Most likely you are being scammed. This is especially true If you asked several editors for prices and the one you chose had the lowest price. The editor low-balled the price to get the business and now he’s blackmailing you to give him more money.

On the other hand, perhaps your manuscript is a hot mess and requires a lot more work than originally estimated. If you provided a writing sample with your query letter, this shouldn’t have happened.

It does, doesn’t it. It makes one feel proud of all the hard work that went into producing the book.

Amazon (alone among all publishers and packagers) charges a download fee for ebooks. Why does it do that? Because it can. It’s just another tactic to squeeze a bit more money out of the authors. If you have a graphics-heavy ebook, the download charges can actually exceed the price of the ebook. In other words, you lose money on every sale unless you raise the ebook price.

No one’s buying it because no one knows about it. If you want people to buy the book, you have to tell them about it. And that is called marketing.

- I found this website that said it would help me publish my book, but they want me to pay over $6000. Is this a scam?

Mostly likely not. There are publishers — a lot of them — who think authors should pay through the nose to get their book published. Instead of paying the outrageous fees, query the smaller publishing companies. They are much easier to get acceptance than the major publishers are and they don’t charge.

-I uploaded my manuscript to an ebook packager and it was rejected because it violated the Epub3 standard. What does this mean?

So let’s look at an example to perhaps un-confuse this issue. Let’s say I have a new book that I want to publish in both print and ebook editions with maximum distribution. In this case, I’d use two packagers for the print book and two packagers for the ebook.

For the ebook version, I’d use Kindle and Draft2Digital (D2D) for distribution. Why two? Kindle distributes the ebook thoughout the Amazon universe, so it will show up on Amazon sites in the UK, other European sites, Brazil, India, Japan and a few other sites. However, Kindle will not distribute the ebook to sites outside of Amazon. D2D will distribute the book to many non-Amazon sites includijng Barnes and Noble, Kobo and library sites such as Overdrive and Hoopla. Using these two distributors will ensure the book receives maximum exposure even thought most of the sales will come from Amazon sites.

As to ISBNs: Amazon says it doesn’t require one since the ebook will never be distrubuted outside of the Amazon universe. WIth D2D, you need an ISBN and D2D will give you a free one if you wish. Or you can buy one from Bowker.com for $129 (think monopoly pricing at work here. This only applies of you live in the USA). What’s the difference? The free ISBN from D2D belongs to D2D and says D2D is the publisher. If you want the ISBN to list you as the publisher, you’ll have to buy one from Bower.

For print books, I’d use Kindle and IngramSpark (IS) as distributors. Why two? Amazon will distribute print books outside the Amazon universe and the book will show up (eventually) at sites like Barnes and Noble, but on their websites, not in the book stores. Book stores will not stock Amazon books because 1. Amazon would love to drive them out business, and 2. Kindle will not allow book returns. Book stores will, however, order a book from Kindle if you go to the store and request it.

As to ISBNs, Kindle will give you a free ISBN if you request it. Once againe the freebie will list Kindle as the publisher. Or you can buy one from Bowker

To get my print book in book stores, I’d have to use IngramSpark as a distributor. With IS, you have to provide your own ISBN and a different ISBN from the ebook ISBN. A free print ISBN from Kindle will most likely be rejected by IS who will demand a different ISBN. (Be warned, IS is a user-unfriendly website.) Once available through IS, book stores will have no problem ordering your book to put on their shelves.

To summarze: using these four distributors will require at least one ISBN (for IS) and possible two (one for ebooks and one for print book). To expand on this possible confusing situation, if you provide the ISBNs, the ISBNs belong to you, not to the distributor and you can use the ebook ISBN for any number of ebook distributors. Similarly, you can use the print ISBN for any number of print distributors.

Let’s establish a goal for your self-publishing project: you want to create a quality book package for your content. Well, creating such a package requires quite a bit of work and contradicts the contention that it is easy.

Actually, self-publishing a book can be easy and many authors do self-publish with what I call the lazy way. Under the lazy way, the author finishes the manuscript on Monday (an early or even a first draft), gets a generic cover on Tuesday (or hand-draws one) and uploads the manuscript on Wednesday. Hooray! The author is now a published author. Except the book is a piece of junk and is as far away from a quality book package as it can get.

The issue here is the author is the publisher. As such, the author has to do all the work a publishing company would do if the author had sold the book to the publisher.

So, the reality of self-publishing is this: it requires time, work and money. It also requires the self-publishing author recruit other people to work on the project.

Another issue that confuses the newbie self-publishing author is the interval. How long is the time between the finishing the manuscript and launching the book? Six months is an adequate interval. Your initial reaction to this statement is probably disbelieve because it is so counter to the stuff you read on the web.

I’ve self-published over twenty-five books and the absolute minimum time I allocate for the interval between competing the manuscript and launching the book is four months. Most times, my interval is five or six months and sometimes longer.

Inexperienced self-publishing authors will naturally look to the internet for answers to questions or issues. This is where another problem can crop up: scammers. The internet swarms with scam artists looking for inexperienced authors who are searching for publishing assistance. These scammers have slick web sites and mention all the pain points self-publishers run into. It is quite natural for the author to gravitate toward these sites because they seemingly offer solutions. Unfortunately, these sites offer little or no actual assistance and they charge premium prices for it.

One way to avoid these scammers is to be suspicious of all offers you come across on the web. Investigate before committing money. It is especially important to read all the fine print on the site, on every page. Another useful method is to type the site’s address into a search box and look through the results. Take note of negative comments and articles. Only after completing the site examination and the search results should you make your decision about using the site.

Another factor inexperienced self-publishing authors overlook is book marketing. Marketing has to be an integral part of the publishing project. Without marketing, no one will know about the book and no will care. The purpose of the marketing piece of the project is to tell the world that your book exists (or will exist).

This article was originally published in Medium