Why Publishing a Book Increases Your Credibility

One of the best ways to position your expertise and be viewed as a thought leader is as a published author. Most people view book authors as bona-fide experts regardless of whether or not they are.

In years past, the dream of wanna-be authors was to be published by one of the big New York publishing houses. Most authors still dream of a New York publisher, but the choices as recently as ten years ago were minimal compared to today.

Today, just about anyone can get published. The process is incredibly easy. There are a number of routes you can take to get published including self-publishing, mid-tier self-publishing, vanity press and traditional.

Obviously, this is great news for authors. However, due to the low barrier to entry, there’s a lot of garbage being churned out. Avoid the temptation to churn and burn your books.

To assure your book does for you what you want, put 100% effort into the writing, editing, design, layout and publishing.

Should you decide to go the self-publishing route, you must also decide on printing methods.

The two most common types of printing are:

 Offset printing
 Digital printing

Offset printing

 Offset printing technology uses plates, usually made from aluminum, which are used to transfer an image onto a rubber "blanket", and then rolling that image onto a sheet of paper.
 Offset printing is usually done with runs of 1,000 books or more due to the cost savings. The more books you print, the lower the price per book.

Digital printing

 For low runs, digital printing is a great choice. You can have as few as one book printed. You also have lots of flexibility with changing data and doing several short runs.

Most self published authors choose digital printing. There are a number of services you can use when you self-publish. My choice is CreateSpace.

I prefer CreateSpace for a few reasons. One, their systems is relatively simple and seamless. Two, CreateSpace is an Amazon company, so your book appears on Amazon in record time. Three, it’s Print on Demand (POD) which means books are printed as they are ordered.

Benefits of Create
Once you set up your CreateSpace account and your book files are uploaded, all the heavy lifting is done. From that point forward all you need do is market the book and if you do a great job at marketing, you enjoy regular transfers of funds into your bank account.

There is no fulfillment on your part when you use CreateSpace. Another benefit of CreateSpace is the ease at which you can order books in bulk and have them shipped wherever you want. If you’re doing a speaking engagement, you can have as few as one book up to hundreds of books shipped to the speaking location.

Although you do pay shipping, the process is virtually hassle free.

Free tools
CreateSpace provides some great tools for anyone who is a DIY type author. Interior Reviewer and Cover Creator make it easy for you to do the work yourself. Of course, many authors prefer to hire these type of jobs out to either a virtual assistant or someone who specializes in CreateSpace services.

Low per unit cost
Although your unit cost with offset printing can be incredibly low, the downside is the amount of books you need to do in one run. Your upfront costs can be very cost prohibitive.

With CreateSpace digital printing and P.O.D. the unit cost is higher, but all things considered it’s still extremely low. A 240 page book can be as low as $2.50 a copy. A 300 page book can be about $4.25.

When you don’t have to do the fulfillment, pay shipping and rather than paying to have the books printed, Amazon pays you for each unit, it’s a pretty sweet deal.

Regardless of which route you go, the most important step is writing your book. As previously mentioned, one of the best ways to position your expertise and be viewed as a thought leader is as a published author.