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Do you write for your drawer?
Do not do it.
It is the same as if you threw it away.
If it was worth writing for you, then there is only a small step to publish it
and this small step is called self publishing.
Self publishing brings a completely new possibilities for publishing books.
And here the new world opens before us right now.
I will talk about self publishing of electronic literature, about e-books.
Nothing in this video is about paper.
Paper is dead!
Just like audiocassettes.
I believe that in a few years paper will be just marginal market for its fans.
(LUKÁŠ POKORNÝ SELFPUBLISHING)
Self publishing means publishing without a publisher.
This means that everything, what is traditionally performed by a publisher,
has to be done by yourself.
From proofreading, through graphics, typesetting, to sales and marketing.
However, We currently have tools that can efficiently help us
with many of these issues.
I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to spread their ideas openly and freely.
Electronic literature here makes this process amazingly easier.
Self publishing breaks down barriers, that were posed
BY publishing paper literature all around it.
Self publishing makes it possible to publish for absolutely everyone of us.
A lot of ballast will be created, of course, but somewhere in it there will undoubtedly be pearls,
that would have never arisen without electronic self publishing.
I do not believe that self publishing electronic literature will completely erase all the publishing houses from the world.
This is very likely to be prevented.
But it can quite positively affect relations between the publisher on the one hand,
and the author on the other.
They look at each other as partners who oblige each other.
In the United States of America self publishing has started to be noticed even by large publishers. (SELFPUBLISHING IN THE FOCUS OF GREAT PUBLISHING HOUSES)
Among the large ones there is for example Barnes&Noble. (BARNES&NOBLE BOOKSELLERS)
They have lately started changing their relationships with authors.
Publishers are aware that the author can say
"No, I do not want to publish with you any more, if you do not do it as I wish, but I can publish it by myself."
And even if self publishing brought no more benefits, it has currently shifted
relations between the publisher and the author for the better.
Publishers will not view the author as a resource that must be depleted,
but rather as a partner who they need to cooperate with.
Why do authors go their own way? (WHY DO AUTHORS GO THEIR OWN WAY?)
A lot of writers decide for self publishing with their first book.
The large majority do so because they see the potential of new technologies
or because the publisher refuses to publish their first book.
Self publishing, nevertheless, is not just path for aspiring authors.
Many authors who have published well-known books, publishing bestsellers,
have decided to self publishing simply because they see the possibility of higher income
which is offered by self publishing, unlike what they can obtain in cooperation with publishers.
Authors reject publishers for many different reasons. (WHY DO AUTHORS REJECT PUBLISHERS)
The first, which is often given, is purely the existence of new (NEW INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES)
information and communication technologies that allow them to publish without the help of publishers.
The second reason, that authors often cite, is the simple pursuit of more money.(HIGHER PROFIT)
We must realize that when an author publishes with a publisher,
he receives between eight to ten percent of the amount of books sold,
while if he publishes by himself, quite often he gets 70%, (WITH A PUBLISHER VS. SELF PUBLISHING)
but he can also get 100 % of the revenues for the published book.
Another very frequently cited reason for self publishing is the simple fact (PUBLISHERS REJECT DEBUTS)
that publishers very often refuse publishing an author, who comes to them and offers his debut.
Another reason is the much shorter time between writing and publishing the book. (FASTER PUBLISHING)
For publishers, it's a process, that often takes many months to several years.
Finally, we must not forget the simple fact (AUTHOR OWNS THE COPYRIGHT)
that when a writer goes through self publishing, he retains all copyrights,
which can essentially never be achieved at the normal way of publishing.
I am here talking about self publishing the whole time as if it was something
amazing and simple, great.
It is true to a certain extent.
But to some large extent, it is also true that it is a process
which is not absolutely easy if you want to publish your e-book
really well.
Currently, there is a kind of quality standard in books represented by publishers.
Nobody wants that the public perceived the literature you publish yourself
as a kind of second category.
Thus, it must be really good.
You have to consider whether you are able to complete this process all by yourself.
Authors who use self publishing must realize
that they themselves must handle the entire process currently implemented by publishers.
This means that the author who wants to publish a book himself,
must master proofreading, editing, typesetting,
transferring into various electronic formats, (AUTHOR MUST DEAL WITH)
graphics and last but not least must have mastered (PROOFREADING, EDITING, TYPESETTING)
the business and marketing part of the process as well, (SELECTION OF APPROPRIATE FORMATS)
or, finally, also analyzes that tell him many details about (GRAPHICS, MARKETING, ANALYSES)
where, for example, visitors come to his website and what sales channel
bring him the largest amount of money for his books.
Any author who wants to publish his electronic literature by himself,
must be aware of the following points.
Proofreading is a point which no author that publishes (PROOFREADING)
his book himself can avoid.
It is a seemingly trivial thing which might seem unnecessary.
In fact, it is the thing which is largely involved in whether
your readers will like your book or not.
Nobody wants to read a book full of spelling errors.
A lot of writers think that they are able to write an interesting story
and that they simultaneously master Czech, but it is not true.
Conversely, writers who publish by themselves state that in their experience
proofreading is the absolutely critical point.
Another important point, which no author (EDITING)
of electronic literature should forget, is editing.
Editing lies in the fact that you give your book, that is already written and ready, to someone
to check it otherwise than from the language perspective,
but rather in terms of whether it reads well.
Whether the individual elements of the story follow well enough.
Whether there is something unnecessarily lengthy that should not be there.
Simply put, editor is in charge of the book being good
in terms of reading experience.
To read well.
And you, as authors who publish their books by themselves and do not give it to publishers,
that should arrange this, are responsible for giving it
to at least one qualified person that tells you
"Delete this. Add here something. This rephrase a bit."
And this is the editing.
And you, as authors who publish electronic literature alone, (SELECTION OF APPROPRIATE FORMATS)
you must realize that the public will read your book on a huge number
of different devices.
From desktops through laptops, tablets, mobile phones --
-- a lot of different platforms.
And you have to try to make your text readable in all these devices.
Not many writers know that once something is typeset,
it is displayed differently on Kindle than on iPad, differently on Blackberry and so on.
So when you are formatting your text,
you should follow the simplest possible way of formatting.
Use headings, use paragraphs, but not much more.
The result will be great.
It will always look different, but you can be sure that absolutely everyone will be able to read it.
Throughout the world there is a lot of different formats of electronic literature.
You as writers have to be aware that you definitely should publish your book
in three formats: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI (PDF, EPUB, MOBI)
When you publish your own book in these formats,
it is basically guaranteed that anyone, anywhere and
on any device can read it without problems.
To convert your manuscript into various e-book formats,
one can use countless offline and online programs.
A very good service usable also for Czech authors
is Smashwords. (SMASHWORDS)
Just post your file in Word there and the Smashwords service generates automatically
about five or six different book formats
and, moreover, it will post your finished e-book to large global e-shops.
In order to attract readers to download and buy your book a lot,
it definitely must have a nice cover,
which for an electronic version means an attractive first image (GRAPHICS)
presenting the book on your website, in social networks,
and in all e-shops.
It works quite simply.
When a customer or a person downloading legally free books somewhere
has this huge list of various books on the page,
he or she must see that just your book is somehow standing out,
somehow special.
Thus you should avoid giving a damn about making a nice cover,
you should not only have a white background and black text.
This will not attract anybody.
Such a book may be attractive in a different way.
You may have interesting reviews and so on, but it is also necessary
to attract readers at the first glance.
When doing graphics for your e-book or when you are assigning this job
to a graphic designer, you have to realize that the book should look equally appealing
on a beautiful large full-colour screen as well as on a small monochromatic monitor of a Kindle.
And the same is true for an absolutely miniature monitor of a cell phone.
The key is to ensure that the title of the book is always visible and that the graphics is not so complicated
that one will only see a tangle of gray, white, and black pixels on the small black and white monitor.
You are done with the book.
It looks beautiful.
Amazingly typeset.
It is perfectly edited.
It has no errors.
It has a beautiful cover.
But it is certainly not everything.
The book, which is already in your hands, has to be uploaded in as many places on the Web as possible.
To e-shops, on your own blog, in the social networks.
Sales or free downloading are greatly supported by things as
Facebook, Google+, Twitter. (MARKETING)
You can upload a nice cover of your book on Flickr or Pinterest.
When you do author reading, have it recorded and upload the video then on social networks.
Go to the radio and talk out there about your book.
Let be photographed at your readings and upload your own photos
then to your personal profiles again on various social networks.
Upload them on Flickr, put them on Picasa.
Anywhere.
In this, there are no limits.
On the contrary, it is very exciting and very important aspect of the whole process.
As I started talking about how to make a book good,
Okay, now we have it.
And we can absolutely forget it.
Equally important is just how you promote the book.
You should try placing it wherever your target readers attend.
Typically newsgroups.
When you have a book that deals with some narrower topic, upload it on forums.
And feel free to promote it.
The last point in your process of publishing and distributing you book (ANALYSES)
are analyses.
Using web-based tools, you can see quite accurately
where visitors come to your website or to your blog from or even to your e-shop from (GOOGLE ANALYTICS)
and if, for example, they buy your book after they have clicked on your ad on Adwords or Sklik
or on an ad on Facebook.
The second part of the analyses is simply listening to other people.
You look at what they write to you on newsgroups, what they write to you on Twitter,
what are the responses below your video on YouTube and so on.
You are looking at the reviews, of course.
On this basis you can then gain information that will help you,
for example, write your next book better.
Extremely popular in the world of electronic literature self publishing
is when the author based on purely time-related feedback updates his own book.
It is not so common in novels, poetry and so on,
because these things are very creative,
but if you write a scientific literature or some tutorials or "how to do" instructions,
it is really good to listen to the public and notice
when they say "We cannot understand this, this is unclear," and right away
update your book again and again and, if possible, offer these updated editions
for free. (FREE UPDATES)
The fact is that pure self publishing is extremely rare.
Few authors have the courage to do absolutely everything by themselves.
Most authors will choose a few things in which they trust themselves and in which they are good,
but outsource the rest.
From things like asking their friends
to edit and proofread their book
up to such things as hiring professionals
who, for example, work for a large publishing house in a normal work,
but then also provide services just for these independent authors,
either free or for a fee.
In the United States, where self publishing is really a very strong trend,
there are already specialized companies in which such an author can send their work,
order a particular service, such as typesetting or graphics creation, (OUTSORCE PARTIAL TASKS)
and the company prepares it at professional level for a relatively reasonable fee.
In America recently also a quite interesting phenomenon has started to arise,
which are libraries helping to publish such independent literature.
Self publishing of electronic literature is a reality now.
Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, the United States show us
that this is the way which electronic literature publishing will follow.
Have I not yet convinced you?
Look at the book Be the Monkey written by two successful American (BARRY EISLER AND JOE KONRATH: BE THE MONKEY)
authors of many bestsellers who decided to say NO to publishing houses (BARRY EISLER AND JOE KONRATH: BE THE MONKEY)
and have launched out their own way.
The book is short, apt and shows you that publishing without the publisher certainly works.
Therefore, go ahead.
Try it.
And I will be very happy to read a book by you next time.
THE VIDEO WAS CREATED WITHIN THE PROJECT: CENTER OF INFORMATION EDUCATION: DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION LITERACY AT MU, PROJECT REG. NO. CZ.1.07/2.2.00/28.0241.