A Beginner's Guide to Self-Publishing and Marketing Your Book
By: Julie Gerber and Carole P. Roman
Published: September 4, 2016
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Non-Fiction
I have reviewed many of Carole P Roman's children's books over the years. She started writing later in life and has self-published all of her books as well as creating a business of marketing and self-publishing many books for other authors. In this book, she collaborates with her daughter to offer advice and steps to follow for those wanting to write a book and look at possibly self-publishing their book.
Even though I have no intention of ever writing a book, I found this book helpful as a way for me to understand the process that authors go through to "sell" their book and get it into the hands of readers. As a blogger and book reviewer, I get emails on a daily basis from authors and publishers asking me to read their book. I can't possibly read every single book that comes into my path, but I do read each and every email and respond when my interest is piqued. I found some of the advice regarding what to put in your synopsis, back cover, and the elevator pitch extremely interesting. I can think of many books that I felt gave too much info on the back cover and others that gave unnecessary information about the story. This can make or break it for a reader. I learned that there was a standard size range for books to fit on library shelves and you want to make sure your book fits those ranges.
After reading through this book, I can appreciate the time self-published authors spend on creating, selling, and marketing their book. All the hours spent writing, editing, and publishing and authors are still not done, My job of reviewing their book is just a small piece of that marketing puzzle.
Gerber and Roman do an excellent job of giving ideas and explaining each step of the process in a simple and easy to understand format. Each chapter is brief and to the point and authors can make a checklist of sorts to help them stay on task and work their way through the process of self-publishing.
Gerber and Roman also offer lists of websites that would be helpful to authors in their writing process as well as publishing and marketing. I must say, that I was thrilled to be one of the respected websites listed as providing quality reviews. I appreciated that the authors warned readers that bloggers and book reviewers have limited time to read books. They recommended using their correct name and respecting their time and not expecting a review in just a few weeks. I am grateful that Gerber and Roman shared this with authors and especially the point that just because you send a book out doesn't mean you will get a review. As a reviewer, I know how much time and money is spent getting books in the reviewer's hands and I do my best to review as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
I read the kindle version of this book which I purchased and unfortunately found several mistakes throughout this book in grammar and misused words. One of the focuses of the book was the importance of editing and I was surprised to find so many mistakes while reading. It's one of my pet peeves while reading a book. While I know not every mistake can be found all the time, I felt like this was a book that needed to make that a priority due to the subject matter.
I highly respect Gerber and Roman for all their work writing and promoting authors. They have been fabulous to work with over the years and I look forward to reading many more of Roman's books. If you are dreaming of writing a book, this is a must-read for you early in the writing process.
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| Julie Gerber |
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| Carole P. Roman |
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