Hi I was just wondering how you would go about publishing a book and getting it on the market. IF anyone has any tips that would be great. thanks.

Write it, read it a hundred times, check ALL your facts, check them again, get magic friends / associates to proof read it, read it 100 times, recheck all your facts THEN send it to a few publishers.

Only then does the hard work begin!

:)

Gary

Assuming your book is a manuscript form say in MS Word you need to decide on how and if it will be illustrated- photos, line art etc. If you leave all this to a magic publisher you will lose some control over the final product. If you are not that well known getting a publisher interested in your work may be difficult. Consider publishing it yourself. You can go low end with a product printed at Staples or high end and have it printed in hardcover with a color dustjacket. Once you have it printed marketing it is the next big hurdle if you self-publish. Advertise in magic magazines and buy a banner on The Magic Café or other sites. Reviews by initial buyers can launch your book sales. Set up a website to sell it.
http://geocities.com/larrybarnowsky/
Go to http://www.geocities.com/larrybarnowsky/......cket.pdf to see the dustjacket in full color.

If you are serious about offering a quality product, I would say using geocities as a base is a NO NO.

It just says 'home made', A simple, professionally designed website wont cost you much!

I create them every day for clients, they make a huge difference!

Gary

Gary,
I agree with what you said. A professionally designed website would look better and probably be more functional. However, my homemade website has worked fine for me and because I set it up myself I've been able to make changes as needed without having to involve a web consultant each time. Publishing a book yourself has its perils. I didn't know that much about the process but I know a lot more now. The book has sold well and we've past the breakeven point. If I had to do it again I would have gotten an expert to set up the website and next time I will.

I've seen beautiful websites selling "books" that were assembled at Staples (copy shop chain in US). Ultimately the product quality is the most important issue. It's a matter of substance vs form. In my case all the big bucks went into the printing of the book: #80 Ultra Satin Stock, Smyth Case Bound, Gold Stamped Cloth Cover, and Four Color Dust Jacket with 315 black and white photos.

If all the photos, text, and art work are already in MS Word, is that an acceptable format for high quality publishing? I have been kicking the idea of one day publishing a limited edition hardbound book on the magic of Richard Gerlitz.

Well, if you want to go with a Microsoft program, Publisher would be preferred over Word- it allows for more precise and varied placement of text. You still need Word since Publisher is not a fully functional word processor. (ALMOST but not quite.)

However, FIRST figure out how you are going to get this printed. A lot of book printers can't work with Microsoft products at all, and prefer Pdfs (Which you can make FROM Ms products) Page maker, or In design.

Most printers now a days can work from Pdfs so if you do the lay out in Publisher, and then create a 300 DPI PDF they can print from that decently.... but if you need color or separations, you'll want to go with an adobe product or quark.

Pm me if you have any other questions and I'll try to help.

If you want a bunch of quotes from a bunch of printing companies, go to Printellectual.com

Thanks for the information, leapinglizards...greatly appreciated.
George

My pleasure

Bonjour!

I planned to release a book on coin magic...
Since, I see a lot of download possibilities here and there and I wonder:
Is it best to print a book?
or work with a site and propose your workunder the download form?
I'm still thinking about this, and I can't take a decision...
Any advice?

Merci!

Well, I prefer real books to E books, That's my preference. To me the BEST of both worlds is to offer BOTH.

To me, if it is a very small, (Ie folks wouldn't want to pay $20 for a 5 page trick idea) Or very large (An 800 page book might be cost prohibative to print and distribute in the small quantities that most magic books are created) An E book might be a good option to explore.

E books bother me because they are so easy to copy and share/ steal. Of course people can photo copy a book, but that's more time, cost and effort... But most E books can be copied and sent with a click of the mouse.

There are ways to protect e books, but a lot of folks don't seem to like those, so you run the risk of lost sales because of it.

If you have the ability to send e books out manually, you can protect them to SOME degree by water marking them with the purchaser's name and personal info, but that gets sticky as well.

E books are ALWAYS a great alternative for your first book if you A- can't find a publisher or B- don't have the capital to publish yourself.

If you want to self-publish don't go to Staples to print up a whole lot of copies unless you know for sure you're gonna sell them. You don't want to sit on boxes full of unsold material. Instead you could go to Lulu.com like John Thompson and others and put your book there. In that case you make money on every sale without minimal or no setup costs.

And listen to Gary, don't rush. The best you can do is have it picked apart over spelling and grammar and have a trusted person pick apart the magic as well.