So – let’s say you’ve finished the manuscript of your illustrated art book. Now what? How do you transform your manuscript from a file on your computer into a real-life book that’s available for you to buy and sell yourself, or for the public to buy from Amazon.com?

The company discussed in the video is actually the printing firm owned by Amazon. They can take your PDF file and have it available within a few short weeks. And your book’s listing will always say “Available for Immediate Shipping” because Amazon’s printing company will print it as soon as an order is placed on their website.

The book I mentioned in the video is Aiming at Amazon, by Aaron Shepard.

You can find CreateSpace.com here.

The printing company that will be printing our own book is Lightning Source Incorporated. They work only with publishers. Now class – how do you become a publisher? That’s right – you purchase your own ISBN.

CreateSpace has lower printing costs for books with interior color, Lightning Source (LSI) is less expensive for black and white books. Books printed by LSI are available to online and offline bookstores — they even sell directly to Amazon.co.uk, something that CreateSpace doesn’t do even though they’re owned by Amazon.

The downside of LSI, even for black and white books, is that they will give you very little help in creating your files and setting up your account. They don’t want to work with people who don’t have good computer skills, and they aren’t set up to offer much technical assistance. This is the company that prints all the books for author services companies like AuthorHouse and Lulu.com.

This is the second video in this series. In this one, I show you the software that I’m using to create my illustrated art how-to book. These are not usually recommended by self-publishing “experts,” (they usually prefer the much more expensive Adobe versions), but my total software investment was $100. Compare that to the total cost of Photoshop and InDesign at $1400, and you can see one of the reasons why I went with another brand.

I actually prefer the PhotoPlus X3 over Photoshop, and not just because it’s so much less expensive. I used Photoshop for years. It always made feel a bit incompetent, because there are so many fancy functions that I never learned how to use. I did learn how to do basic stuff, though — but I can do those things in PhotoPlus, too — and I think it’s actually easier to use.

Before you jump into self-publishing in a big way, remember to do some research first. This is especially important if you want to sell your book to the public. Certain types of books, like novels and illustrated childrens’ books, are not usually very easy to sell when they’re self-published. Non-fiction and how-to books are said to do better. However, there are lots of reasons to make a book, and profit is only one of them. It may not even be the most important one. But still, do some research before you start so you don’t run into any major surprises.

The book about creating a manuscript in Microsoft Word that I recommended in the video is Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard. He also has a book that is geared towards new self-publishers who want to sell their books on Amazon.com.

Do you know of an art book that’s been self-published, or do you have one you’d like us to know about? Tell us about it, so we can take a look. And please tell us about your experiences with the process too, good or bad.

This video is the first of a short series showing you the tools I used to build my new book about paper mache clay.  If you’ve ever considered writing or illustrating a book, but you let the idea drift away because you thought it would cost too much money or it would just be too hard, be sure to watch this series.

If you have an idea for a book and you’d like to discuss it here, we’d love to hear about it.

A few months ago I told you about an artist in Canada who creates museum-quality papier mache sculptures. I also mentioned that the artist, Monique Robert, was in the process of writing a book about the unique processes she uses to create her large, lifelike sculptures. I’m happy to say her book is now available. You can order through her website at www.moniquerobertstudios.com

Check out that dragon on the cover. Some truly amazing work is coming out of Monique’s studio, and I can’t wait to see how she does it. Her techniques for creating shapes are different from anything I’ve ever seen anyone else do.

I have not yet purchased my copy (I wanted to let you know if was available as soon as I found out) but I’ll be ordering one soon. I’ll tell you more after I’ve had a chance to read it. You can order a copy and learn more about her book through the link on her website.

Some Thoughts About Self-Publishing a Full-Color Book:

Since I can’t tell you any more about Monique’s book until I’ve had a chance to read it, this seems like a good time to talk about some of the challenges an author faces when self-publishing a full-color book. Since you’re probably an artist yourself, you may be thinking about writing a how-to book of your own (admit it — the thought has crossed your mind). If so, the info below may be of some use to you.

Jessie and I recently started our own book project, and we’ve done a lot of research into the business-end of self-publishing. We’ve discovered that many artists use self-publishing services (also called author’s services) which charge fairly high up-front fees, or they charge a high price to print each book, or both.

Once the book is printed through one of these services, it looks great — but it’s not available for distribution through large online booksellers like Amazon.com. Basically, that means that every book has to be sold from your own website, (you’d better be really good at marketing) or you have to sign up for a service like Amazon Advantage which takes a hefty commission on each sale (and you ship books to them at your expense).

As far as I’m concerned, in today’s world if you can’t get your book on Amazon.com there’s not much point in writing it at all.

The good news is that you can self-publish a full-color art book at a reasonably competitive price — and have it automatically available for sale through Amazon.com — by using Amazon’s own publishing division, called CreateSpace. (And no, they aren’t paying me to mention their name). Their printing charges are quite reasonable, and there’s no set-up fees. Your book won’t show up on the UK or Australian versions of Amazon.com, which would be nice, but you can’t have everything.

Monique’s new papier mache book was published through AuthorHouse, an author’s services company that charges a fairly high set-up fee. Other artists we know have published their books through Blurb.com — click on that link to see a beautiful book by artist Carol Marine. As far as I can tell, AuthorHouse and Blurb books are not available on Amazon.com unless the author signs up for Amazon Advantage.

The “Problem” is the Full-Color Inside Pages

Most self-publishing experts recommend that authors have their books printed at LightningSource (LS).

LightningSource is so highly recommended because LS prints black and white books at a very competitive price, and every book printed by LS is immediately available for ordering by any bookstore, including Amazon.com — where LS books are always listed as “in stock.” The author never has to order a book, store a book, sell a book or ship a book if it’s printed at LightningSource. Another very nice thing about LS is that the author can keep a higher percentage of the cover price by setting their own “discount.”

However, when artists write books, we usually need color on the inside pages. Unfortunately, full-color art books are at a disadvantage at LS, too. They charge a lot more to print a book with color on the inside pages — enough more, in fact, to make your book too expensive when compared with similar books already on the market.

For new authors, there are other disadvantages to LightningSource. You have to own your own ISBN number, and you need to have a certain amount of technical knowledge in order to prepare the printer-ready computer files.

At this time, it looks like CreateSpace is the best option for full-color printing. It isn’t perfect. CreateSpace determines your royalties themselves, while LS lets you set your own discount. And although a local bookstore will be able to order one of your books that CreateSpace prints (through an agreement they have with LightningSource), you won’t make much money on these extra sales. However, CreateSpace color printing charges are so much lower and they have no set-up fees, so it (almost) makes up for the reduced royalties.

Also, with CreateSpace you don’t need your own ISBN number (they’re expensive), and the technical requirements for your computer files are a little easier to understand. Plus, the books are automatically listed on Amazon.com because CreateSpace is Amazon’s own printing company. That’s why Jessie and I will be using this company for our upcoming book. Watch this space for an announcement…

If you’ve written a book yourself, or if you’re thinking of writing one — especially a how-to book for fellow artists — we’d love to hear about your experiences.