1) We consider the texts and make a decision on publication within 3 months. Please note that sometimes it can take longer due to the size of the manuscript or the workload of the editor. We look forward to your understanding.

2) Manuscripts sent to the publisher's email address are not considered.

3) We do not consider:
- excerpts, parts of manuscripts and ideas of works;
- handwritten manuscripts.

4) By the rules of the publisher manuscripts will not be reviewed and returned.

5) Only those applications are considered that meet all the requirements for the design of materials.

If the editors are interested in the work, they will contact you on the left coordinates.

Please note that by submitting the manuscript to us, you are responsible for its legitimacy.

Requirements for the design of materials

1) In the form of submitting a manuscript:

1.1. Indicate the title of the manuscript.

1.2. Indicate the genre in which the manuscript was written: science fiction, fantasy, detective story, children's literature, contemporary prose, historical novel, etc.

1.4 If you transferred any types of rights to third parties in this work, or posted the manuscript on Internet resources, be sure to indicate this in the "Obligations to third parties" field.

1.5 It is important to describe briefly the characters and the plot. State the reasons why the work should interest the reader.

2) Attach the manuscript file:

2.1 Manuscripts should be sent in full. We do not accept for consideration individual fragments of manuscripts, synopsis and author's proposals separately from manuscripts, we do not consider links to a book published on various Internet resources.

2.2 The length of the manuscript should be:

• Applied literature - at least 3 author's sheets.
• Teenage literature - at least 5 author's sheets.
• Fiction - at least 7 author's sheets (science fiction and fantasy - at least 12 author's sheets).

2.3 Manuscripts are accepted only in electronic form, sent through the manuscript submission form. We do not accept flash drives or other media.

2.4 The manuscript should be in one file. We will not accept for consideration the manuscript of a novel consisting, for example, of 60 chapters, each of which is in a separate file.

2.5 Materials must be in DOCX (Microsoft Word) format.

From the very beginning, I would like to clarify that this work is designed not so much for the writer as for the reader, because it is on him, our reading contemporary, that an exorbitant burden falls, which few people writing think about. Just imagine: with every book written, the amount of literature to be read grows, while the number of books to be written decreases proportionally. Very soon, in a year of five thousand such and such, writers will not need to write anything at all, everything will already be written, but readers will have to consume the serum of immortality so that they have at least some opportunity to read all the books that humanity has acquired. on its long journey to Truth.

Here the author pondered this problem, so that in the end he even began to thank the gods for the fact that some representatives of humanity destroyed all kinds of literature, thereby showing concern for future generations of the intelligentsia. As proof, the author gives a rather vivid example that confirms this maxim: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who decided to save future readers, especially schoolchildren, on a suicidal feat and destroyed the second part of Dead Souls. Having expressed such an unexpected and bold thought, the author ponders the consequences of what was said and really hopes for the understanding of the public.

Even now, the reader is presented with such a huge amount of the most diverse literature that it is simply amazing how our dear reader has not yet been included in the list of great heroes and are not assigned a particularly high pension and honor from people who are free from this curse - love of reading (love, as you know, is evil).

And in order not to replenish the library of already written works with his dubious creativity, the author contrived and turned his word to those who see more value in the written word than in the read, turning weapons, so to speak, against the gunsmiths themselves. However, the author adds, it will also be useful for the reader to familiarize himself with this material in order to be more prepared when choosing fresh reading material.

In view of the above, and thinking primarily about the reader, a modern novelist must be very strict with the result of his work (not only a novelist, the author specifies). When starting work, a writer is obliged to strictly follow the rules developed by smart people especially for him.

Rule 1. A modern novel is supposed to be very simple and straightforward.

From the name to the final point. The modern reader has enough problems, he has neither the strength nor the desire to guess why it took someone to write this particular book. However, this does not mean that there should be no intrigue in the novel. Without intrigue, the novel turns into a scientific work.

To make it clearer, the author gives an example: the hero and the heroine meet at the beginning of the novel. It should be immediately clear that in the finale of the novel the heroes will find themselves in bed, and then maybe even get married. Simple and straightforward. Intrigue: who will drag whom to bed.

Rule 2. A modern novel should consist of small independent blocks.

So that after reading one block, the reader could theoretically forget about the book forever. The time is now difficult, it is not known when there will still be a free minute for reading. Well, if it has already dropped out, the reader should not bother himself with the problem "what was there before ..." Clearly, the reader is a very busy person.

For comparison, the author offers modern TV series, such as "My Fair Nanny", "Happy Together" and many others, which you can start watching from any episode, and, in principle, end on any one. And if a writer can't write like that, then you can use a move that is very popular among long series, such as "a summary of previous episodes."

Rule 3. Technological innovations.

In a modern novel, modern technological objects and devices (gadgets) must be present, which in the near future will be very popular and necessary for people. If a writer is unable to envision the technical capabilities of the near future, then at least he must come up with his own techno-devices so as not to look like a backward loser against the background of the rest of the literary world. Or, as a last resort, to offer the world some seedy new source of fuel.
Ultramodern writers (in particular science fiction writers) should, along with techno innovations, introduce biotechnologies into the narrative, which, as you know, are the future of.

The author cites as an example the well-known epic about James Bond, the 007 agent, whose high percentage of popularity is ensured by the fact that the main character has all kinds of gadgets that help him in the fight against opponents. The author even explains that the popularization of gadgets in this particular case is facilitated by the fact that technical devices are not only convenient household items, but also good helpers.

Rule 4. Place of action (Exotic).

The modern writer very often chooses the wrong location for his work. But this is a very important element of the novel.

Think for yourself: for the sake of exoticism, the writer transfers the action to some Chinese backwater. Well, why? Considering that now, according to statistics, one in five is Chinese. How many more Chinese were not included in the statistics? That is, about 20% of potential readers can safely accuse the writer of writing about unconfirmed data. It would be much more correct to send the main characters to the island of Greenland, about which it is not even known whether people live there, and if anyone takes care of this issue, he is unlikely to have a desire to visit this very Greenland.

A modern writer must be aware of the current events and must, in order to avoid the angry responses of the critical mass, follow the lead of the current reader, that is, write about the heroes of our time: accordingly, praise those whom everyone praises and scold those who undoubtedly deserve it. Also, a writer has the right to protect himself by expressing gratitude to the powers that be, because nothing flatters their pride more than the opportunity to leave a long memory on their own, and a writer with a small (or, conversely, a large) list of fame will only raise his authority.
For greater popularity, it is necessary to introduce the heroes of the modern world into the narrative. They should immediately guess, but at the same time nothing concrete, so that you can always make excuses, they say, this is just a coincidence. After all, it is not known how the new book will be greeted, and you need to be ready for everything, besides, the heroes of our time may react incorrectly.
Links to well-known Internet resources will distribute the book on the Internet and establish oneself as an advanced modern user. And this is very important in our century - to show everyone that the writer is also infected with the plague of the XXI century, and is not limited to the Internet only by mail and Odnoklassniki.

Rule 6. Religious and philosophical worldview (Attention: not politics!)

No modern novel can do without a new or unusual philosophical outlook on life (sometimes turning into a religious one, but here you have to be careful, the era of Heinlein and Castaneda is far behind), which would explain human existence in an accessible form. Or, if this is the worldview of a negative hero, the writer must give an exhaustive answer as to why all of humanity or its individual representatives should be destroyed. At the same time, it is not necessary to invent anything; popularization of a not very well-known, but exotic movement will do.

The author immediately recalls the movement that was popular until recently in the States, which was based on one of the famous Jamaican statements of the second half of the 20th century. The fact is that in those days (and even much earlier), every resident of Jamaica knew that "bush" is just bad grass (it is clear what kind of grass we are talking about).

Or, for example, on the territory of modern Russia, a kind of movement is actively developing, the leaders of which claim that Medvedev (the current president of Russia) is the reincarnation of Vladimir Putin, who, so to speak, is "one in two persons" (and probably not even "in two" ). Supporters of this movement hope to find several more living reincarnations, and even hope that they can be them. True, opponents of this movement say that the current president is just an unsuccessful clone of the previous president.

Rule 7. Political Correctness.

To enter the world level, it is necessary to comply with the rules of political correctness, such as:
A) the heroine must own firearms at the same level as the hero,
B) representatives of all races (white, black, red and yellow) must be present in the novel,
C) the actions of the main characters in no case should infringe on the rights of minor heroes,
D) the main negative character should not belong to any of the existing races, he must be either an alien creature or a freak from humanity (and in either case, he is not subject to the rules of political correctness),
E) at least one of the heroes of the work must be a representative of any sexual minority (this point has even been made a separate Rule).

Rule 8. Sexual minorities.

You can't do without them. Even if you want to. However, a modern writer simply should not have such a desire (this is not politically correct!). In addition, gay characters are very characteristic and bright, so this opportunity should not be missed to easily create a lively and beautiful type. Moreover, such characters set off the main (often very boring) characters very well.

Just remember how courageous the character of Bruce Willis looks in "The Fifth Element" next to the famous host of some galactic show. And if you remove from the film "this black is not clear what orientation", then the main character will become just an ordinary man from the provinces, which may not be so many, but quite enough.

Rule 9. Patriotism

Without this, of course - nothing. The writer must immediately show that he has honor and dignity. Well, or at least patriotism. That is, something that cannot be bought or sold. In other words, the reader wants to see in the creator a strong personality, an idol, a Hero, a favorite of the gods. A good reader deserves a right writer, and this is something he, the reader, cannot be denied. Always remember this writer!

Rule 10. Happy end (happy ending).

A modern novel simply has to end on an optimistic note. The modern reader has enough stress even without it (the reader, of course, needs to be protected!). However, this does not mean at all that the main positive hero should cut all his enemies to smithereens and marry a beautiful girlfriend. No, the main thing is that there should be hope in the ending of the novel. For better. Maybe even that everyone will heal well someday. Well, or at least a little better.

Very good, for example, are the final scenes of some second-rate horror films, when tired winners return home, and somewhere from a grave covered with earth, a paw of a defeated monster protrudes.

If you suddenly read all this to the end, then you are really the one for whom this hellish work was designed. It remains only to get to work. Let the muses and sponsors give you at least a little of their attention.

I'll tell you about several services that will help those who can and loves to write to start making money on the Internet, and most importantly, I have already written something that, in his opinion, can be sold.

Each of these sites has its own chips and features, I will try to focus on the main ones.

Bookmate Publisher

This is a section of the Bookmate book club, which is actually intended for legal reading and storage of e-books. But, thanks to Publisher, the author can upload his own books to the service and get the following features:

Books.ru

This service also makes it possible to earn money on the Internet from the sale of your own works. Moreover, both in electronic and paper form. To do this, register, go to your account, open your profile card -\u003e Bookshelf -\u003e Sell Books. Here you choose the option you want, fill out the form and download the book. After that, it will be moderated for about a day, and then it will be on sale.

"Publish a book"

This site is intended for those who want to publish their book in electronic format, but do not know how to approach it. The Publish Book team will do everything for you. Your task is only to create the text, and the illustrations, protection, design and in general everything necessary for your work will be done by professionals. Of course, all this is not free, but the cost will depend on the amount of work and the format of the book, so the price is negotiated on an individual basis.

BookLand

The BookLand website is a bookstore and electronic publishing company in one bottle. That is, here the author concludes an agreement not only for the publication of the electronic version of his work, but also for its placement in the online store. Go to the section "Copyright holders" fill out the form and send a request. You will then be asked to sign a contract and you can submit the manuscript for review. Everything is done conveniently, so you can quickly figure it out. Books, if desired, can be published in protected and copy-protected formats. The price is also set by the author. The proceeds are withdrawn through Interkassa - a convenient tool that allows you to withdraw money to the card, both in Russia and in Ukraine.

Russolit

The Russian collection of writers is more of a social network, where communication is given no less attention than reading. To sell your books over the Internet using Russolit, you need to register here, confirm the registration, go to your personal account -\u003e "My works" -\u003e "Add a book", fill in all the fields, download the file and cover. There is no pre-moderation. There are WebMoney and Robokassa payment systems, you can withdraw from 500 rubles. Basically, novice authors put the price at 15-25 rubles.

The publisher

This service allows the author, using his own program EBook Publicant, to create an e-book from an existing manuscript and sell it using the WebMoney Transfer system. That is, if you do not have WebMoney Keeper, then you need to urgently create one.

By the way, if you decide to make money on the Internet, sooner or later you will need the WebMoney payment system, so take some time, register and download the WM Keeper wallet to your computer.

All e-books in the Publicant are placed in exe format. Thanks to this program, the text of the book is displayed on the reader's device. You cannot copy the text, you cannot print the book itself.

Glopart.ru

If you are writing not fiction, but something more mundane, for example: "How to get married after 50" or "How to grow pineapples on the balcony", then Glopart.ru is perfect for you. Its main visitors are authors of various Internet services that make money on affiliate programs. For example, the author of a blog about agriculture went to the site, saw here a book about growing broilers or breeding muskrats, wrote an article about it on the blog, and posted a link to the book. Its reader, who needs this information, read the article, followed the link and bought the book. The author got money for the book, the blog owner got a commission.

To add a book to Glopart.ru, register, log into your account, go to the "Products" -\u003e "Add" section and fill in all the windows. You set the price of the book and the amount of deductions to partners yourself.

Ecwid

This is a service that allows you to quickly create an online store. I will not write about it here, because I wrote in detail about its installation and use in articles "" and "". It will come in handy if you create your own blog or Facebook page to advertise your works.

Own blog

Many modern writers not only have their own blogs, but generally gained fame first on the Internet, and then just started to publish in real life. You can, of course, have a blog on a free site, like LiveJournal, but if you are really serious about your creativity, immediately create it on a paid hosting - freedom is more expensive. Blogs publish chapters from books, some observations, articles on the topic of the day, personal photos, illustrations for their books, maps of the worlds that you describe, etc. Also, many put a button - "Support the project financially."

Another way to earn money for publishing your masterpiece is. But in order for people to start throwing off your book, you must prove that it is either very useful or super-duper interesting.

I think that these services are more than enough for those who are looking for how to sell books over the Internet. For those who are seriously interested in publishing books, I suggest reading the advice of Alexander Lukyanenko, the author of the well-known "Patrols" and other fiction and fantasy that I love dearly. He conducted an experiment on "can a writer make money on the Internet" and made the following conclusions:

Sometimes on the Internet I come across authors (or those who consider themselves to be such) and see that it is quite possible for a novice writer to make money here, although until fame comes, and with it a stable income on the Internet, you will have to work a lot.

Let's say you are an aspiring author. You have written several stories, individual chapters, or even a full-fledged novel. Friends love your creativity. Perhaps you even posted your texts on the Internet, and there you also have readers. And one day you wanted to become a real writer: to see your brainchild printed and dressed in a beautiful cover with your name on it. It is likely that such a dream has warmed your heart since childhood or adolescence. Or maybe it appeared only now, when you finished your first full-fledged work, received positive feedback not only from friends, but also from strangers - and so you realized that you know how to interest the reader. Or perhaps as you scrutinize the assortment of the local bookstore's best-selling department, you realize, "I can do that too!" So the decision came to publish the book.

Bitter truth

Before you start, remember one important thing. It may sound sad to you, but nevertheless it is so: large, venerable publishers will never undertake to print books by novice and not known to the general public for free. No matter how talented you are, or no matter how you seem to yourself, there is still no recipe for “How to publish a book in Russia for free”.

We'll have to take it for granted: publishing is a business like any other; no guaranteed profit - no cooperation. So if you are not a bestselling author yet, there is no point in hoping to meet with open arms.

Find the genre and publisher

However, no one forbids you to look for ways how to publish your book in a large publishing house. Just find the one that suits your topic. Currently the most popular genres are:

1) fantasy;

2) women's novels;

3) detective stories about Russian realities;

4) cooking;

5) children's picture books;

6) benefits for self-development and self-education;

7) business leadership;

8) esotericism;

9) mysticism;

10) pseudo-historical novels with patriotic pathos.

When planning how to publish a book in Russia, remember: the less popular the genre in which you write is, the longer it will take to look for a suitable publishing house. The names and contacts you need can be found on the Internet or when studying the assortment of bookstores - to be sure, you can use both methods.

Submitting the manuscript

If the publisher's website has a special form for authors, it must be filled out and sent. You can also find and download a prospectus (basic information about the book and the author), fill it out once and then send it to all the publishers you are interested in. If you are looking for how to get your book published, this might be your chance.

The information about the author and the work must be accompanied by a synopsis (short description) of your work. It usually takes no more than two to three pages. The synopsis covers the entire work from beginning to end, demonstrating all the virtues of the plot. Writing a good synopsis is not easy enough, so take this matter very seriously and read the recommendations of experienced authors.

You must also provide a sample of your work. Please send not the entire manuscript, but only a fragment (no more than 20 pages). It can take up to six months to review each manuscript, so be patient if you are looking for ways to get your book published to publishers' liking. True, if you manage to do this, the wait, unfortunately, will not end there. Then you will need to wait patiently for your book to be published, because the publisher has its own

We participate in the competition

They are held annually on various genres. Usually they are organized by literary magazines or various foundations, less often by publishing houses. Some events accept work free of charge, others for a small fee. Winning a competition is one way to

As an example of annual competitions, one can name: "Eurocon" and "Quasar" (works in the genre of "fantasy"), "Written with a pen" (organized by the eponymous literary portal), "High Heels" (prose written by women) and various events from the Russian Union of Writers.

Choose a competition that best suits your writing genre. Read the terms carefully and follow them exactly. Make sure that your work is original in its idea and images of the characters, as well as of high quality in terms of stylistics and norms of the Russian language.

The works of the contestants are judged by a jury consisting, as a rule, of recognized writers, as well as representatives of publishing houses and magazines. Finalists usually get the right to publish their work in a publishing house or literary magazine. Therefore, participation in a literary competition is an opportunity to attract the attention of competent and influential people.

For those who write for children and adolescents

The New Children's Book, an annual competition from Rosman Publishing House, may be your chance if you are looking for how to publish a book for children and teens. Perhaps it is your work, now lying in obscurity on the hard disk of your computer, that in the future will be able to become a laureate of the competition, be published in a well-known publishing house and get a real chance to access an impressive number of young readers. Don't be afraid to look for a free way to publish your own children's book.

We publish at our own expense

Perhaps you are an extremely active person by nature and are not used to waiting for "miracles from heaven" in the form of a generous philanthropist, a kind publisher, or your victory in a literary competition that accidentally turned up. In this case, advice on how to publish your book at your own expense will be useful to you.

For a start - an option for those who just want to see their favorite creation in the form of a full-fledged book. In this case, you can simply order from the printing house and pay from your pocket for the release of several copies: keep one or two, distribute the rest to friends and family. But even such a seemingly simple undertaking as writing and publishing a book takes time. First of all, calculate how you will save your money on preparing the book for printing.

Prepress

This process includes the following steps:

• editorial proofreading of the text (for errors and typos);
• layout (correct design of all spaces, intervals, paragraphs, headers and footers and other graphic components);
• cover design of a future book;
• and its turnover (author, title, abstract and imprint).

Of course, all these operations can be performed at a printing house for an appropriate fee, but something can be done on a home computer.

On the other hand, if you want the book to look really real, it makes sense to entrust the entire process to professionals. Sometimes it is profitable to give a manuscript for prepress to one publisher, and then print it from ready-made layouts in another place.

How much does the first print run cost?

So, you have prepared the layout of your book, and how much money will you have to invest in the release of your first, albeit small, circulation? Its cost depends on the following parameters:

• how many author's sheets are in the publication (1 \u003d 40,000 characters with spaces; the value for your work can be viewed in Word);
• what circulation is planned;
• what type of cover (hard or soft; in the first case it will be more beautiful and practical, but more expensive).
• the quality of the paper for the block and cover materials;
• brilliance of the future edition (if the cover is planned to be colored);
• how time consuming prepress will be (for example, having illustrations).

As for the time for publication (including editing, design, layout and printing), on average this process takes from 3 to 6 months. If desired, you can reduce the waiting time, but this will mean additional costs.

Writer's earnings

And now - an option for those authors who plan to make money by writing. In general, this is true: you worked honestly, wrote, invested yourself - and your work should be paid. Another question is how specific the book market is and how to sell a book in modern conditions. After all, paradoxically, now only the lazy does not write, and there is simply not enough readers for everyone.

To take the first step, you need to promote your book. Do not expect others to do it for you - a publishing house or a literary agent - because, as we already found out at the very beginning, no one will publish and promote a little-known author for free. If you want to get a positive result, you have to get down to business yourself.

Selling a book

First, to be eligible to sell a published book, you need to obtain an international standard ISBN number. This can be done at the Russian Book Chamber. It is required to pay a certain fee for the service, as well as to submit documents that give you the right to carry out publishing activities.

You are now ready to sell your book. You can come to a bookstore and try to interest the owner in order to conclude a contract for implementation. When setting the cost, proceed from the fact that after the percentage markups (from the publisher and the store) the book will cost twice as much as its production cost. For example, if you personally cost 150 rubles to release the print run. for 1 copy, then on the shelf of a bookstore your creation will be exhibited at a price of 300 rubles. But in this case, how big is the percentage of people who will buy an unknown book? Therefore, before you release your brainchild on the market, you need to make a name for yourself as an author. Next - how to publish an e-book.

Internet promotion

The easiest way is to achieve recognition for yourself and your book on the vastness of the World Wide Web, or at least its Russian-language segment. There are several ways how to publish an e-book. Among them:

• pure e-book;
• print on demand;
• audiobook.

For your book to become popular enough to sell, you need to draw attention to it. There are various ways to publish an e-book. One of them is placement in digital libraries, for example: "Aldebaran", "Fensin", "Litportal", FictionBook, Bookz.ru, etc. Separate online libraries ("Librusek", Liters ") find new authors themselves, popular on the web, and post their work.

However, the main profit in the distribution of the electronic version of the book is not at all financial. The more downloads, the larger the circle of readers will know about your book. And the higher the chances of selling it in paper version: you will earn a name for yourself, and you will have something to offer the publisher.

There is a misconception that a person will never buy a book in paper form that he has already downloaded in electronic form for free. In fact, readers are happy to buy into their home library those works that they plan to reread. The latter already depends on you as a skillful author.

If you are looking for a way to sell an e-book, take a look at print-on-demand technology. In this case, a fragment of the book is posted on the site (several chapters, a cover, etc.), and the interested reader pays for his copy, which is printed especially for him.

One of the ways to sell an e-book is to produce an audio version. This can be done both in the studio and at home. Audiobooks are most often distributed in online stores in the form of a paid download link. Audiobooks are in demand, but this market is still underdeveloped, and therefore there is less competition here, which is a significant plus.

Once an idea was born in your mind. And you asked yourself: "How to publish your book?" If you have already become interested in the answer to this question, then you are ready to set yourself the task - to publish. And by placing it, you can find solutions.

At the end of last year, I published four books. If you want to know how to publish and sell your book, read this article, in which I tell you what it cost me.

Benefits of working with publishers

Cooperation with a well-known publishing house is the dream of many novice authors. The problem is that a well-promoted publishing house needs well-promoted authors, and beginners are not interested, since there is a risk of not selling out the circulation and going into the red.

According to Vera Yezhkina, producer of book projects at the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house, the first circulation of the business book is 2,000 - 3,000 copies. “If the author is well-known, then at the time of signing the contract he receives an advance in the amount of royalties for the first print run, which is 10% of the wholesale cost of books (30-40 rubles per copy),” says Yezhkina.

Pavel Podkosov, general director of the publishing house Alpina non-fiction, believes that due to the economic crisis, the average circulation may drop to 2,000 copies. According to him, the publishing house considers the publication of the book as a joint project with the author and relies specifically on royalties, and not on an advance payment. “Royalties are 10% of the wholesale price of a book, and with large print runs and constant reader demand, they can bring serious income,” adds Podkosov.

A thousand rubles is also money

You can, of course, overwhelm publishers with applications, at the same time write books that can become bestsellers and thus achieve a contract. I find this option emotionally too costly, since I never liked asking, and I don't really want to give out my ideas in the form of applications.

So I decided to publish and sell the existing books myself. Currently, there are only five books, this year I plan to publish twelve more (four of which have already been written). With a certain skill it is not so difficult to publish one high-quality book monthly, the main thing is to “make a plan” every day according to the signs.

The five books I have written bring in about 1,000 rubles a week or 52,000 rubles a year. I count the sales made both on this site and in the online store "Liters" (even if the book is presented in other online stores, for example, on "Ozone", its sales still go through "Liters"). Of course, sales vary from month to month, but on average the numbers I quoted above are the same.

At the same time, I receive most of the income from sales on this site, since when selling books in online stores, my royalties are only 25% of the cost of the book.

Book cover design, proofreading, book layout - go to "".

What's your goal?

You should have a goal in mind before you even start writing a book. Without knowing the goal, it is difficult to choose a promotion and sales model.

My goal, which I plan to achieve, including through self-publishing and selling books, is to create an authoring platform. I constantly study the needs of people writing and see that I have chosen the right strategy. Since the middle of last year, the audience of the Journal has been growing by about 10% monthly, and now the main core is not copywriters, but people who want to learn how to write in order to achieve their goals in work and life. A growing number of subscribers are working for large corporations.

The goal should define the main theme of your books. To create a strong authoring platform, you need to work in the narrowest possible niche, in which there are buyers with money. All twelve books I will publish this year will be about writing, copyright marketing, publishing, promotion, and more.

The only exceptions to this rule are the two books Online Business for Creative People and Email Marketing for Creative People. Yes, these books are not about how to write articles. But I wrote and published them because they are software for me. In them I shared my experiences and ideas of polite or intelligent marketing, which I follow.

How to publish your book

I have experience of communication with "Ozone" and "Liters" and in both cases this experience cannot be called positive. It makes no sense to send letters to these stores, they either do not reach the addressees, or they are ignored. From the point of view of stores, this attitude is understandable to me - I don't want to mess with private authors, since I need to increase the staff, act as a tax agent if the author works as an individual.

But if there is demand, then there will be supply. This is how the Ridero service from the Publishing Solutions company appeared.

Here's what is written on the About page on the Ridero website:
Our service allows you (as an author and / or publisher) to greatly facilitate the work of preparing a book for publication and to focus on the most important thing - on creativity and careful preparation of the text.

I opted for Ridero and it was with the help of it that I published and will continue to publish my books, since I do not see any other alternative yet. Of course, I would like to sign a contract directly with "Liters", but I have not been able to do this yet. Or maybe Amazon will allow selling books in Russian, that would be really great!

On the one hand, Ridero seems to be an ideal service, since it allows access to online stores and assigns an ISBN for free (for a book about a copywriting agency, I bought ISBN, UDC and BBK codes myself from the Russian Book Chamber and it cost me 3,422 rubles ).

On the other hand, Ridero only transfers 25% of the book's price to the author, distributing the remaining three-quarters among themselves, contractors and taxes. From this we can conclude that the publication of books through Ridero should be done only from an image point of view, in order to build a reputation and collect readers' reviews.

If you want to make money selling your books, you need to sell them yourself on your website or blog. I'll talk about this below.

How to layout an e-book in Ridero

Ridero has an editor that lets you typeset your book using a built-in set of layouts (4). The top line displays a thumbnail of the cover and the title of the book (1), below is the text formatting panel (2), in the right column above the layouts there are text styles (3) that must be used, since the structure of the book and the table of contents are formed on their basis. It is possible to pay for the services of a proofreader directly from the editor (5), but more on that below.

Working in the Ridero editor is not very convenient. There is no autosave and you need to constantly remember that after each change the material must be saved. You can't make changes to layouts, for example, I don't like indentation from the red line, but there is no way to remove it. And, what is most inconvenient, you cannot make hyperlinks active yourself. Yes, Ridero staff can do it for you for free, but for this you need to write a letter to the support team and ask them to make all links active.

The great advantage of the Ridero is the support service. She is really polite and professional. The only thing that is inconvenient is that she does not answer quickly and only in the afternoon Moscow time. I did not skimp on questions, since many aspects of publishing the book were not intuitive to me, and the help service of the service did not have answers to my questions.

Ridero allows you to download the book in all the most popular formats, which is convenient for self-sales. At the end of last year, downloading all files was free, the service plans to charge a fee of 900 rubles for downloading files of one book in PDF, MOBI and FB2 formats, while the developers promise to keep downloading the book file in EPUB format free.

It is better not to make a book cover yourself, it will look unprofessional, since you are a writer, not a designer. Ready-made high-quality covers can be purchased at "" in (covers cost from 1499 rubles).

How to promote your book

To promote a book, you need to get as many people as possible to read it. Ideally, it would be nice to have readers who already love what you do. Send them your book for free and ask them for honest feedback. Do not ask for positive feedback, loyal readers do not like and will not flatter. Maybe not everyone will praise you and not everyone will give you five stars, but you and your readers will develop respectful and trusting relationships.

When I was promoting my book, that's exactly what I did. Using MailChimp, I have selected the subscribers who have the highest ranking possible. This group included about a thousand people. Then I sent out a letter and offered to download any of the books (or all) for free, read them and write an honest review. A week after the giveaway, I subtly reminded me to write a review. All. You can see the result in the picture above.

It was magical

When I offered my book to readers in exchange for a review, I realized that there would definitely be someone who would not like the books. There were such people, but in the minority, although I was internally ready for criticism, since I worked as a journalist for a long time and often my articles were smashed to smithereens.

I am lucky with the readers - thank you! The ideas of polite or intelligent marketing, it seems to me, have not yet found widespread support from the majority of Internet marketers, who loudly declare their success, since this approach requires much more effort, as well as time, intelligence and education to get the first results. But these results will not be one-time, but permanent and last a lifetime.

What mistakes have I made

I did not foresee that after a single proofreading of the book by the proofreader, errors and misprints would remain in the text. If I had foreseen this, I would have directly asked readers not to mention errors and typos in their reviews (or even better, I would have ordered double proofreading before the free distribution of books). But I did not foresee this, as I was hoping for the Ridero correctors. As soon as I realized that there were a lot of mistakes, I sent the books for re-proofreading to my own proofreaders and now I am waiting for the re-publication of books in all online stores.

Many readers could not open the archive with the book files, since the name of the archive and files were in Russian. I changed the names to English and the problems disappeared immediately.

How to sell books on the site

That's all, it remains to touch upon the issue of self-sale of books on your website or blog. I recommend using the payment acceptance form (registration is required) from the Yandex.Money service - it has a very attractive commission: 0.5% for a transfer from a wallet and 2% for a transfer from a Visa or MasterCard.

At the initial stage, you can easily get by with this form, and when sales reach the desired level, then connect services such as JustClick, GloPArt, E-Autopay, EcommTools, etc., especially if you plan to sell through partners.

Keep in mind that when creating a form, be sure to check the email checkbox (1) in order to know to which address to send the file with the book. You can also mark the checkbox full name (2), in this case you can identify the buyer.

You can go a little further and automate the process of sending a book by specifying a link to the file with the book in the "Address for redirect" field (3). After a successful payment, the buyer will be automatically redirected to this address and the browser will download the file with the book to his computer.