Know-How Exchange : Other

Thanks to ChrisB, I have now read your question and can probably help you. There are a number of questions and issues, of course, but we do have a publishing company that has excellent relations with the major US wholesalers, Amazon.com, etc., and we handle fulfillment for our own titles and a few others. We can probably help you too.

Let me suggest that rather than bore everyone here, you contact me privately by clicking on my username and sending private email. I'll respond either by email or with a phone call.

Let me also suggest that you get and study a copy of Tom and Marilyn Ross's book, "The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing." Get the 4th edition, because it's much more relevant than the older editions. You may also want to join the PMA (Publisher's Marketing Association), as they offer a lot of services for small publishers, including one of the better newsletters out there and several support services. ( www.pma-online.org)

The US market is very tough for a new author, even if you do have some successes to point to elsewhere. There are more than 50,000 new titles every year, and most of them sell fewer than 1,000 copies total. The only way to sell books is to promote heavily, and that costs money and takes an inordinate amount of the author's time. And when it's all finished, there usually isn't much money in it. (The author rarely gets 10% of sales, and the publisher doesn't do much better.)

Of course, if you are Stephen King or John Grisham or Hillary Clinton you can do better, but you should know that only about a dozen authors account for 80% of the books sold in the US each year -- not counting textbooks. It's really a tough market. The rare first-time-author success is always well marketed; that's the key.

Anyway, send me an email message with your contact information. I'll do what I can.