Q. What Might It Cost To Self-Publish A Typical Book?
A. It could easily cost $5,000. However, you can’t just fly into flying-- or publishing. You have to learn to walk before you can run. If you think big, start small, do everything on the cheap, you might be able to send out 100 press releases and buy a small advertisement for as little as $100-$250. And, all you hear might be the sound of silence!

On the other hand, you might be encouraged and that could easily lead to bigger things! When you don’t have a lot to lose, and a lot to gain if your project sells, you should take the modest gamble and go for it. Even if you only sell to one person, at least you will have learned what does not work.

Q. What Type Of Books Should One Not Publish?
A. Books of Poetry, Jokes, Life Histories, Children’s Stories and First Novels are all very difficult to sell without going through the normal wholesale and retail distribution channels.

Q. How Easy Or Difficult Is It Selling To Retail Book Shops?
A. I have tried cold-calling on retail book shops, literally hawking my book from door-to-door but with only limited success. It’s not that the retail shops were unwilling to stock my book, it’s that they were generally unwilling to order more than 2 or 3 copies at a time. Since this was not a very cost effective way to sell, my next step was to hire a book distribution company to stock my book and sell to wholesalers and retailers for me.

Q. What Did They Charge You For This Service?
A. They charged me 65% of the cover price.

Q. What Are The Easiest Books To Self-Publish and Sell?
A. How-to books and reports are without a doubt the easiest to self-publish and sell. When you are a Desk Top Publisher you can bypass wholesalers and retailers and sell direct to the consumer by direct mail and mail order advertising. You work from home so your overheads are minimal. Instead of having to wait months or years to see your work published you can be printed and published and be selling your book within a week. The typical how-to guide averages 16 or 32 pages and sells from $4.95 to $14.95. The subject matter can range from Abstract Art to Zither Lessons--and almost anything in between.

Q. What Have You Personally Self-Published?
A. I have successfully self-published and sold: Will Kits, Inspirational Scrolls, an Audio Cassette Program titled The Lazy Way To Stop Smoking, a 16 page booklet titled New 3 Step Quit Smoking Program, a 16 page booklet titled How To Develop A Strong Will Power, a 16 page booklet How To Find Mr. or Miss Right, a 16 page booklet titled How to Make Money in the Hotel and Guest House Business, a 24 page booklet titled The 7 Great Secrets of Personal and Business Success, a 72 page book titled How To Sell Your House Without An Estate Agent, a 96 page business book titled 50 Secrets of Success, a 132 page joke book titled A Bit Of The Blarney, plus a dozen how-to reports on starting various home-based small businesses.

Q. How Come You Published Such An Eclectic Mix?
A. I picked topics that I thought had wide, commercial appeal. Some people choose to see limitations and can think of a dozen reasons why they can’t write or publish this or that. As an entrepreneur I choose to publish the kind of articles that are likely to get free editorial publicity.

Q. How Did You Learn About Getting Free Publicity?
A; I have owned several weekly newspapers. I also learned a very valuable lesson in Marketing and PR by reading what dance instructor Arthur Murray did. Many years ago he wrote a great article titled: How I Overcame An Inferiority Complex. In it he tells how learning to dance released him from the bondage of being awkward and self-conscious. I simply copy-cated this idea, wrote an editorial article outlining my ‘10 Tips On Quitting Smoking’ and sent it off to the Medical Correspondent or Health Features Editor at various newspapers.

Editors love that kind of personal stuff and even though they know it’s an advertisement disguised as an editorial, it is deemed Newsworthy if it is considered to be of genuine interest or benefit to their readers.

Q. What Is The Biggest Secret Of Your Success As A Publisher?
A. Luck! I have been, and I continue to be, lucky. However, there is an attitude that’s conducive to good luck and one that isn’t. Perhaps being in the right place at the right time has something to do with it as well.

Good luck comes from many things including being properly motivated; not trying to do everything yourself; having an attitude of positive expectancy; being a realist; being persistent; refusing to take No as a final answer. It’s knowing that stumbling blocks can be turned into stepping stones. It’s expecting to succeed more than you expect to fail. It’s being willing to go the extra mile and do whatever needs to be done to reach one’s goal. Finally, it’s acting as if it were impossible to fail. When you chose to adopt success attitudes like the foregoing, it’s virtually impossible to fail.

You begin by thinking The person who makes the most money from my creative talent ought to be me! Don’t think of yourself as just a writer. Think of yourself as a self-employed entrepreneur. Think of yourself as a business executive; a cash cow; a golden goose; a potential gold mine, and not some mediocre hack-for-hire--that can be bought and sold for a mere pittance.

Q. What Motivated You To Self-Publish?
A. I was inspired by the success of Joe Karbo’s self-published book The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches. He published the first edition in 1973--and ended up selling 17,000,000 copies at $10 a copy. One hundred and seventy million dollars in sales on a book he sold direct to the public-- and cost him just pennies to print. His ads were full age ads in national media, rather than the typically small run-on lineage ads used by most self-publishers. His basic ad, which has become a mail-order classic, has since been imitated by dozens of self-publishers...