To date, I have written about my findings of publishing through Iuniverse, which is an assisted-publishing avenue. To put out Surviving the Writing Apocalypse, I went a different route and chose to use Booktango.
My publicist and I had a long discussion on which way to distribute the manual. There were many factors to this that were different from publishing Be Still. The main difference is that Be Still is a fictional novel with some subjective fiction to it. And, obviously, Surviving the Writing Apocalypse is a non-fiction, self-help guide. Already a vast difference there.
The next big difference is in the size of my wallet. I had a decent expense account to put out, publicize, and market Be Still. This year, my income is very limited, as is my time. Which brings me up to difference number three: time. Last year, I was off work on disability and had all the time in the world to publicize, market, travel, promote etc. This year, I am back to nursing and working full time (on part time wages, eck!). In fact, I only found time to write the manual when I managed to stay awake late hours after work. I love my sleep, so getting this manual out took dedication.
All these factors brought me to the decision that I was limited in every way to publishing a new book, so after much deliberation and counsel, I chose to go with the free method, by using Booktango. I know, Amazon has a free method too, but after lots of research (and there was a lot), I discovered Barnes & Noble may start rejecting to sell books published by Amazon. And it seems, many KDP authors are growing upset with some of the changes KDP is making. Not to mention, I wasn’t thrilled with being stuck to one platform for any period of time before being able to distribute elsewhere. I also truly like the idea of having bookstubs to hand out, like business cards, to groups I speak at, or for family and friends.
Lots of thought went into choosing Booktango, and I can only hope it was the right choice. If Surviving the Writing Apocalypse is well received, then I will look into publishing a physical book next Spring/Summer. For now, I will wait and see how it all goes and post about my experiences with Booktango in the exact same way I did with Iuniverse. I will try to be unbiased and only deliver the facts as I experience them.
For this manual, I chose to go the free route, which means I did not get to see a preview of the book. I can only hope it all went well. I will order bookstubs and hold a free promo in the near future to officially release the book and the website. I am currently looking for authors who would like to read the .docx version and give me feedback that can be featured on the website along with your name and book title. I need at least five readers for this. Please contact me at author@tanialramos.com for more information.
Stay tuned for all the happenings with the book and with using Booktango.
You can find Be Still through these links:
New Author Publishing 