We hope the topics below are helpful to you:

Three Ways to get Published

Copyright Info

Bar Code Info

Three Ways to get Published

In publishing you have 3 possible directions to go.

1. Have a publisher print and distribute your book. You would pay nothing and basically let them have the reigns. You would simply get royalties. Obviously this is an authors dream. Write, then go to book signings, etc. The problem is that publishers are very picky and reject more books than they takeon.

2. Pay a “publisher” to print and distribute your book. For a price they will not only print, but also try to sell your book. Some of these “vanity printers” can get your book on Amazon or Borders websites, but nothing is guaranteed.

3. Have a printer print your book and you do the selling and distributing. This is what we do. We try to give you as much publishing info as we know, but you pay for only the book or any support product we have available.

Copyright Info

Initial copyrighting is straight forward and you should do this before you send it to anyone you do not know or trust. To get a basic protection against copyright infringement simply state in your document that the book is copyrighted by you and the year you are copyrighting it.

For moreinformation go to www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.pdf. To get the best protection you need to file with the U.S. Copyright office at www.copyright.gov. the form you need is at www.copyright.gov/forms

Bar Code Info

ISBN - The primary book number most authors use is the ISBN. An ISBN is not required if you are selling these on your own or through your own website. BUT you must have an ISBN number to sell your book through bookstores and through internet sites like Amazon.com. You can order these numbers directly from the United States' only Official ISBN agency @ http://www.bowker.com/.

If you are truly publishing this yourself, you will want to purchase your own ISBN number. Please be aware that if you buy one from a publisher or printer, they will more than likely become the publisher of record. This may lock you into using them or at least make it difficult to switch printers. A printing company or publishing services company cannot sell, give away or transfer one of their ISBNs to a customer.

A self-publisher needs to be identified as the publisher by getting their own ISBN. You can always contract fulfillment or marketing services to printing and/or publishing firms.

If you plan on producing different formats like hard back, soft back and ebooks - you will need a unique ISBN for each different format. From a retailers point of view this makes a lot of sense. When one of their customers orders one of your books, what format does the customer want? Hard back, Soft back? Once the retailer knows this, all they have to do is send the publisher the correct ISBN number.

The main draw back is the cost of the ISBN which would be $125 or $150 for an ISBN with a bar code. However, if you are going to publish your book in more than one format, you can buy a block of 10 ISBN numbers for $250. WE CAN HELP YOU BUY YOUR OWN ISBN. Please ask us for more info on ISBN and Bar Codes.