How To Publish and Promote Online

Got a book in you just begging to be written? Get it down tonight and start selling it in the morning. No need to hunt for an agent, entice a publisher, bicker about royalty rates, and suffer the interminable wait between acceptance and publication. Do it yourself--online! M. J. Rose (author of Lip Service) and Angela Adair-Hoy (www.writersweekly.com) have collected everything you need to know in this honest-to-goodness-old-fashioned, conventionally published print book. A book that reads very much like an e-book: the chapters and paragraphs are the epitome of brevity, and there are hundreds of links to Web sites. Twenty-two of the 58 chapters were provided by Rose and Adair-Hoy's e-publishing cohorts, who may well have traded their services, as Rose and Adair-Hoy recommend e-authors do, for a byline complete with Web-site link.

Whether you're interested in publishing by download, e-mail, or CD-ROM; whether you'd like to do it yourself or hire an e-publisher, all you need to succeed, say the authors, is "a good book and a good marketing plan." Packed into this book's 266 pages is solid advice on creating an e-book, becoming an e-publisher, and selling your book online. Banner ads, it turns out, are a waste of money. Better to mention your book in your signature, then make your presence known by joining appropriate discussion groups, writing free articles for related Web sites, and sending out catchy press releases. Throw yourself a cyberbook party, do a virtual book tour, and schedule some author chats. And never hesitate to give away free chapters, or even whole books. "Every free book you give away," says Rose, "will be more valuable to you than the few dollars you might have made on it." --Jane Steinberg