Self Publishing
Print on demand, POD, and self-publishing take time to understand. Whether you write your book or we write it for you, the self-publishing maze is daunting. The most important service we offer is personal attention. We listen to your needs and offer individualized help for each book. We want your book publishing journey to be streamlined: we care. We serve clients worldwide and are located near Charlotte North Carolina.
Printing your self-published book
Printing really refers to putting your manuscript in printed form. After all that hard work, slugging away at your book with only your muse to appreciate it (and sometimes the muse seems to be elsewhere!), you can hardly wait to have it in your hands.
Publishing your self-published book
Publishing includes printing as well as making a book available for sale.
Online printing and publishing tend to be corralled together on some websites, but which way is best? Which way is cheaper?
Should you go for an e-book as well as a printed book?
There are dozens of critical decisions to make at this juncture, and we are here to consult you and give you the best information from an experienced professional.
Real Life Stories’ experienced creative team can handle the layout, design, ISBN, bar code, registration with Library of Congress, and printing in paperback as well as archive-quality hardback.
We won’t lie to you: making money on book sales in today’s competitive print-on-demand world is daunting.
You will need to list your book with online retail sales through your website, Amazon.com, Kindle, and more. You will need to create your author website and an author video to promote the book.
Book publishing consulting for self-publishing
Settle down with your favorite beverage my friend, put your feet up and take a deep breath. Because here comes a reality that may feel like a splash of water on your face. Ready? Here it is: Writing a book and hoping it will magically start selling thousands of copies is like shooting hoops in the court and planning on being Michael Jordan.
Books, alas, do not sell themselves.
For every author whose book zoomed to the best-seller list, I can probably show you one or all of the following: (1) a lifetime of cultivating writing skills, and/or (2) the NYT book-selling “machine” at work behind the scenes, and/or (3) a magically timely topic presented in an easy-to-like way.
Almost all beginning authors have the dream that their book will magically sell itself. After a few months or a few years when the book has sold less than a thousand copies, or has sold several thousand but leveled off, these authors usually find themselves discouraged and ready to give up.
We are living in a time when authors must face the reality that to be an author is to be a book-seller. Like it or not, the vast majority of authors whose books have done well have worked the circuits in person with author talks (such as the one noted in the left-hand column on this page) and on the internet with smart marketing–and this is why their books sell.