Review: Self-Publish Worldwide

Self-Publish Worldwide is a brand new manual by Ruth Barringham, a successful author and self-publisher based in Australia.

The main guide comes as a PDF file. It comprises 72 pages of concise, no-fluff information for people who wish to self-publish their own book in hard copy format.

The manual is divided into three main sections. Part A is titled 'How to publish your book quickly'. This covers the main methods of preparing and publishing your book, including traditional self-publishing and POD (print on demand) methods. It discusses preparing your book in Microsoft Word, then converting it to PDF format. There is also a very informative section on creating your book's cover.

Part B covers methods of financing your self-published book. It is a fairly short section that sets out ways of raising extra cash from writing. As such, it doesn't have much to do with self-publishing, though Ruth does get extra points from me for mentioning my Quick Cash Writing course!

Part C is titled Making Your Book Available Worldwide - personally I found it the most useful and interesting part of the manual. It covers such matters as getting celebrity testimonials, getting your book into public libraries, how (and why) you should sell your book via Amazon.com, and much more. This is all invaluable information if you want to sell as many copies of your book as possible.

Apart from the manual itself, you get five free bonus items, again in PDF format. These are as follows:
Bonus 1 - How to Write & Where to Send a Press Release
Bonus 2 - Jargon Busting List
Bonus 3 - List of International Book Stores
Bonus 4 - International Book Club Addresses
Bonus 5 - Where & How to Have Your Book Reviewed

Overall, I thought Self-Publish Worldwide was a useful guide to getting your book published in print form, including some invaluable insights based on Ruth's own experiences. If you're thinking of using a POD publisher, for example, you should definitely read Ruth's analysis of the pros and cons of the leading companies in this field. The advice in this section alone is worth the price of the manual, and could save you from making an expensive mistake.

Do I have any criticisms? Well, I must admit I was a little disappointed to discover that the manual only covers self-publishing in hard copy form and not as an e-book. I appreciate that this was not Ruth's aim, but I had hoped that, as the manual was published using the popular Clickbank service, Ruth might discuss how she had done this. Also, nowadays many self-published books are published simultaneously in e-book and hard copy form, so people wanting information about publishing their book in printed form might appreciate being told something about e-book publishing as well.

In addition, I was a little uneasy about some of the services Ruth defines as 'vanity publishing'. Lulu.com, for example, is put in this category in the manual, and yet in my view Lulu is actually a POD (and e-book) publishing service. I normally think of vanity publishers as companies who charge writers quite substantial sums to publish their books for them. This is not the case with Lulu.com, which (with a few exceptions for its premium services) charges writers only when a copy of their book is actually ordered.

Nevertheless, if you are thinking of self-publishing your book in print form, in my view you cannot fail to benefit from reading this well-researched and well-written manual.

* If you're interested in self-publishing, do check out also my review on this blog of Self Publishing Secrets, written by Carol Ann Strange and published by WCCL. Incidentally, I will match my bonus offer on Self Publishing Secrets with Self-Publish Worldwide as well. Just forward a copy of your Clickbank e-mail receipt for Self-Publish Worldwide to e-writer(at)nickdaws.co.uk, and I will send you my unique report on how to publish an e-book on Lulu.com, along with a copy of my actual published e-book titled Fifty Great Ideas for Creative Writing Teaching.