Another Good Reason to Self-Publish

This week I decided to put a new face on one of my older books. Give it a fresh start, so to speak. I searched about for some appropriate art (making sure that credit was given to the artwork creator as per the rules), then slapped my title and name on it after a bit of reshaping, resizing, and messing about.

I uploaded the front cover to Smashwords (free this week using coupon code RE100) and Kindle, along with the new interior text denoting the cover art change.

Next, I reshaped the cover for the 6x9" format of the print book. Took it over to CreateSpace (paperback at Amazon) and redid the cover using their new cover creator. It's easiest, I must note, to create your own front cover, then let them take care of the spine and backcover. I didn't have to create a full cover PDF like I used to do in the olden days of self-pubbing.

In three days, I changed my book's look, uploaded a nicer looking interior, and sent the thing out to the world.

What if I had an agent and a publisher? Wouldn't have happened. Not only that, a couple of my older books wouldn't even be alive anymore. As a low volume seller, my best seller would have been pulled from the virtual shelves. As the publisher of record (using those free ISBNs offerered by Smashwords and CreateSpace), I did in days something that would have taken months, or maybe not done at all.

Yup. I'm not all that distraught not having an agent to wait on while they spend months or years finding a publisher, possibly not getting one at all. I do have a small epublisher, MuseItUp Publishing, I'm quite happy to have. I won't make the sales I do with my self-pubs. It's a matter of costs. My publisher's retail price has to be higher to pay the editors, cover artists, the publisher, and the distributors.

I can make decide when to run a promo. I can set my ebook price to $0.00 if I've a mind to. I can change the cover or upload new interiors when I want. I can also change the price on my print book, although the price change takes a tad longer. The new edition of the print book is still in process and will show up in a few days on Amazon. Right now, it's for sale only by third party sellers. Hint: I have the best price (see Texas Boy Publications). The new book will cost more because I feel like upping the price. Maybe I'll lower the price next week. Point is, I decide such details, not somebody else who may not have my best interests in mind.

Sure, if I had gotten an agent a few years ago when the publishing world was claiming that's what you had to do, I'd probably be very happy with how it worked. Waiting for the agent to find a publisher (if at all), waiting for the publisher to get around to publishing my book, waiting for royalties that must be sent out by tortoise mail. It would have been fine.

But since that didn't happen, I've found I'm pretty happy with the way I ended up publishing some of my books. I'm also happy I've got MuseItUp as my new publisher. We'll see how that goes over the long run.