Tips on How to Choose the Best Self-Publishing Companies

You can associate the creation of a book to the building of a house. You start with a dream, an idea percolating in the back of your mind. Then you plan, sketch rough ideas on paper. Next comes setting the details down which means adding substance and depth to the dream. Finally, the day arrives that you hire the builder who renders a tangible form to your dreams, ideas and hard work.

This is where self-publishing companies come in. They inject life to your dreams thereby creating substance from your ideas, creativity and words. In order to make your write-up a reality, it is vitally important that you know how to choose the right self-publishing company.

For the typical self-published author, a significant amount of frustration, time and money can be saved if they assign the task to self-publishing companies. Also known as "author services companies", self-publishing companies help authors to perform the "book building" task from the basic level.

Most authors dream of seeing their book stacked high and deep in the big book stores, with a shiny logo from one of the world’s largest publishers. Self-publishing companies stand ready to help you bring your manuscript to life. Almost every company uses the same technologies to produce and print books, but with a distinct personality and unique approach to the market.Here, this article provides some important tips on how to choose the best self-publishing company:

• Contract

The author contract should be short and easy to understand. It should never have a "duration" that locks you into keeping your book with the publishing house. You should be able to leave without penalty any time.

• Retail Price

You should be able to set your own retail price. However, to sell in retail outlets, you need to set the book’s retail price at about 2.5 times the incurred cost. This is to break even with dealers’ discounts and additional freight charges.

• Book Printing Costs

If your book costs more to print, you need to push your retail price higher. Going to a traditional press is the only way to actually get a great price on a large volume of books.

• Author Profit

It is the amount you receive from each book sale. Be careful of any company that gives a huge royalty but forces unreasonable retail prices on your book. Look for a publishing company that pays you on a 'fixed cost' basis and who forwards all the remaining profit to you.

• Experience

Speak with someone who actually knows something about the book industry. Try gaining access to decision makers in this regard.

• Business Model

Everyone is in business to make money. Always remember to look for hidden charges, or charges that show up to actually create an effective and saleable book for you.

• Creative Control

Having maximum creative control over your work works best for you. Set your own design, pick own retail price and profit margin. Also control the discount offered to retailers and wholesale accounts.

The best self-publishing service will offer great marketing options and publicity support. Additionally, there are plenty of resources on the internet which help you decide how to self-publish book and how to become a successful author.

The author of this article recommends the book publishing services of BecomeShakespeare.com.