Self Publishing

This month's SCBWI meeting was all about self-publishing and so Catherine asked Sarah, Emma and I to talk about our respective experiences with the process. We had a quite a few new members turn out for the meeting, all of whom were quite anxious to embark on their own self publishing adventure.

After the better part of a decade of publishing with traditional publishers, I decided to take charge of things by publishing my own stories. The first book I decided to publish was my story There's Soup on My Fly! 

I had to basically learn everything from scratch and it was pretty much by trial and error. So I'm listing the first things you have to do if you want to self publish your own books in Singapore.

1. SET UP
I set up my own sole proprietorship and registered with ACRA

2. ILLUSTRATOR/DESIGNER
Look for a good illustrator/designer whose work compliments your story. If your illustrator isn't a designer as well you'll have to look for a designer to work on the layout.

3.  CONTRACT
Work out a contract with those of you would like to work with.

4. ISBN
You can contact the National Library Board with regards to obtaining an ISBN number for your book.

5. PRINTER
It is imperative that you find a good printer/bookbinder.
Look for an appropriate printer and book binder and work out the best deal for either soft cover or hard cover books.. My suggestion is to start with an initial print run of 1,000 copies.

6. CAUTION As you can see, from the photos posted  above , I took the advice of an acquaintance who had a book binding business and worked with a printer. Now, I didn't have a problem with the printing but the binding was terrible.  I printed about a thousand books and paid the printer/binder upon delivery, but to my dismay I found out that the book binders had short changed me by about 70 books because they ruined the covers and to my horror, upon inspection of the a lot of the books were bound upside down and back to front. So before you pay your book binder/printer, inspect all your books. Last I heard, the bookbinder/printer I used closed the business.


7. FIND A REALLY GOOD PRINTER. 
Thankfully I work with an extremely professional and efficient printer now. My new printers printed my books If I Were a Blue Kangaroo and Emma's Elephant. You can contact them here: IMAGE PRINTERS

8. DISTRIBUTOR
 Once you have your book printer you have to get them into the stores, libraries and schools. You'll need to have a distributor for that. Without one, the bookstores are unlikely to stock your books on their shelves. I work with Denise and Kelvin of the brilliant CLOSETFUL OF BOOKS for book distributions and school visits.

9. SOCIAL MEDIA
Engage in Social Media. Build awareness for your brand via your website/Blog/Facebook/Twitter.

10. BOOK DEPOSIT
Once your book is printed, you have to provide the library with two copies of your book. 

11. GOOD LUCK

The rest is up to you.