DIY Self Publishing: Should You or Shouldn't You?

When you heard the words 'self publishing', they sound pretty tame in comparison to the traditional route of publishing you might be more familiar with; the competitive conglomerates who will take up only a handful of manuscripts per year, who are ultimately not able to meet the demands of many wannabe published authors.

Hence why self publishing is opening the door where it may have once been closed - and with digital book sales and e-readers growing in number and popularity, it's no wonder that any sales savvy author would snap up the chance to self publish.

Wikipedia says that self-publishing is; 

Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design (cover/interior), formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR. The author can do it all themselves or outsource all or part of the process to companies that offer these services.  

At North Highland Publishing, we're a company who will let you, the author have complete control over the design of your front cover, the formatting of your fonts, marketing and promotion - with a little help from us. You send your manuscript to us, we'll pass it onto our Editing Department and we'll send you a quote based on our most updated price list as to what work needs done on your manuscript. 


Authors probably have enough on their hands with the marketing and promotion of their books so we will take your manuscript and sculpt it into a book; hard copy, eBook or both. 


But, if we can do it, anyone can do this - right? 


Our team have a combination of industry and personal experience when it comes to self-publishing and eBook publishing, specifically. 
We have worked on various manuscripts; fantasy, crime, thriller, fiction and non-fiction works. 
We have converted books to be sold as eBooks.
We manage several on-line book shops. 
We sell hundreds of eBooks per month. 
We sell eBooks across the world. Our authors have sold hundreds of their print copy books.


The difference between 'Do It Yourself' self publishing and jumping on board with North Highland Publishing is that when you DIY your publishing, you may make many mistakes along the way. Mistakes that may cost you time and money to make. 


We're not saying we haven't made the same mistakes as the DIY'ers make, we probably have, but the difference is that we have learned very quickly with each mistake. There is also the advantage of a whole team there to cushion any blows we might have faced. 


So can a person 'do it themselves' when it comes to self-publishing? Absolutely. Is this for everyone? Absolutely not. 


Not everyone knows where to begin when it comes to selling and promoting their book, not everyone knows how to edit their book and not everyone knows where to sell their book once it's completed. And once you decide to get serious about publishing, these are just the top three most important things to know.


Most people starting out in the self-publishing world won't know about these things and will spend an awful lot of time - and money - discovering what works and doesn't. With an established publishing company like North Highland Publishing you can rest assured that we've been there and done it several times over, getting it better each time we do.


Another hurdle that authors face is that they don't have the experience of repetition, which we do. We've done this several times over and over, are signed up with a number of book retailers and have guaranteed monthly sales. 


If you're serious about publishing with North Highland Publishing, get in touch with us here.