The Complete Guide to Successful Publishing: How to Produce, Print, and Distribute Your Books

Avery Cardoza's book about publishing is a little more complete than many of the others out there. It isn't written for authors who self-publish, but for entrepreneurs who want to start a book publishing company, though it's helpful to both. His tone is upbeat and encouraging. He's a successful publisher himself, and he shows you how he did it. He has an excellent chapter on finding your niche in the book market and on evaluating the profit potential of each area of book publishing. He has great credibility in this area. Then he launches into the nuts and bolts of setting up your company, the company structure you want, and the investments you need to make, and what you can expect financially as you start out. There's an excellent section on finding authors and ideas for books and turning them into profitable works. He shows how a small publishing company can leverage its advantage over larger companies and make a profit on books that they can't. He discusses marketing, including the impact of your title and cover design, and has a great section on how to price your books. There are several chapters on production and interior design that can help you as you work with printers and designers, or if you'd like to try to do the interior design yourself. He wraps up the book with some nuts and bolts advice on running your business and improving your bottom line. He deals with distribution and sales, and getting publicity, though he doesn't delve into publicity a lot. He also doesn't really discuss editing at all. There are some copyediting mistakes in the book which may make you reflect on how important copyediting perfection is to your bottom line. How many mistakes can you let get through and still have a profitable book? I'd recommend other books to learn more about marketing, publicity, and editing. He also has an interesting chapter on multimedia and software publishing and the great differences between that and book publishing. Overall, a very well-rounded book that has some clear strengths that make it extremely valuable for a publishing entrepreneur.

I'm currently working on my first self published book and have purchased several self publishing books. This is one of the best. Other books either have up-to-date information but aren't very thorough or are thorough but were published years ago and have outdated information. If you're intested in self publishing this is one of the first books I'd get,

Mr. Cardoza's hit the spot. He's in good company with the likes of Dan Poynter and Marie Kiefer in providing specific, easy to understand information on publishing and marketing. What makes this book really appealing is his way of explaining the details for different options and then offering professional tips on which choices would fit the individual needs of a small publisher. He answered my questions, has given me direction and kept me motivated as a newcomer in this field.

The Complete Guide to Successful Publishing is all about setting up and running your book publishing company. A very successful publisher himself, Cardoza shares what he has learned about how to find manuscripts and evaluate them, deciding to publish and selecting a price, registering the book and getting the ISBN and other numbers, designing the book--both text and cover, printing, distribution, marketing and sales. Some of the most valuable chapters are on running the business and making money. Highly recommended.

Of the thirty or so books on publishing and self-publishing I've encountered, this is the most complete and above all, the most practical. Cardoza gives hard figures and hard info, not the typical fuzzy inspirational sort of blather. There are a few grammatical errors and typos, but one can overlook that, given the wealth of useful info. After reading this book, one wonders why any author with 5-10,000 dollars to invest would ever put up with the measly royalties that publishers give.