Editor's Corner October 22, 2010

Within the past few years, Lightning Source (LS)—the printer for about 90 percent of all traditionally-books published—began offering publishing services to individual authors. This company will use off-set printing (bulk order) or print-on-demand technology (one book or a few at a time) and place your book in Ingram's distribution channels. If you print the book in this manner, you will still have to market your book, but Writers in the Sky can help with that. See our book promotion packages at http://writersinthesky.com/author-publicity.html.

You can sign up for an account with LS and become your own publisher. There is a cost for set up and you have to pay for the print cost of each book you order, but they do not ask for royalties because they are a printing service and you are both the author and the publisher. You will have to provide your book's interior layout and cover design yourself or you can hire someone to do the cover as I did for my children's book, The Sid Series ~ A Collection of Holistic Stories for Children.

No matter what method you use to publish, you will have to pay for the cost of printing each book. Color printing is much more expensive and if you add glossy paper to your order, the price per book goes up even more. Your book will be considered a color print and charged thusly even if only one photo in your book is in color. The printing company will not run part of your pages in black and white and the rest in color then collate and combine the pages to create the book. It's one or the other—color, or black and white.

It is very important to have someone edit and proofread your text before submitting your file to LS (or a publish on demand service) because the printer will print exactly what you send without making any changes or revisions. No matter where you are in the writing of your book or story—idea, development, copy edit, or proofread—our writing instructors and editors can help you take your skills to the next level. Take a look at the services we offer and let us know how we can assist you.

Writers in the Sky Podcast is a weekly podcast where we interview guest authors, publishers, and book marketing experts. Each Friday a new show is uploaded to iTunes.com and is also available at http://nashvillewriter.audioacrobat.com/rss/writers_in_the_sky_podcast.xml. WITS podcast blog features more information about those who are guests on our podcast.

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