Why Self Publishing My Book is the Right Path

Cover of My New Book

After a brief break from blogging, I’m back to report that my book, “Five Stones for Christians in Crisis” wil be available on Amazon.com in about two weeks. The book is a game plan for those struggling through a crisis in their lives and expands on a lot of the content in this blog.

I decided to self publish my book through CreateSpace, Amazon.com’s self publishing division. Although I had a complete proposal ready (based on M. Hyatt’s great proposal outline) and had queried a few agents, I decided not to wait around hoping they would contact me.

The thing about a traditional publishing route is that it’s really based more on how well you can market the book. It’s a business decision (great article here explaining this). These days, agents and publishers want to know just as much, if not more, about your platform as your content.

I wanted to spend this year actually selling my book rather than trying to get an agent to accept my proposal.

Agents and publishers want to know that you can sell a lot of books right out of the gate by the contacts and influence you have (i.e., large blog readership, more potential sales). The one agent that did respond to my proposal only had questions about my marketing plan, not my content.

I can understand that but I believe the tide has turned. Authors now have everything at their disposal to publish and sell their books. It will require a lot of work, but the good books will find the readers.

I don’t have dreams of making the best seller lists. I certainly don’t have dreams of getting rich! I would like to sell a lot of books , but I’m more interested in selling my book to help others.

I still have a marketing plan, and it consists of more than just a few blog posts, selling to friends, or Twitter posts. I’ll be exploring lots of ways to put my book into the hands of people who need help going through tough times. I know it’s not easy.

I can say that self publishing was not easy either – at least not easy if you have high standards in reading and writing. I am a professional writer and have been writing for about 16 years. I spent two years writing my book and spent weeks getting it formatted just right. I also had two colleagues help edit.

Could my book have been better going through a traditional publisher? I believe so. The cover would have been better, and I’m sure the writing would have been tighter.

Yet I believe that any writing mistakes will not get in the way of the content. I think the cover will not turn people away from the book. I am 100 percent convinced that anyone going through a crisis will find the information in my book valuable.

When my book is available on Amazon, I’ll post the link on this blog. You can subscribe to be notified of any new blog posts here.

I’ve put two years of blood, sweat, and pain in this book. My purpose of writing it and this blog is purely to help others. I hope you’ll buy the book and tell me what you think.

UPDATE: My book is now on Amazon.com! Read more here.

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