How would you go about publishing a book?

For little stuff, you can’t beat Lulu.com. Actually, there are others doing this now, so, I guess you could beat it. You get an ISBN and all that good stuff, even.

@bonus fantastic! thanks a bunch(=

blurb.com is a Lulu competitor with a slightly different take, might be worth a look as well depending on what you’re trying to do.

@Lothloriengaladriel Glad to help.

I would do it myself. I would have some copies printed for sale and publish an electronic copy on line and offer the copies I had printed for sale on the website. I would publish it under this license because I want what I write to get to the largest possible audience. Of course others might want to make a quick buck from a publisher and never see their work in print.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

If you’re planning to do all the marketing yourself, and don’t care if you don’t sell more than 100 copies, self-publishing with Lulu or something similar is probably the way to go.

If you want it in bookstores and distributed, with royalty checks, you should check out Writer’s Market.

@cwilbur If they are going to pay royalty checks they will insist on copyright. Most of the books that are copyrighted and not published and are buried in some publishers black hole. It depends if you want to be heard. Also if you want to be paid then it is probably best to sell you book. That way you get the money. Royalties might never happen. If your book is a success then you might want to go for royalties for the second one.
I still like the creative common license. It is the way to get your ideas out there. Most authors have something to say.
It is the same with music. In Brazil there are musicians who publicize their concerts by sending CD’s of their music to the town ahead of their concert. They are making good money.

@walterallenhaxton: You seem to have some odd ideas about how copyright works—and publishers rarely sign a contract to publish a book that they do not then publish, because then they lose money.

Would you rather have 3–5%% of the cover price of a book that sells 5,000 copies, or 40–50% of the cover price of a book that sells 25 copies? The former is what you get if you sell through a conventional publisher and do no promotion yourself; the latter is what you get if you self-publish.

@cwilbur I really want to read the book. My arguements would be clearer.
http://www.mises.org/store/product.aspx?ProductID=552

@walterallenhaxton: a polemic about The Way Things Would Be If I Ran The World is not much use in describing the way the world actually works.

@cwilbur The world is changing. I do not know how it will change or when it will change or if it will change in a particular direction. I just point out to the world ways to go that would be good ways.
Did you hear the latest from Sweden. The guy that they convicted for piracy was elected to office. Also besides the fine that they gave him he was making money with his piracy for the record companies that had sued him. In this particular aria the law is in a process of change. What will be I can not say.

@walterallanhaxton: Your fanciful notions about what would be nice to have happen are rather irrelevant to the original question, which is how to get something published as things are now.

@cwilbur But that is as easy as pie. Make a PDF of it and post it everywhere that they allow the posting of files and somebody might read it.

@walterallenhaxton: That depends on your definition of “published.” Some people might include the possibility of buying it in a bookstore, or of getting paid for having written it, and your method does neither.

@cwilbur Why not. People prefer reading a book rather than reading a PDf. If it is short they will read the PDF or if they are so poor they can’t buy a book. Those people would not be customers anyway. If the book is short it can be considered advertising for the second book.
Are we talking about an author here or somebody who has thrown together one book and will not write again? There is a difference. An author needs customers who know his work so that he can sell it and make a living. The person with the one time book is a speculator and his chances for making money are not good. Maybe he should sell the rights to a publishing company and forget it. Royalties for a one time thing are simply a gamble.

@walterallanhaxton: It would probably be a good idea, before you fantasize any further in public, for you to talk to actual authors and actual editors who have actual books in actual bookstores. You’re basing your thoughts on a combination of your imagination of how the publishing world works and on your wishful thinking about how you think it should work, and the end result is something that is completely ungrounded and of no practical use.

@cwilbur I am reading what actual authors are writing. How would talking to them improve things? They are able to edit and proofread their words to get them right when they write. When they speak it is just what comes to mind at the moment. Are not their writings closer to their meanings than just their words.
Do you always tell people what they should do?
Some of what I wrote drew on my business experience running my own company. All companies give away free product for advertising purposes and they all lose some product to people who don’t or can’t pay for it. All of the potential value of what is produced is never realized by the producer.
As for this subject. I have been reading some on it. The law is in a process of change. One bad thing about copyright is that it is inheritable. Another bad thing is that companies can keep authors from using copyrighted material that they themselves have written.

You are assuming that the poster of this question wants to make money and I am assuming that they want to be heard. Of course there are diferent ways of doing things.

I didn’t tell you what to do; I told you it would be a good idea to check in with the real world, and people actually working in the real world, before continuing to offer advice and suggestions based more in fantasy than reality.

@cwilbur People are publishing under the creative common license.
Is it free? http://mises.org/books/against.pdf Or is it for sale? http://www.mises.org/store/Against-Intellectual-Property-P523.aspx

There are more books like this one and other publications as well. I do not know of many. That does no mean that they do not exist.

You’re confusing “printing” and “publishing.”

“Publishing” involves printing, advertising, distribution, and promotion.