I wanted to get my book out there for the world to see. I researched many places that help you self-publishing with a method called print-on-demand publishing. Every time someone buys your book, that’s when the company manufactures it and ships it to the customer. There are quite a few of these places out there and you need to find which one is the right one for you. For me, it was CreateSpace.
You can pretty much have your self-publishing company do as much as you’d like them to do. I wrote my book, edited it many times myself, and had it proofread by people I know. The only service I purchased through CreateSpace was the cover and back cover creations. I gave them the idea for my cover and they designed it exactly as I had imagined it. It was difficult formatting my book because I had never done it before and it is totally different from formatting a manuscript. I had the freedom of choosing my font and overall design of the interior. After perfecting the interior, I was able to let CreateSpace do the rest and they made my book available for purchase within about a month of initially contacting them.
Self-publishing allows many freedoms but there’s also one reason I never want to self-publish again it’s the most important part of selling a book. The promotion and marketing of a book is too much for a person with a daytime job to handle. It is nearly impossible to market your book successfully without spending at least a few thousand dollars. If there is a way to do it without spending much money, I haven’t yet figured it out. This is the main reason why I am determined to get a deal for my next manuscript with a big-time publisher. I think the key is to stay persistent and have faith in your own ability. I am writing my next novel as we speak and I am determined to get it to an agent and eventually a traditional publisher. Self-publishing was a learning experience and it allowed me to put out the book I wanted to put out. But now, I am ready to move on to the next level and self-publishing has given me the ability to do just that.
Comfortably Awkward is Kenny Scudero’s debut self-published novel. He is a twenty-two year old author from New York City who looks forward to a bright future in writing. Kenny recently graduated from St. John’s University where he majored in Sport Management. At St. John’s, Kenny was Sports Editor for the University newspaper. After graduating from St. John’s, Kenny had trouble finding a job and wrote “Comfortably Awkward” based off that frustration. He is currently working on his second novel.
You can visit Kenny’s website at www.kennyscudero.com for more information.
