This is the second half, belatedly, of an interview with Morris Rosenthal of Foner Books and the wonderful book, Print-On-Demand Book Publishing. He offers sound and prophetic advice on the future of independent publishing.
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4. Your book, Print-On-Demand Book Publishing, is on eof the early books that shows a different way to be successful in independent publishing. What advice can you offer from the book?
MR: It took me several false starts to write that book and in the end, I wrote the book I wished I'd had around to read when I first got involved in writing and publishing. The first third of the book describes the trade publishing industry as it is today, talks about author contracts and distribution, in order to provide the context for the new print-on-demand model. I'm not trying to convince readers that there's only one right way to do anything, but I wanted to provide enough background, especially for those new to publishing, to know where they need to start their research to make the right decisions for themselves.
The middle of the book is about print-on-demand publishing and the costs and benefits of working with the primary POD provider to the whole industry, Lightning Source. I also provide a one year case history of my first POD book to demonstrate how different that life cycle is from the typical New York trade model of publishing a large number of books onto the shelves and waiting to see if it will result in more orders or returns.
The last third of the book focuses primarily on Internet marketing. My own approach to promoting books on the Internet can be summed up by "content." I give away big chunks of books that cover entire subtopics, not teasers that leave the reader wondering if I really have anything to say, and I add to my website continually, so there's far more material online than some subjects I write about than there is in the books. I also publish online BEFORE publishing on paper, in some cases,I start writing articles on my website years before I write an actual book. It's the best way to get honest feedback by way of e-mail and server statistics on the true potential of a book. For example, I dedicated two months this winter to researching and writing a guide for American tourists spending long periods of time in Jerusalem. If the site doesn't produce enough interest, I won't expand and edit it into a published book.
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