Support for Indie Authors discussion

Hi I'm trying to publish a book and I'm currently in contact with Legaia Books. This is gonna be my first time to publish a fiction novel and They're offer is quite reasonable compared to other self publishing companies. Have you had any experience with them? You can also check their website for me it's www.legaiabooks.com, I'm interested with their Cornerstone Package which is the cheapest. Thanks guys!

If you're trying to self-publish, do it yourself. Many of the so called self-publishers are vanity publishers, and the experience can be bad. Horror stories include having to buy an entire run of books and be stuck with them, winding up in yard sales and Christmas gifts to friends.

Let me suggest Create Space for print on demand, and Amazon to.market the eBooks.

Also, many self-publish companies lock your book into an exclusive contract that you may regret later.

I used BookTango to publish my novella. They didn't charge me anything, though they have extra services for a fee, and I get a pretty good % off all my sales. I think I get $0.60 for all sales and my book is priced at $0.99. They are for both print and ebooks (I went with the ebook option).

As others have said August, you don't need to pay to self-publish, and in fact most places like that fall under what we term "Vulture" publishers. They will take your money, do nothing that you can't do yourself, and charge you too much to do it. Look at Smashwords.com, or Createspace/KDP. There are tons of great options for todays self-publisher. Heck, I know a few authors that only sell books from their site.

Thanks Morris!

I checked createspace before and it seems that you need to do everything yourself. I'm very new to this and really don't have an idea on what to do. Legaia offered me a $499 package that provides website already will this help?

Create Space seems to be the most hassle free and inexpensive way to get your book published. I've looked at some of the others, and there is no comparison. Plus, as Morris stated, Amazon will then market your book automatically.

And I know we're Support Indie Authors guys, but don't forget Independent Presses that pool their resources. Not quite the same as self-publishing, but you can find a place that will help you with aspects of your book and not charge you if you're willing to take rejection letters.

Hi Riley,

Thanks alot. I'll look into my options. This group is very helpful

I've self-published two novels. Used Amazon's KDP/KU for the ebooks and CreateSpace for the paperbacks. Process worked smoothly and it cost me nothing (except a bit of my time).

I went through a company like this years ago. It was free, but it was a huge mistake. The contract seemed reasonable, but once it was signed they just ignored my existence when I tried to contact them. As everyone else said, do it yourself. Way too many free options out there to pay that much for someone who is probably in it for the rights to your book and your money.

Createspace is fantastic and super easy for paperback stuff. KDP is amazing for your ebook needs. I've used both for two of my books and I couldn't be happier.

I say, and this is my advice to all aspiring authors, 'make money elsewhere and then enjoy being a writer'. If you have the budget and you don't give up on bread & butter in order to self-publish, you can outsource whatever you like and leave for yourself only the things you enjoy, like writing, correspondence with fans, etc. If you have dough for massive advertisement, you might even end up having decent sales...

Just do it yourself. You don't need to work with any publisher. But do hire a freelance editor, proofreader, and cover designer, so you put out a professionally produced book.

You be the boss. You don't need to go through a publisher. They'll just end up taking money out of your pocket.

I recommend Creatspace.com as well.

There are lots of vanity press that are happy to take your money.

Many people here have recommended Createspace; if you're interested in considering other options as well, I published my first book through Lulu.com. My experience with Lulu was quite good and I would recommend checking them out. I am likely to go through Lulu again for my second book, although for the ebook edition I may use Smashwords as it seems to be closer to Amazon.

I use createspace for printing my paperbacks. Excellent company, excellent product, and excellent service. I've been very happy with them.

This topic is making my think back to me amateur days when I first published with Publish America....oh the stories I could tell you..

August wrote: "Thanks Morris!

I checked createspace before and it seems that you need to do everything yourself. I'm very new to this and really don't have an idea on what to do. Legaia offered me a $499 package..."

August, if you're looking for help with your book cover, I designed mine myself. I took several photoshop classes in school, and while I wouldn't say I'm an expert, I'm not half bad. If you are interested in some help in that department, feel free to shoot me an email. It's a hard process, but you're not alone. Good luck!

Hi August, take the advice above. There is a ton of information in this group. I checked Legaiabooks web site and their "cornerstone" package is $499, their "Best Seller" package is $3,499!! That is a huge red flag, half a dozen of them.

Hi August, I don't think I would be comfortable paying for a publishing package. When I first published this past April, I did the work myself. I used both Amazon and Smashwords to publish. There are a ton of topics that will help you learn to set up your book and to upload to the converters for ebooks. I will use createspace when I put my books in paperback etc. You can do this, you won't need to pay, but it will take a little research and work.

If you spend any money on stuff, spend it on a good artist and an editor, Get your website for as close to nothing as you can. One.com is the one I use now, after spending gobs of money on a website the first two years that I could have used on an artist. You need an ISBN number for your print on demand book, but unless you publish your eBook with multiple outlets, an ISBN is not necessary for the eBook, if you stay exclusively with Amazon. The use an internal ASIN number, which is free.

Can you find someone to help you through the first stages of Createspace? It does seem daunting, but it's well worth it. One thing about Createspace, you can call them and they call you right back. I like it because you do the work for Createspace and then if you wait a bit to make sure your cover gets transferred it will all go to Kindle automatically...on your say so of course. I know it's scary, I was scared out of my wits when I first did it and of course I made mistakes. But the mistakes can be corrected.

For you first time Indie authors, just make sure you have an assisted publishing company that will ONLY print your books on demand, whether that demand comes from you ordering your own books or from a customer purchase. You won't get stuck with stacking books in your basement. I went with the company, Createspace. They are very professional, and I have had no problems with them...at all. Take care and all the best with you.

Another thing I found helpful is searching above on 'search discussion topics'. I recently did this for DRM and there are a number of comments, both pros and cons, but I decided to go with it. Take the time to read the topics and if you don't see one, search and it's likely out there. Good luck!

August, I tried to use a vanity publishing & it was a nightmare. Poor service, lots of hidden costs. The choice of graphics was limited and the proofreading dire. The end product was poor & I ended up in a legal wrangle with them which is still ongoing, 4 years down the line. I did find another publisher who was great and very helpful. Createspace is okay but expensive if yo are looking maximise profit. You get around 20%, which seems okay but then the major bookstores can take up to 50% which means you end up out of pocket! Do the math(s) first.

Riley, I know createaspace looks terrifying as to doing it yourself. I felt the same way but whatever is not right you can proof it before approving it to be published and you can do this as often as you like no charges. Trust me my format was awful and I felt lost in the beginning. I have revised my book several times because I keep noticing my mistakes. I needed something like createaspace because I first went with a self publishing company and I spent more money than was in my budget and the cost for me to order books was ridiculous 70%. Anything else i needed done outside of the cheap package was another fee for another package, it never ends and this is why I chose to publish my book with createaspace plus they have a team to do the work for you if you don't want to at a much cheaper rate. Just my thoughts.

Sorry, I meant to say this to Augusta not Riley

Comment deleted for self-promotion. We have folders set aside for that. Linking to your own book in someone else's thread is against the group guidelines.

To August. tapping keys to quickly

I published my first novel through CreateSpace and the Kindle Direct Publishing service and I have no regrets. It didn't cost me a dime to publish and I was immensely satisfied with the final product. I don't plan on switching services anytime soon.

It could just be my observation, but I checked into Legaia Press, as originally linked. Their site says, "We'll publish your book FREE!" Then I noticed you said something to the effect of $499 in total costs. Something doesn't compute.

A few years ago, the advice was, "A good company pays you to write. You don't pay them." So far, my entire costs from my three books have been $30,00, and part of that was book cover design, hired out. The rest was copies I ordered for proofing before sending out the book to the public. Admittedly, sales have been slow, but up to now I've about broken even. That's another trick entirely. Getting someone to buy your book isn't an easy task. Even if your product is incredibly affordable, there's no guarantee, and even if you run a giveaway, you have no guarantees of residual sales. Some may despise your book, and if they rate you first, you could probably be toast. Fortunately, that hasn't been my result.

As far as editing goes, I've found that Grammarly does a nice job of picking up the few errors I don't catch myself, so I've had no editing complaints.

In addition, one of the free services I would recommend is CutePDF, if you're going the CreateSpace route. What this simple device does is prints off your pages EXACTLY as they appear in your editor. So you can spend just a small amount of time to get a really nice result. PDF Merge is the other one, and all it does is print the various PDF files into one. So, for example, if you want to not have page numbers on part of your book (perhaps trailers for your next book, or introductory pages), you can stitch these together seemlessly.

Finally, unless you really know artwork, I do recommend getting a professional cover artist. Some artists will work for $20 or less. And there are a bunch of free resources like Flickr, where you can find free commercial use images for your book cover.

These are just my recommendations. Perhaps they will help someone.

I have to agree with everyone of the people who say, don't spend money, go through Createspace and Kindle. If you have a question, you put in a request to Createspace and they will call you back immediately. The toughest part of Createspace is getting your manuscript formatted correctly which means if you're in Word, you need to do everything through styles. You format your manuscript in an organized way if you use Styles. Kindle is particularly tricky without styles. My first book going through Kindle had all these extra spaces. After I learned how to use styles, relatively simple once you understand the concept, my Kindle manuscripts came out exactly like I wanted them to.