Guest Post by  Yvonne Perry about her ePublishing Choices

A prolific author with over 15 books already available, Yvonne Perry is sharing with us various channels she used to self-publish her own books and explains why she chose one system rather than the other.

How I Published My Book

By Yvonne Perry

It seems every time I self-publish a book, there are new technologies and opportunities available to bring the manuscript to the market. Fortunately, these changes have made it easier to publish a quality book that can sell for a profit and still compete with the millions of other books for sale.

I could have gone the conventional route and sought publishing through one of the “big six publishing houses”: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House, or Simon & Schuster, or one of their imprints (subsidiaries). These houses are very selective about whose work they will publish. It could take years of querying to get even a nibble; and then, if they did accept my book, I would lose control of the process (such as textual changes I might not desire), ownership of the title, and the publishing date. It could take as much as two years for them to get my book on the market. I didn’t want to waste that much time. I knew I could successfully produce a quality book on my own. I had done it before.

In 2009, I used Lightning Source (LS) to publish The Sid Series ~ A Collection of Holistic Stories for Children. By becoming an independent publisher, I was able to directly sell my book to Amazon at an increased profit margin by removing the middle person. Amazon asks publishers to sell books to them at 50-55% off the cover price so they can turn around and sell the book to customers at a 30% discount. As a publisher, I had the option of selling my book to Amazon at a higher price. But, they were only able to offer their customers a 10-percent discount on this title. There were advantages to publishing with LS at the time, but that was before Amazon.com started offering publish-on-demand services through their sister company, Createspace.com.

After checking out Createspace (CS) and publishing a book of poetry just to see how well the system worked, I chose to publish my latest book, Whose Stuff Is This? Finding Freedom from the Thoughts, Feelings, and Energy of Those Around You, through CS for the following reasons:

1. It costs nothing to publish with CS. That’s right. No up-front fee. They will even get the ISBN for you (or you can provide your own from R.R. Bowker as I did.
2. You can design your book cover on their Web site using their somewhat customizable template. Or, you can upload your own cover as I did, or pay to have them create one for you.
3. You can upload a standard PDF file of your book. I did not have to hire a graphic designer to do the interior layout for me. Lightning Source charges a publishing fee and you are required to upload camera-ready files to them—a task you may have to hire a professional to complete.
4. It was easy to obtain a printed copy for proofreading. Once I made changes to my digital master document, I sent these used printed copies to the people I was seeking endorsements from. This allowed me to get endorsements before my book was available to the public.
5. CS allows you to upload revised copies as many times as you need to insure you are satisfied with the final product. It took me three tries to get the file exactly as I wanted it to be printed.
6. Once I approved the final copy on Createspace, it automatically entered the distribution channels I selected. I chose to allow them to sell my book on their site as well as Amazon.com. They even set up the “Look Inside” feature for me.
7. The book was actively listed on Amazon the same week I approved the final copy.

As long as your files meet their layout requirements, CS and LS will print exactly what you send without making any changes or revisions. Therefore, the editing and proofreading is up to you. Writers in the Sky Creative Services can work with authors in this capacity and walk them through the publishing process. No matter how you publish your book, you will still have to market it.

About my latest book:

Whose Stuff Is This? Finding Freedom from the Thoughts, Feelings, and Energy of Those Around You is a book for those who carry energetic burdens that belong to someone else. With more than two dozen proven and effective ways to clear your energy field, this guide employs empowering, proactive techniques to manage your own energy.  With a chapter on the psychology of empathy by Dr. Caron Goode, this book presents the personal story of how the author learned to psychically protect herself.

Are you empathic? Are your coworkers, friends, and family members like psychic vampires who siphon your energy and leave you feeling drained? Feeling angry, depressed, or sick most of the time? You may be an empath picking up on the detrimental thoughts, emotions, and attitudes of others. Learn to shield yourself from unwanted energy as you develop emotional intelligence; offer compassion without paying a personal price; set boundaries and detach from environmental stimuli including the energy of people and entities; and raise your vibration to a level that makes you invisible to lower-vibrating energy. See http://WhoseStuffIsThis.com for more information.