Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki • Shawn Welch NONONINA PRESS APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch Copyright © 2013 by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch All Rights Reserved Copyeditor: Rachelle Mandik Cover Design: Holly Thomson Interior Design: Shawn Welch All rights reserved. This book was self-published by the authors Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch under Nononina Press. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without the express permission of the authors. This includes reprints, excerpts, photocopying, recording, or any future means of reproducing text. If you would like to do any of the above, please seek permission first by contacting us at http://apethebook.com Published in the United States by Nononina Press ISBN 978-0-9885231-1-1 Version 1.2 (Baldacci) Also by Guy Kawasaki The Art of Start Rules for Revolutionaries The Macintosh Way Selling the Dream How to Drive Your Competition Crazy Hindsights The Computer Curmudgeon Database 101 Reality Check Enchantment This copy of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book was provided for free by Writer.ly. (Disclosure: Guy and Shawn advise Writer.ly) #APETheBook You can follow APE news using the hashtag #APETheBook on social- media networks. Because of rapid advancements in self-publishing, this book is updated as often as necessary. This is the Baldacci version of APE. To see what has changed or been added since this version was printed, visit APETheBook.com/updates. [ About the Authors ] Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” C. S. Lewis Guy Kawasaki is the author of eleven previous books, including What the Plus!, Enchantment, and The Art of the Start. He is also the cofounder of Alltop.com and the former chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College. Shawn Welch is the author of three previous books, including From Idea to App, iOS 5 Core Frameworks, and iOS 6 for Developers. He is also the developer of several iOS apps. Previously he worked as a senior media editor for Pearson Education. He also helped pioneer many of Pearson’s earliest efforts in iPad solutions. Welch has a BS from Kansas State University. [ Contents ] A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading. William Styron, interview with George Plimpton, 1958 [ Author ] 1 Chapter 1 Should You Write a Book? 2 Chapter 2 A Review of Traditional Publishing 9 Chapter 3 The Self-Publishing Revolution 23 Chapter 4 The Ascent of Ebooks 35 Chapter 5 Tools for Writers 46 Chapter 6 How to Write Your Book 57 Chapter 7 How to Finance Your Book 67 APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur [ Publisher ] 76 Chapter 8 How to Edit Your Book 78 Chapter 9 How to Avoid the Self-Published Look 93 Chapter 10 How to Get an Effective Book Cover 110 Chapter 11 Understanding Book Distribution 117 Chapter 12 How to Sell Your Ebook Through Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Kobo 130 Chapter 13 How to Convert Your File 146 Chapter 14 How to Sell Ebooks Directly to Readers 175 Chapter 15 How to Use Author-Services Companies 182 Chapter 16 How to Use Print-on-Demand Companies 195 Chapter 17 How to Upload Your Book 210 Chapter 18 How to Price Your Book 222 Chapter 19 How to Create Audio and Foreign Language Versions of Your Book 229 Chapter 20 Self-Publishing Issues 236 Chapter 21 How to Navigate Amazon 250 [ Entrepreneur ] 261 Chapter 22 How to Guerrilla-MarketYour Book 263 Chapter 23 How to Build an Enchanting Personal Brand 277 Chapter 24 How to Choose a Platform Tool 285 - vii - APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur Chapter 25 How to Create a Social-Media Profile 292 Chapter 26 How to Share on Social Media 300 Chapter 27 How to Comment and Respond on Social Media 313 Chapter 28 How to Pitch Bloggers and Reviewers 319 Chapter 29 How We APEd This Book 331 [ Glossary ] 336 - viii - [ Preface ] The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it. Benjamin Disraeli This fried my brain. In 2011, a large tech company wanted to buy five hundred copies of the ebook version of my book Enchantment to use for a promotion. Penguin, my publisher, doesn’t sell ebooks directly, so it referred this lead to Apple. Apple told the company to buy five hundred gift cards, scratch off the back, and then enter individual gift codes one at a time into iTunes. At that point, the company gave up on Apple and tried Amazon and Barnes & Noble. An employee of the company ended up making five hundred individual credit-card purchases. APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur I’m not a novice author. My publisher didn’t treat me like dirt. I had an agent, he got me a large advance, and the people at Penguin moved heaven and earth to make Enchantment a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. But the traditional publishing system could not handle an order for five hundred copies of an ebook. Shortly after this experience, I had dinner with a friend named Halley Suitt Tucker, who told me to read Be the Monkey by Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath so that I could understand the advantages of self-publishing. This book sold me on the concept. I was ready to rock and roll. I thought self-publishing would be easy: write in Microsoft Word, upload to Amazon, and cash checks. Maybe the process works like this for novels, but publishing a nonfiction book with subheads, bulleted lists, and pictures is like swimming with alligators. Over several weeks I asked five knowledgeable people about the best way to self-publish an ebook, and I got eight answers—two of which directly conflicted with each other. Fortunately, I hooked up with Shawn Welch via Google+ (you’ll hear more from him later). He helped me understand the complexities of publishing an ebook, and he ended up designing and producing What the Plus! But what happens if an author doesn’t have a Shawn? Then self-publishing is a mystifying, frustrating, and inefficient task. Why self-publish, then? The answer is that self-publishing enables you to determine your own fate. There’s no need to endure the frustration of finding and working with a publisher. You can maintain control over your book and its marketing, receive a greater percentage of revenues, and retain all rights and ownership. A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—or APE. These roles are challenging, but they are not impossible—especially if people who have done it before explain it to you. And that’s what Shawn and I will do in the book you are now reading. Our goal is to help you succeed as a self-publisher as quickly and easily as possible. - x -