Self-Publishing by A. William Benitez

A William Benitez, Positive Imaging, LLC

December 16th – Dalene’s Book Reviews

First, tell us about yourself – where you live, your family, and those sorts of details.

I live in Austin, Texas with my wife Barbara and we have three adult children, eight grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. I have many skills and have worked at many jobs including carpenter, contractor, woodworker, housing program administrator, IT manager, network administrator, writer, publisher, and web designer. I presently work full time as the IT Manager for a large hotel that is part of a worldwide group of hotels.
All my time not at my job is spent either remodeling my home or writing and publishing books. Writing is definitely my favorite activity but I also have to spend a lot of time marketing my books.

How long have you been writing?

I have been writing since the 70s when I was asked to write a book on housing rehabilitation programs by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. I wrote the book for them and from the recognition I received for that I established a small publishing company and published eight more books and a monthly newsletter.

Do you have a favorite place to write?

I can pretty much write anywhere but I love setting up my laptop in my living room in front of the fireplace even though I have a very comfortable workstation in my home office.

Why did you decide to write Self Publishing: Writing A Book and Publishing Books and Ebooks For Yourself and Others?

While learning how to self publish my books I read everything I could get. Much of it was really good information but it offered so many options and possibilities that it was confusing. I had to make a lot of choices and experiment to find the method best suited for me. I decided that new self publishers would like to have a guidebook that would give them one direct, repeatable path from writing the book through editing, design, layout, formatting, printing, worldwide fulfillment and I decided to write the book to serve that need.

Do you proofread/edit your own books or do you get someone to do that for you?

I do the editing myself and after three editings over a one month period I then use the paperrater web site to do a final edit. Then I have it proofread by a couple of people whom I respect to make certain there are no typos. Sometimes this final proofreading generates some great ideas and I use them also.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I really enjoy woodworking and much of my writing is on that topic. I work on my home and built all the cabinets and furniture and remodeled the entire house. Working with your hands like that is a great respite from sitting at a computer for hours.

Do you read much and if so who are your favorite authors?

I read a lot but mostly business and marketing books now. In that regard I like Joel D. Canfield, Patricia Fry, Sandra Beckwith, and many others too numerous to mention. When I take a break from business reading I like mystery thrillers and enjoy Dan Brown and Steve Barry.

What question do you wish that someone would ask about your book, but nobody has? Write it out here, then answer it.

What makes your book different from the dozens of others on the subject of self publishing?

My book includes complete details, instructions, and screenshots for handling every aspect of writing and self publishing including planning, organizing, writing, editing, design, layout, formatting, cover creation, printing, and setting up worldwide fulfillment for a quality book. While there are certainly always options available, for the new self publisher my book provides a method that has been proven to work for over a dozen books. The title, Self Publishing: Writing A Book and Publishing Books and Ebooks For Yourself and Others, is an honest description of the content which is based entirely on my own first-hand experience.

Self Publishing: Writing A Book and Publishing Books and Ebooks For Yourself and Others

by A. William Benitez

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BLURB:

Frustration With Traditional Publishers Leads To Self Publishing

In 2007 my wife Barbara completed a wonderful children’s chapter book called Lottie’s Adventure and begin sending it to traditional publishers. Despite some great preliminary reviews, all she got was rejections and lack of response. This was quite frustrating for her and I wanted to help.

As an IT professional, I had read a lot about print on demand and made up my mind to learn all about it and then publish Lottie’s Adventure. It was a lengthy learning curve and I made lots of mistakes including the selection of a POD company that was more expensive than necessary. Nevertheless, we produced a high quality book and in spite of our lack of knowledge we sold quite a few copies of Lottie’s Adventure.

After this success I realized that self publishing had potential for some of my own writing and began developing effective, efficient, and lower cost methods to publish the books that I wrote. Since then I have written and published six books and a few ebooks of my own and established a publishing company that has published six books plus several ebooks for other writers.

After consistently producing and marketing quality books worldwide I decided to share these proven methods in a new book covering every step from idea through book creation to worldwide sales. That book is Self Publishing: Writing A Book and Publishing Books and Ebooks For Yourself and Others.

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Excerpt:

Planning The Book - The Outline

The Plan

Step one for any book, after the basic idea appears, is to create a clear and concise

plan. Knowing why you are writing the book is important to developing a viable

plan. If you are writing simply for your own enjoyment and to share some

knowledge or an experience with anyone who may be interested, with little

concern for potential profit, then the first step should be creating an outline for

your book.

The Outline

You begin this outline by writing down all the major topics you wish to convey to

your readers. Put them all down without attempting to flesh them out or placing

them in particular order. At this early stage, spending too much time on

individual topics could cause you to lose focus of the main topics. After you have

listed them all, organize them in the best possible order so that each topic

logically follows the previous one.

Now is the time to flesh them out. Go back to each topic one at a time and add

whatever thoughts come to you. There is no certain length for this and don’t

worry about structure. You are still at the thought development stage to cover as

much as you can before actually beginning the writing. As you write down all

these thoughts, new topics and ideas will come to you. Don’t dismiss them; write

them down as they come to you even if they belong elsewhere. You can move

them later. The important thing at this stage is not to lose the thought. Read the

section on creating and using an outline to see the simplest way to take full

advantage of an outline to create your book.

Your Objective

If profit is the main objective of your writing, another method may be more

appropriate for you. Once you know the niche or topic of your book, find the

market for that particular niche. That is, determine whom will purchase your

book and where you can find these prospects. This is a critical step because if you are unable to locate readers interested in your topic, it may be that a niche doesn’t exist or is so small as to make reaching it difficult and unprofitable. Since your intent is to profit from writing your book, this is a good time to revisit your concept and perhaps alter it for better marketability or perhaps abandon the idea and look for a marketable niche.

Knowing Your Market

While this book doesn’t deal directly with marketing and promotion, the odds of a

book selling are increased considerably if you know your market and write your

book to fulfill their needs. This is not possible if you have no idea about those

interested in your book and how to reach them.

While it may seem that this knowledge is about marketing and not writing or self

publishing, it’s just the opposite. This knowledge will help you write the book so

it’s of real value to your potential buyers and to create a cover that conveys a

strong message indicating clearly that the information these book buyers want is

in the book. This will make your book marketable and contribute to increased

sales before you even publish.

The Final Format

In this early planning stage you must decide on the final format. Is it just going to

be available as an ebook? Kindle is really popular but it doesn’t work for some

books that require a much larger page. There is a larger Kindle available but it is

considerably more expensive then the standard model or the Kindle Fire which is

the one to which you should aim your ebook. There are other kinds of ebooks that

work perfectly well even with letter size books. Learn more about publishing for

the Kindle in chapter fourteen.

Is the book going to be available as a paperback? Are you going to come out with

both paperback and ebook at the same time? Making these decisions should be

part of your planning. All of these various formats and how to take full advantage

of them is covered in other chapters.

When I was going to publish my first book, which was a children’s book my

wife had written, I spent several hours at a large bookstore going through

similar books. I must have looked through at least fifty different children’s

books to find out if there was some standard formatting that I should use

for my first attempt at publishing a book. I learned something very

interesting that day. There were no two books formatted the same way.

There were some similarities but many more differences. The important

thing was to make the book look professionally published and there were

obviously many ways to do that.

There is an easier way for you to do the same thing using the Amazon.com web

site. Just go to the site and search for books in your niche. Most of the books will

have the look inside feature and you can take a look at the layout without going

to a bookstore. You can even print out pages for closer examination. There are

also some excellent books on the subject of book design. However, don’t believe

that you are stuck with one certain format as right or wrong. Strive to make your

book original and professional and there are as many ways to accomplish that as

there are publishers.

If you decide to read one or more books on book design or visit book design

blogs, remember that the information you are reading is of value but not carved

in granite. Your ideas also have value so use the information to learn the things

that look obviously wrong but remember to be creative while maintaining

professionalism. For an inexperienced self publisher it can be difficult to choose

the correct format for a book. That’s the reason studying the work of others is so

helpful, at least while publishing your first book

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

From age twelve I spent my summers and weekends working with my dad, a general contractor, building homes and buildings. I contracted my first home at age nineteen and built my own home by age twenty. For more than 30 years I have operated one-person businesses. Twelve years of my life were spent working for local government managing federally-assisted housing programs. I started as an inspector with a three month assignment and was Director of Community Improvement with 78 employees when I resigned to do writing and consulting.

Writing, Publishing and Consulting

During the 80’s I established Rehab Notes Library a publishing company that published a monthly newsletter (Rehab Notes) with subscribers in all 50 states, Canada and England. I also did consulting and public speaking on housing related topics for agencies and organizations in cities across the country and testified before the U.S. Congress on housing issues.

I wrote and published nine guidebooks on the subject of housing rehabilitation. After 1980 when most federal funding was pulled from housing activities, I took advantage of my construction and business experience and started a handyman and woodworking business.

Over Twenty Years of Woodworking

For over twenty years, first in Tampa, Florida and then in Austin, Texas, I built hundreds of small and large cabinet and furniture projects for individuals, companies and government agencies. During these years I began writing books about my woodworking business experiences.

Positive Publishing

In 2007 I established Positive Imaging, LLC, to publish a children’s book for my wife and then begin publishing my own books and that of other using methods I call positive publishing. To date we have published twelve paperback books, a half dozen ebooks, and presently have several books in various levels of completion.

Computer Experience

My computer experience dates back more than fifteen years and began in response to poor technical support for our computers.   I used home study to acquire A+ and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer Certifications.

I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida and moved to Austin, Texas in 1986, where I now live with my wife, Barbara Frances. We have three adult children, eight grand-children, and two great grandchildren.

1.       Self Publishing Book Sales Pages

a.       Main Sales/Info Page – http://selfpublishingworkbook.com

b.      Createspace Fulfillment Page - https://www.createspace.com/3851405

2.       Main Positive Imaging, LLC Site – http://positive-imaging.com

3.       Self Publishing Support Blog - http://self-publishing-support.com   -

4.       PublishingSimplified Blog - http://publishingsimplified.com

The author will be awarding a $5 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter at each stop and a Grand Prize of a $50 Amazon GC at the end of the tour.  Comment often for a better chance at winning.  Follow the tour here.

My Review:  December 2013   ~ Review Copies ~

Self Publishing: Writing a Book and Publishing Books and eBooks for Yourself and Others by A. William Benitez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First, I would like to thank the author A. William Benitez for giving me this book for an honest review. I have to say, this book is something you want to have to help you when you self publish. The author gives comprehensive guide and examples on how to self publish. There are also pictures to help you visualize. He also gives has found inexpensive to free software to help with your self publishing. I would most definitely use this book to guide me if I ever write a book.

View all my reviews