This week we’ll talk about how to come up with the “right” price for your book in each of the formats in which you plan to make it available (eBook, soft, and/or hardcover). By “right” price, I mean a price that will make more, rather than fewer, people actually buy your book. My challenge will [...]

Last week we talked about how to design covers for books – eBooks, soft cover books and hard cover books. If you’ve written a book, or are thinking of writing one, odds are good that you’ve already spent some time thinking (or worrying) about what the covers of your book should look like. But how [...]

If your publishing progress has been keeping step with this series, you’ve now not only got the text of book all ready to go, but you’ve decided on how you’re going to bring it to market (POD, Google eBooks, or whatever) as well. So your next set of tasks revolves around this question: what would [...]

Monetizing open source software can be a tricky challenge for many companies. After all, when you’re giving away your primary product for free, how could you possibly make money off it? Nicolas Erdody, Paul Gampe, Mark Bathie, and Bob Waldie formed a panel in the Business of Open Source MiniConf at Linux.conf.au 2012 and talked [...]

This series highlights aspects of my experience self-publishing The Alexandria Project. If you’d like to read the book this series is based on, you can read the first three chapters for free here (just click on the cover of the book). And you can read a new chapter of its sequel every Monday here. Pubic [...]

Last week we looked at how Amazon, Apple and Google make money by working with self-published authors, what they do for them in return, and what that means for you. As promised, this week we’ll take the same kind of look at the myriad POD outfits that provide a wider range of services. As you’ll [...]

Last week I identified the different types of Print on Demand (POD) publishers that are active in the market today and provided tips on how to decide which type would best meet your needs. Before we go on to talk about how to select a specific publisher, it’s worth pausing to look more deeply into [...]

Like just about every other step in self-publishing a book, researching and selecting a print on demand (POD) publisher can be a time-consuming and even bewildering experience. The problem arises not from a lack of choices, but just the opposite. Today, there are scores of publishers to choose from, with significant differences among them in [...]

Did you plan for success last year? Did you write down your plan? If you answered yes to both, that is awesome. Get out your plan, review it to see where you were successful and where you were not as successful, and figure out what you could have done better. Get started with 2012 planning [...]

This series highlights aspects of my experience self-publishing The Alexandria Project, available soon as an eBook and in soft and hardcover. You can read the first draft of that book here, and read a new chapter of its sequel every Monday here. If you are of a certain age (and I, most regrettably, am definitely of [...]

Introduction You have probably heard of high availability transaction processing servers. You have most likely read about the sophisticated systems used by the airlines to sell tickets online. They have to be non-stop because downtime translates to lost orders and revenue. In this article I will discuss the economics of using non-stop technologies for everyday [...]