the big decisions
publish or keep it private? This really comes down to why you’re writing the book in the first place. For most people it will be a private project to be shared with family and friends. self publish or use a publishing house? The biggest disadvantage of self publishing is that you have to come up with all the cash to finance the project and it’s all up to you to sell the book once it’s printed - although in the modern age this isn’t necessarily the case (see next point). While a publisher can take care of all the tricky bits like design, sales, marketing and the financial risk, it can be fiendlishly difficult to get a publisher to take on an unknown author. The other downside to the world of publishing is that after the book store, distributor and publisher take their cuts, the artist is only left with 10% - if they’re lucky. book format? Think cookbook and most people instantly think traditional hard or soft covers. But these days there are a few alternatives. Printing on demand (POD) allows anyone to print just one copy of a book at a time, or as many as they would like. And then there are ebooks - which are just books in an electronic file. It could be a word document but more likely a pdf. The pros and cons of these options are outlined on the following page.
how to bake your family cookbook [www.thestonesoup.com]