Many new authors are mystified about how in the world to get their books into a bookstore.

While is it fairly easy to list your book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online, getting your book into a physical bookstore is very difficult for a new, self-published author.

According to Eric Kampmann, principal of MidPoint Trade Books, large bookstore chains are not interested in dealing with self-publishers or even small independent publishers. They are reluctant because they are not sure that the books will be of high quality with a professional cover and great editing, and it is too time consuming for them to deal with small orders.

That’s when a book distributor comes in.

A book distributor is the intermediary between the publisher and store buyers. Distributors put books in catalogs and send sales staff to pitch books to buyers. They are experts in wholesale book marketing and moving books into stores from warehouses. They also negotiate contacts with stores for special sales, front of store displays, and any type of special promotion for books.

There are different kinds of distributors. If you print your book with Lightning Source, as I do, Ingram Distribution will automatically distribute your book. This is good. However, Ingram has a very large catalog so your book will probably not get too much attention from their sales staff unless you are appearing on Oprah.

Other distributors are smaller and take a more personal approach. MidPoint Trade Books, for example, only agrees to distribute a book after a very rigorous screening process. If a book passes muster, the sales staff will enthusiastically represent it.

Most distributors start working with a publisher 6-12 months before the book is printed. However, distributors will also evaluate books that have been launched if they have sold 300-400 copies on Amazon in the first three months after release. Those Amazon sales figures show that the book can generate sales so a distributor would be interested in pitching it to bookstores.

If you want to sell your books in bookstores, take these steps:
- Make sure you invest in a very professional cover, great editing, and professional layout. Your book has to look first rate and be first rate.
- Start to research distributors before you publish your book. The dates of publication are very important to bookstores sales and you will need a distributor to help you time the launch of your book in the most advantageous way.
- Be willing to pay. Book distributors do a lot of work on your behalf and deserve to be compensated well. Anticipate paying a distribution fee of at least 30% and maybe more.
- Listen and learn. You hire a book distributor for expertise in selling books. They are your partners in the success of your book so if your distributor makes a suggestion for a revised cover, additional editing, or other changes, you would be wise to accept those suggestions.

If this whole idea scares you, give up on the idea of having your book in bookstores and concentrate your efforts on selling it on your own website and on Amazon/Barnes and Nobles.

Putting books in bookstores is not for everyone.

However, if it is your dream, you now have some additional knowledge that will help you make that dream come true.

Want to create a successful book? Discover 8 book marketing blunders that you can avoid. Grab your free ecourse at www.BookMarketingBlitz.com Lynne Klippel is a publisher, author and book shepherd who specializes in helping authors write business building books.

[tags]book distributor,book distribution,selling books,authors,book marketing[/tags]

After you have spent hours writing, editing, and revising your book, you have invested a lot of time, energy and passion into the project. You have also invested some money in a professional edit, cover design, and perhaps some coaching.

There is one last step to a successful book project. Neglecting this final step will lead to embarrassment and a poorly selling book.

This step has several names-formatting, layout, internal design or typesetting. In this step, however you name it; you prepare your manuscript for printing. You take your document and make it look like a book.

Looks matter. It is important to dress your book up in the appropriate attire before you launch it out into the world.

It is possible to do this yourself. I did my own typesetting for my first book. Yikes! It was difficult… OK, to be honest, it was a huge pain!

Unless you love tedious and exacting typing, I highly recommend that you outsource this task. Someone who has experience in typesetting can complete it quicker and with less stress than a novice can.

Whether you do your own typesetting or outsource it, follow these tips to ensure that your book looks professionally done:
- All chapters must begin on an odd numbered page.
- Do not use Times New Roman. It does print well in book format. Suggested fonts for the text include Bookman, Palatino, Garamond, and New Century Schoolbook.
- Create a nice looking title page that includes the name of your publishing house and logo as well as the information about your book.
- The page directly behind the title page should hold the copyright information, full contact information of the publisher, disclaimers, information listing where the book was printed, the ISBN, and Library of Congress Numbers, and any special information about recycled paper if appropriate.
- Be cautious with any graphics. Ensure that they are formatting in jpeg or other graphic program so they are crisp and easy to read. Watch your spacing so that inserting a graphic does not create big empty white spaces around it.
- Do not put double spaces between sentences. This practice is standard when writing articles or reports, but in book, there is only one space between sentences.
- Avoid using Microsoft Word. It does not have the features needed to create a professional looking book. - Watch out for widows and orphans. They are single sentences that are stranded at the beginning or end of a page.
- Watch your colors. Grey scale is OK if used sparingly. Avoid using white type on a dark background, as it will not print well. If you have website addresses, be sure they are in black ink, not the standard blue that your computer will create as you type.

Now you know the basics of internal book design! If you follow just these simple tips, your book will look great. You can further enhance the visual appeal of your book by carefully selected graphics, fonts, pull out quotes and text boxes. Just be sure that your graphics do not distract from the message of your book.

The goal of any book is to serve its readers. Good design will ensure that your readers enjoy the process of reading your book as much as they enjoy your content.

Want to create a successful book? Discover 8 book marketing blunders that you can avoid. Grab your fre.e ecourse at www.BookMarketingBlitz.com Lynne Klippel is a publisher, author and book shepherd who specializes in helping authors write business building books.

[tags]book design,book publishing,formatting,book layout,typesetting,internal design[/tags]

Many authors struggle when pricing their books. On one hand, you are providing extremely valuable information to your readers. On the other hand, books have a perceived value that is less than a coaching session or a live event.

For many of you, pricing will not be an issue. You will work with a publisher who will determine the price of your book for you. However, if you decide to self-publish your book, or work with a publisher who allows you to set your price, you may find yourself in a quandary over the pricing of your book.

Proceed cautiously. There are many important factors to consider when pricing your book. I know an author who wanted to make her book very attractive to buyers. She set her price so low that she lost money on each book sale. Other authors repel sales by pricing their book too high. Pricing requires a delicate balance.

Consider these things before you set your price:
1. How much does it cost to produce your book?
There are many hard costs associated with producing a book. You should know the price of the printing as well as how much you’ve spent for editing, cover design, and marketing. Then estimate how many books you will sell in the first six months after your book launch. Divide all the production costs by the number of books you plan to sell. That will give you a rough breakdown of the hard costs for each book.

2. Remember that bookstores and other wholesale outlets will buy your book at 50-60% of the cover price. Set your cover price high enough that your hard costs are covered at the 50% wholesale price with a bit of profit built in.
3. Determine the pricing of similar books. Amazon.com will give you excellent information. Look for the high and low prices on similar books on Amazon. Note the retail price, not the discounted price on Amazon. The Amazon discount may change daily as Amazon adjusts prices to sell the maximum number of books.

Depending on your genre, you will find that most non-fiction book sell from $14.95 to $29.95. Notice that most book prices end in five not a seven.

Self-help and spiritual books sell at the lower end of that range. Business books are generally on the higher end of the range.

4. Be aware that book sales depend on volume. It is better to strive to sell many books at a small profit per book than to sell fewer books and make more per sale. Remember that your book is a marketing tool for your business so you want to sell as many copies of your book as possible.
5. Once you have a price range for your book from Amazon, set your price in the middle to upper end of the range. If your book is too cheap, buyers will assume that it is not worthwhile.
6. Check your numbers. Will you cover your hard costs at this price?
7. Then, practice saying, “My book sells for $xx.xx.” Can you say that figure with confidence? If not, determine why. Adjust the price until you can say it with confidence and sincerity.
8. Finally, ask your heart. Do you feel that this price is a fair exchange, one in which the reader gets great value in return for their money? When in doubt, err on the side of a slightly lower price. Aim for a fair price that feels like a great deal for the reader and a good deal for you.

Setting the price of your book is an art and a science. Combining the facts of hard costs and profit margins with the more heart centered feeling approach will give you the ideal price for your book.

Want to create a successful book? Discover 8 book marketing blunders that you can avoid. Grab your fre.e ecourse at www.BookMarketingBlitz.com Lynne Klippel is a publisher, author and book shepherd who specializes in helping authors write business building books.

[tags]publishing,setting the price of a book,selling your book,selling books,book pricing,author[/tags]

What would the world be without the invention of ink? Can you imagine if we didn’t have it with which to write things on paper? Think of the history that would be lost. Think of the books that never would have been written. Think of the most important book of them all, the Bible, if it had never been written. All of these things were made possible through the use of one thing: ink.

The Spoken Word Isn’t Enough To Record History

Before ink, people used to communicate in other ways. There was, of course, the spoken word. However, the spoken word can become diluted if it’s passed down through too many generations. Anyone who has ever played the telephone game knows how this works. The telephone game works by having a group of people sit in a circle. One person whispers something in the ear of the person next to them and that person then tells the next person and so on. Eventually, you get to the end where the last person whispers what they heard into the ear of the original person. Anyone who’s ever played this game knows that the information that started the game is rarely the information that’s relayed at the end. This is because information becomes diluted as people’s imaginations run rampant with the information, transforming it into something completely different.

Ink made it possible to write this information down. That way, the information gets preserved for years, even centuries. Without ink, we wouldn’t have some of the stories we have today. We wouldn’t have the textbooks to learn from. Our society might not have advanced as much as it has without it. Who knows? We might be stuck in the stone age if it weren’t for ink.

Ink is so commonplace that we don’t even think about it most of the time. That is, until our printer runs out or our pen gets to light that it just digs grooves into the page. We need it, however. We need it to pass history onto future generations. We need it to teach others the teachings of yesterday and we need it to further our society so that we can make greater bounds than ever before.

Ink is very important to our daily lives. If you’ve never thought about how important it is, I bet you have now. All you have to do is look around you and imagine if there was no ink. All of the printed pages, all of the books, all of the artwork on walls, the PhD’s, the awards, even the constitution of the United States, none of it would have been possible without ink. So the next time someone asks you what you couldn’t live without, tell them ink. They’ll probably look at you crazy, but then you’ll have to prove to them just how bland your life would be without it.

Eddie Lamb publishes an abundance of information on a range of topical subjects. This article Ink: Turn A Blank Piece Of Paper Into A Masterpiece, is just one of a host of useful articles about Inkjet Cartridges listed on our site map at Inkjet Cartridges Informer.

[tags]inkjet cartridge,ink cartridge refill kit,ink jet refill,invisible ink printer,[/tags]

Many people are looking for a way to publish their own book, but they simple don’t know how to go about something like this! I have been looking to publish a book for the last few months myself so I have looked into this quite a lot. There are a lot of websites, services and people that will do book publishing for you but a lot of the time it’s a lot more expensive than you would like!

The publishing part is one of the most important attributes to the book. Yes, the content is important. As is the plot, the reasoning for the book and the background research for the book. But without getting it published. You never stand a chance to have it become “known”. First things first. No one is going to accept unsolicited material.

One of the reasons behind this is because of the copyrights and the laws behind these rules. Nowadays, everyone is always complaining about someone stealing their work and frankly it’s just not worth it to publishers to go through all the hassles. So when you want to get your book published and also “claim” rights to what is yours - how do you go about this? What are the prices? Is it easy or hard? Well the site I found online actually makes it very easy for you.

There are hundreds of courses available, but this is the only one that teaches you how to take that bit of extra time to write a REAL book, and the extra bit of head-work to get it published internationally by top publishing houses. As for the price? It’s really cheap. In fact, it’s just under $40 which is really a good price if you have checked out other sites and or people to do it for you. It’s true - you can always save more money when you do things yourself!

But it’s also important to know exactly HOW to do something and these courses will help you do exactly that. Learn how to decide on your subject matter, choose a best-selling title, set the word-count, structure the work, complete the MS, do the necessary rewrites, choose whether or not to use an agent, source your contacts, submit your MS, negotiate a contract, market your book, and do a book tour, enjoy the entire process, make it easy.

Before you pay a book coach or go on an expensive course please read this e-course. It contains all the information you need! The really great thing about these e-courses is that you can them right away. Just simply pay for the book publishing course and download. It’s quick, easy, affordable and convenient! Check it out!

This Author is a huge fan of book publishing

[tags]publishing your own book, book publishing, publishing own book[/tags]

During the Holocaust, book burning was a common practice and tens of millions went up in smoke. But such disgusting proclivities do not die an easy death.

In 1978 Communist dictator Tito of Yugoslavia gave 850,000 Albanian Muslims in Kosovo autonomy, without a single vote of the other 7 million citizens of his country… this was the first time in a communist country that one group of citizens was shown special treatment, including a form of welfare. Albanian authorities in Kosovo took full advantage of the generosity of Tito and fired every Serb from their jobs as doctors, lawyers, teachers, judges and policemen.

The burning of several Serbian Christian monasteries and the systematic rape of Serbian nuns and young Serbian girls was the chosen form of humiliation to ethnic cleanse 150,000 Serbs who fled to Belgrade during a 5 year period of obnoxious abuse. One Serbian nun was raped twice and beaten numerous times, she was 68 years old at the time. The 87 year old Serbian bishop of Kosovo was beaten on the streets by a gang of Albanian teenagers, he spent three months in intensive care nearly dying of his wounds. He is now the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The banning of the Serbian language and the Cyrillic alphabet, used by the Serbian people since 860 when Sts. Cyril and Methodius developed their language was only the beginning of this brutal regime that has continued to this day and has succeeded in reducing the Serb population in Kosovo from 21 percent in 1990 to a mere 3 percent today. Albanian authorities destroyed 4 major Serbian libraries in the 1970s, removed Serbian books on religion, history and music from all the schools in Kosovo and burned over 2 million volumes. Some were priceless manuscripts from the 13th and 14th centuries.

In the 1980s the work of Ivo Andric, the only Yugoslav Nobel Prize winner was removed from the curriculum of Pristina University because Andric, author of his award winning book, Bridge On The Drina, admitted he was a Serbian. The world pretended not to notice and the media managed to look the other way in the past 7 years as Albanian Muslim terrorists, under the noses of 17,000 NATO troops, razed 157 ancient Serbian Orthodox churches. These Serbian churches contained some of the finest frescoes in the world and UNESCO listed many as World Treasures.

What does this have to do with lead and books for children you ask? I will get to that point a little later.

The Serbs, whose culture and religion has been successfully erased from the landscape in Kosovo with the aid of the American media only reveals that the Serbs have been so successfully demonized that most in our government think Serbs have it coming. Few major American newspaper and television networks has reported on the destruction of these religious and cultural landmarks. Even fewer have told the world that 40 percent of the Albanians in Kosovo are illegal aliens in Serbia who have crossed the border from Albania into Kosovo as easily as Mexicans cross our border each night in San Diego. Granting Kosovo independence is an outrageous illegal stealing of sovereign Serbian territory where the Serbs have been a majority for a thousand years and where they built over 1,500 Christian churches and monasteries over the centuries in an area the size of Rhode Island.

George Santayana reminds us that… Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Goethe so loved the Serbian people that he learned to speak their language. It was Goethe who convinced Brahms to write his famous lullaby that was based on a Serbian folk poem. Goethe also reminds us: Patriotism Ruins History. These examples are clearly illustrated in the behavior of the Albanians in Kosovo where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with Albanian leaders this week who were all Nazis in 1945 when they razed dozens of Serbian churches including the Serbian Cathedral of the Holy Trinity.

On July 24, 1999, under the Clinton administration and his secret CIA assistance to the KLA terrorists, the Serbian Cathedral, rebuilt during the Tito communist regime, was once again raised and Albanians like the current Prime Minister and former KLA leader Hashim Tachi danced in the streets through the night in celebration of destroying this Serbian Cathedral twice in 55 years. Just like these American politicians will no doubt dance around the intellectual bonfires of burning books for children!

Now let us get to books and lead content. It is hard to believe, but true: under a law passed by our stupid Congress last year is yet another example of their rush to pass irresponsible laws to regulate products for children, the federal government has now advised that books for children published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or even give away.

Bookstores, thrift stores may be at legal risk if they sell older volumes without first subjecting them to testing… at prohibitive expense. I just had This Bible Talks one of our newest titles tested and it cost me $150.00. Many used-book sellers have begun to refuse new donations of pre 1985 books, and are removing what they have from their shelves in this draconian new law in fear of potential lawsuits. So, what is the alternative? It has been arrogantly suggested that books printed before 1985 be burned. How compelling that our elected officials resort to Nazi style solutions instead of a realistic approach to solving the problem. Perhaps companies like mine should seek a bailout from Barney Frank and his ilk for the costs of our inventory of books for children?

Like the current stimulus bill that has been shoved down our throats without a single lawmaker reading the 900 page bill before voting on it, this same Congress, after the panic over lead painted toys from China passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA). Among its other draconian provisions, CPSIA imposed tough new limits on lead in any products intended for use by children under the age of 12 and made the limits retroactive: in other words, goods manufactured before the law passed cannot be sold on the used market (even in garage sales or on eBay) What this says to small business owners is, eat it, regardless of your investment.

Many products for children have included lead, components such as snaps and zippers on garments and backpacks and countless other products containing metal alloy like rhinestones and beads. This law will destroy more companies or financially ruin many at a time when unemployment is headed for 600,000 jobs per month. Have our elected representatives simply lost their minds?

The insanity of this measure with a new retroactive aspect on playthings and articles that contain plastic softening chemicals known as phthalates you suddenly have tens of thousands of common items that have become unlawful to resell. Penalties under the law are strict and can include $100,000 fines and prison time, regardless of whether any child is harmed. Sound like something Nancy Pelosi would add to a piece of legislation. Common sense has been thrown out of the window along with the baby and the bath water.

For decades lead pigments in inks, dyes and paints were used in books for children, particularly in the great age of illustrated books at the turn of the 20th century. While lead poisoning from paint in old houses remains a serious public health issue, no one seems able to produce any evidence in which an American child has been made ill by the lead in old book illustrations, and for good reason, book pigments do not flake off in chips for children to put into their mouths.

The New York Times, whose editorial pages vigorously supported the passage of CPSIA is a major newspaper that also covered the book and apparel business but has remained strangely silent on the law in recent weeks, not too surprising to American Serbs as this is the very same newspaper that for the entire decade of the 1990s did not publish one single article written by a Serbian journalist, author, scholar or political leader during the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. The Times led the charge in muzzling of opposing views. The New York Times company slogan, All the news that is fit to print, is hypocrisy at its finest, about as absurd as this new law that will destroy small companies like mine and thrown hundreds of thousands of our citizens out of work in a goal to have a non-functioning economy as the result of political correctness run a muck.

William Dorich is an author of 5 books on Balkan history. His newest titles are: Defeat Foreclosure and The Nursing Home Crisis. See: