Self Publishing (For Print) - Without Hives!

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This poses a challenge when it comes to treating chronic hives, which by definition last longer than six weeks, and can sometimes come and go for years. Start with these steps to soothe or prevent the symptoms associated with chronic hives: Avoid known triggers One of the best ways to control hives is to avoid known triggers , according to a report published in the June issue of the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

To determine which triggers may be affecting you, the first step is to see your allergist. Some of these allergens are: Some foods, especially peanuts, eggs, nuts, shellfish, and some food additives Certain pain medications, such as aspirin and ibuprofen Physical stimuli such as pressure, temperature, exercise, and sun exposure Bacterial infections, including urinary tract infections Viral infections, such as the common cold and hepatitis Pet dander Pollen If one or more of these allergens is found to be the cause of your hives, says Anand, your doctor will work with you to figure out ways to avoid exposure.

One of those could be an autoimmune condition — almost half of all cases of chronic hives are due to an overactive immune system, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology. Treating an underlying medical condition, says Anand, can help rid you of the symptoms of chronic hives. Take your medications Antihistamines are usually the first line of treatment for chronic hives. According to a study published in March in the New England Journal of Medicine , omalizumab, an injectable medication commonly used to treat asthma, was found to be effective in treating most people who did not respond to antihistamines.

Other treatments your doctor might prescribe include corticosteroids for short-term use only or epinephrine injections if you experience swelling in your lips or throat. Talk to your doctor if you have any questions or concerns about your medication. Soothe your skin The drier your skin is, the itchier it feels, tempting you to scratch. But scratching is one of the worst things you can do, says Anand, because it can aggravate your hives. You can do a search in Google for the companies you're considering and find testimonials -- good and bad -- from authors who've used the services.

Self-publishing outfits are in the game to make money. And since they're probably not going to sell a lot of your books, they make money by with nice margins. Some of the services are worth it -- or at least may be worth it.

Watchdog: Ingram Spark vs CreateSpace for Self-publishing Print Books

It was good while it lasted and it helped me sell dozens, if not hundreds, of books. Personally, I'd never work with CreateSpace's in-house editors, copy editors, and in-house design people. That doesn't mean they're bad at what they do I've seen some covers that are well-done.

But if you can, it's better to hire your own people and work directly with them. Ideally, you should be able to meet with an editor, copy editor, and graphic designer in person -- and they all should have experience in book publishing. Down the road, I suspect you'll see more self-publishers offer high-end programs that pair you with a former editor from a major publishing house.

It's also worth mentioning that Amazon has become a publisher itself, with several imprints that it's either bought or created.

H.I.V.E. (series)

Amazon is in the process of developing a new hybrid model for publishing that aims to take the place of traditional publishers, which it sometimes refers to as "legacy" publishers. You can see a list of Amazon's imprints here. With its flagship Encore imprint , it selects certain "exceptional" self-published titles from "emerging" authors and brings them under the Amazon umbrella so to speak. It's a good gig if you can get it. If you're serious about your book, hire a book doctor and get it copy edited.

OK, so I've just told to avoid " packages " from publishers and yet I'm now saying you need editing and copy editing. So, where do you go? Well, before I sent my book out to agents, I hired a "book doctor" who was a former acquisition editor from a major New York publishing house like most editors he worked at a few different houses. He happened to be the father of a friend from college, so I got a little discount, but it still wasn't cheap.

However, after I'd made the changes he suggested, he made some calls to agents he knew and some were willing to take a look.

He was part of Independent Editors Group IEG , a group of former acquisition editors who take on freelance editing projects for authors. While I didn't use his copy editor I used a friend of a friend who currently works at a big publishing house , he and other editors in his group can suggest people. To be clear, this isn't going to be a better deal than what you'd get from a package deal with a self-publisher, but these people are experienced and are going to be upfront and honest with you.

They're not just pushing your book out to move it along the line on the conveyor belt, though they are trying to make a living. By no means is IEG the only game in town. And there are plenty of others. CreateSpace and other self-publishing companies are always offering special deals on their various services.

There isn't whole lot of leeway, but it doesn't hurt to ask for deal sweeteners -- like more free copies of your book they often throw in free copies of your book. It also doesn't hurt to ask about deals that have technically expired. In sales, everything is negotiable. Remember, these people have quotas and bonuses at stake. For their sake, I hope they do anyway. That's great, but when you're dealing with a superbasic package, you're most likely going to be doing customer support via e-mail or IM, and get very little hand-holding.

It's nice to be able to call up and complain in a nice way, of course directly to a live person on the phone, so take that into account when you're examining your package options. The biggest mistake people make when it comes to self-publishing is that they expect to just put out a book and have it magically sell. They might even hire a publicist and expect something to happen. It's just not so. You have to be a relentless self-promoter.

Unfortunately, a lot people just don't have the stomach or time for it. What's the secret to marketing your book successfully? Well, the first thing I advise -- and I'm not alone here -- is to come up with a marketing plan well before you publish your book. The plan should have at least five avenues for you to pursue because chances are you're going to strike out on a couple of lines of attack. It's easy to get discouraged, so you have to be ready to move on to plan c, d, and e and the rest of the alphabet pretty quickly. These days there's a lot of talk about a "blog strategy," and many well-known authors do virtual book tours where they offer up interviews to various blogs.

You probably won't have that luxury, but you can certainly research what blogs might be interested in your book and prepare pitches for them. There are social media campaigns to wage, local media angles to pursue, organizations to approach, and all kinds of out-of-the-box gambits you can dream up. None of this will cost you a whole lot -- except time and perhaps a little pride.

Then there's the stuff you pay for. And it's tricky to judge what's a good investment and what's not because the results vary so much from book to book. He's still trying to figure out what impact the ads had, but Facebook does have some interesting marketing opportunities.

And a number of self-serve ad networks are popping up, including Blogards Book Hive , which allows you to target a number of smaller book blogs for relatively affordable rates. The author MJ Rose has a marketing service called AuthorBuzz that caters to both self-publishers and traditional publishers.

For instance, if it's a mystery about an antiques dealer, we don't just buy blogs for self-identified readers -- who are not the bulk of book buyers -- but rather I'll find a half dozen blogs about antiques, culture, art and investments and buy the ads there and track them. She also says that you can't really spend too much, you can just spend poorly.

However, I can't tell you what impact a week or month of ads on blogs will have on your specific book's sales. There are simply too many variables. When it comes to self-promotion, there's a fine line between being assertive and being overly aggressive in an obnoxious way.

As one friend told me, the state you want to achieve is what she likes to call "comfortably tenacious. Getting your book in bookstores sounds good, but that shouldn't be a real concern. You may have always wanted to see your book in a bookstore but bookstores aren't keen on carrying self-published books and it's extremely difficult to get good placement in the store for your book so chances are no one will see the three copies the store has on hand anyway.

Furthermore, your royalty drops on in-store sales. Some of the self-publishing outfits offer distribution through Ingram. It's very hard to get your self-published book reviewed -- and the mantra in the traditional publishing world is that reviews sell books. But that's changing a bit. People didn't take bloggers seriously at first and now they do. And what's interesting is that reputable book reviewers such as Kirkus and more recently Publishers Weekly are offering special reviews services geared toward self-published authors.

You can also submit books that are in an e-book-only format. Of course, there's always the possibility that the review isn't favorable. A third option is BlueInk Review , another fee-based review service targeted at indie authors. Traditional book publishers design -- or at least they used to design -- a book cover to make a book stand out in a bookstore and evoke whatever sentiment it was supposed to evoke.

What To Compare

Well, with Amazon becoming a dominant bookseller, your book has to stand out as a thumbnail image online because that's how most people are going to come across it. If you're primarily selling through Amazon, think small and work your way up. I'm a little bit surprised by how neglectful some self-published authors are when it comes to their Amazon product pages.

I've talked to self-published authors who spend a few thousand dollars on a publicist and their Amazon product page looks woeful -- and they've barely even looked at it. I ask, "Where are people going to buy your book? True, some people market through a Web site or buy Google keywords to drive traffic there. But you need to have your Amazon page look as good as possible and take advantage of the tools Amazon has to help you surface your book "Tags," Listmania, reader reviews, etc.

It may not have a major impact, but it's better than doing nothing. You should check out Amazon's Author Central to get some helpful tips. Make sure your book is put into five browsing categories it's only allowed five.

Market leading book production and self-publishing specialist. > Clays

It helps to categorize your book to readers and also will make your book look better if it's a bestseller in those categories. Way back when I self-published, no one at BookSurge suggested this to me; I had to figure it out on my own. Again, they don't care, you have to make them care. The biggest problem with going the POD route is that it costs more to produce one-offs of your book than it does to produce thousands.

It was about pages. Now, if I went ahead and had the thing printed up directly through an off-set printer -- and ordered a few thousand of them -- I could probably cut the cost of the book in half, and maybe even a little more. But I'd have to pay the upfront fee to buy the books and then I'd have to figure out a way to sell them this is how vanity presses used to work -- you had to agree to buy a few thousand books.

To get a rough idea of how much money you can make selling your book, you can check out CreateSpace's royalty calculator. If you have a longer book, you'll have to set the price even higher to make money. Overall, compared with what traditional publishers pay out, royalty rates for self-published books are actually quite decent. Many of the self-publishing operations have their own online marketplaces where you can offer up your book and get a significantly better royalty rate.

But you obviously have access to a much larger audience on Amazon, which is the first place people generally go to look for a book when they hear about it. The trick, of course, is making people aware your book exists. I could write an entire piece on the tricks authors pull to get their books to surface better on Amazon. Amazon Author Central and Google are your best friends for helping to discover ways to better surface your book.

Self-publishing is a rapidly evolving industry with lots of competitors that are constantly throwing out new information. Publishers are continually upgrading their facilities, infrastructure, and pricing, and what I -- or other pundits say today -- could be wrong just a few months from now.

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