The Next Step for my Book ???

I'm putting this here because I want to ask for input.

As many of you know - or own - my book 'It's All in the Cards' went OOP about 3 years ago. At that time I did a very intellegent thing - I petitioned my publisher for my copyright back ... and got it. This means that my publisher no longer owns the manuscript (which they could decide to re-publish 20 years down the road from now). I own the manuscript, and by default (per se) the copyright to use the RWS illustrations used in the book as long as I don't change the title of the book. And as you can see, I just turned right around and got my book republished! {NOT!}

The intervening two years have filled my life with constant upheaval and interfered with the process.

At the moment, the obstacle is that I have the entire manuscript in electronic form, and the separate illustrations in electronic form (I think), and I have to get the two incorporated into one to be able to submit it. The illustrations are what is holding me up; if there was only text I could have done this years ago. Any suggestions? Pay someone to create the 'new' manuscript and then submit that?

I appreciate any input, and I have a poll - but don't let that stop your suggestions.

I voted for POD. I like e-books too, but I like to have tarot manuals on paper. Also, you mention illustrations, and I think those work better on paper. Most people who own an e-reader have a small one, the e-readers with larger screens, on which illustrations can be seen better, are a lot more expensive.
So my first option would be POD, the second e-book, and I would vote against looking for a publisher that will once again lay down the rules for you.

I know amazon now also offers POD and they let you use formatting tools for the book content and the cover. Would that be interesting for you ?
I am considering it for Dutch writers who have their books translated into English because they want to sell worldwide. As yet I have no experience with this, but I have set up an account and that allows me to read the forum amazon has set up for POD publishers.

I work part time as a translator/editor/administrative help/advisor (you name it...) for a small publishing company in the Netherlands. We let writers keep their publishing rights and only take a fee for the administrative/logistic/editing (etc.) services we provide. As the Netherlands are such a small country, many writers are interested in going outside the Dutch territory to sell books, which is why we are considering amazon.

Edited to add:
I think you don't have to choose between POD or e-book, I guess you could do both ? It is just a matter of which one you want to do first.

I also voted POD. Hey, I'm a reader and work in a library, I love my paper books. BUT am in total agreement with Wolfspirit here. You can do both. Most people are, nowdays. I know that a lot of people are self-publishing via Kindle. Since your book will be a reprint of an already published book, you may be able to command higher prices per copy. I don't know about this - but certainly something to check on.

So, Wolfspirit and VGimlet - is it really posssible to do both (meaning a company for POD and a simultaneous company for the e-book), or does going through Amazon give the buyer the choice of which version they would like to purchase? The 'both' concept is new to me.

I voted for electronic format. Please.

Tarotbear, most POD publishers will try to make you sign an exclusive contract with them for two or three years, during which you cannot publish your book in another way.
This is a pity, because you would probably make sales through e-books as well.
Look at the poll - you have as many votes for e-books as for POD, so it would be a pity if you had to choose one over the other.
That is why I was thinking of self-publishing through amazon, both as e-book and with their POD service. You can use Kindle Direct Publishing for e-books. They offer POD through CreateSpace but they are not a conventional publisher, they call it 'self-publishing through CreateSpace' so you use their tools to self-publish.
Of course amazon are no charity and they will take a percentage of your sales but for someone who has the time and the brains to check out the options I think it may be a good way to stay in control of your own book.
You will need a different ISBN for the paper version and the digital version.
I am not trying to push you to amazon, but we looked at their programs and thought their conditions were pretty good.

Most publishers in the Netherlands will only publish paper books and are not interested in publishing the book as e-book as well. I thought this was because we are behind with e-books compared to US, but it seems publishers in US are just the same...despite the popularity of e-readers.

We hope we are soon ready to 'test drive' a book through amazon's programs and we'll see how it goes !

I voted for electronic format, not because I have Nook or Kindle or one of those but just because I think so many other people are going that route and that maybe that's the best way to go with it.

For myself, I like books I can actually hold and turn pages and lug around with me without a device (other than my glasses) that I can read them with, but times being what they are, maybe the most lucrative route in the long run for you would be electronic.

It's just my intuitive response. Whatever you choose, I hope it will turn out to be the very best one for you in the long run.

Well, I can't decide one way over the other.

As a personal preference, I like my Tarot books to be published in a nice format so I can store them on my shelves for all eternity and have them as a reference. ( If it's print on demand, does it get printed in a book or is it something the buyers download and print themselves?)

I don't have an e-reader, mainly because I haven't had time to be reading any fiction lately- I would want my fiction on the e-reader and my reference books on paper. I think I'm one of the few who probably won't get an e-reader for a few years. That may really be the best way to go, since that's the way the world is going- like Griz said.

Best of luck!

Disa said:

( If it's print on demand, does it get printed in a book or is it something the buyers download and print themselves?)

Click to expand...

It is a book, and the same quality as other books.
Now that books are printed from digital files, and it is no longer necessary to typeset before printing, a writer can have a small quantity of copies printed when he needs them.
So - no longer the nightmare of hundreds of books stored in your garage that are not selling.
Or that other nightmare - having hundreds of copies printed, only to discover that there is a mistake on the first page (with POD, you can update the files for the next batch so at least they no longer have that mistake).

You should self publish. Probably through Amazon.

You can do ebooks for the kindle and physical books through createspace.

Then, when someone orders a physical book, amazon prints one for them and sends it out.

There are other platforms as well as amazon, you can do all of them, but currently amazon seems to be the most popular.

As for the formatting, loads of people do it for themselves, no reason you couldn't. I reckon I could. Both for ebook and POD. One is simple HTML, and the other is just making a pdf.

Illustrations can be put into ebooks. But they might need to be black and white, I'm not sure, but I think most kindles are black and white.
Also, with the POD, colour illustrations would probably hike the price up too high. So B&W there too, I would think.

And you are not tied to any contract. They take a percentage of both ebook and POD, but that is for the service they are providing, not because they own any part of the rights to your work.