I read this years ago before it was wildly outdated. It was quite useful at the time? ( )

ideas for home publishing business

Should be called “Remedial Self-Publishing”

As Lisa Shaw's livelihood (designing and distributing greeting cards for companion animals) is near and dear to my heart, it truly pains me that I have to pan her book, "How to Make Money Publishing from Home." However, I feel as though I'd be remiss if I were to review the many other self-publishing books I've read and skip over this guide.

Before deciding to self-publish my first eBook, I ransacked my local libraries and checked out every volume I could find on self-publishing in general, and electronic publishing in particular. Ms. Shaw's book was the first to arrive, and I digested it in one night - in one sitting, actually. "Digested" is perhaps too strong of a word, though - there's so little substance in "How to Make Money..." that there wasn't anything for me to digest at all. It's so general a guide that the author manages to say very little about a whole lot.

In under 200 pages, she briefly discusses self-publishing booklets, books, greeting cards, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, software, `zines, ezines, and websites; writing, following, and revising business plans; tax and zoning issues; accounting and finances; the necessary self-publishing technology, including computers, scanners, printers, phone lines, fax machines, networking, and software; day-to-day business operations; and marketing and publicity. Thus, no one subject is afforded more than a few pages. From the wide variety of topics covered, it may appear as though Ms. Shaw offers a wealth of information in her guide. Yet, the opposite is actually true: she tries to cover so many facets of self-publishing that she doesn't adequately address any of the topics she raises. Any one of the aforementioned subjects deserves its own guide: each is so complex and complicated that only an entire book could do it justice. Indeed, if you were to perform a keyword search for any of these terms on Amazon, its search engine would return dozens of results.

My advice is this: If you're interested in self-publishing, don't try to save money and buy just one "how-to" guide (such as this one) to answer all your questions - you'd be cheating yourself as opposed to protecting your wallet. Rather, consult at least one book on traditional publishing, another about self- (or electronic) publishing, a third on marketing, yet another on taxes and finances for small businesses, and so on. "How to Make Money Publishing from Home" is so basic that it should be called "Remedial Self-Publishing" or, better yet, "Self-Publishing for Sixth Graders." There's almost no useful information in here - you're much better off spending your money (and time) elsewhere. Heck, you can even Google "self-publishing" and find more meaningful resources (and largely for free, to boot)!

Finally (and perhaps I'm just nit-picking now), the author began by introducing the different forms of self-published material (booklets, books, greeting cards, magazines, etc.), offering a short summary of each. This left me with the distinct and distasteful impression that this book was aimed at those who want to publish their own work just so that they can make wads of money without leaving the house (which rarely happens, despite the anomalies you read about in the "author profiles"). After all, if you're self-publishing for self-gratification, because you have knowledge that you want to share with others, or just for the love of the written word, shouldn't you already have some idea of what you're going to publish? In any case, this really put me off - anyone consulting a self-publishing book should already know what books, booklets, and magazines are, otherwise they don't really belong in the publishing business. Unless they're still in the sixth grade, in which case their ignorance is forgiven!

http://www.easyvegan.info/2005/05/10/how-to-make-money-publishing-from-home-by-l... ( )