I've written a children's book (ages 3-4) about gymnastics because there are none out there. I want to be able to sell it and I don't want anyone to be able to steal it.
How much would it cost to publish it myself?
10 pts best answer! Thanks in advance!
By "stealing" I mean plagiarizing my work and trying to sell it as their own
Steven J Pemberton
Favorite Answer
All of the self-publishing services that I'd recommend are free to use, insofar as it doesn't cost anything to make the book available for sale to the public. If you want physical copies of the book that you can give or sell to people, you'll have to pay for those, but you can pay for only as many copies as you want - you don't have to buy a big crate if you only want one or two.
Depending on what you can do yourself or persuade competent friends to do for you, you should budget anything up to a few thousand dollars for editing, cover design, interior layout and illustrations.
When you say you don't want anyone to be able to steal the book, do you mean you don't want readers to be able to read it without paying for it? That's essentially impossible, for reasons I don't have time or space to go into here.
Or do you mean you don't want the company to publish it with someone else's name on the front? That never happens, or if it does it's so rare that it's not worth worrying about. Reputable self-publishing companies know it's not worth the risk of a lawsuit. Disreputable self-publishing companies (AKA vanity presses) don't do it either, because most of their money doesn't come from sales of books - it comes from selling overpriced services to naive and desperate authors.
Madame M
You are asking for the impossible. If it's any good, it'll be pirated. It happens to my favorite authors, who are best-selling writers with real publishing houses.
If you want to do it online, I think it's basically free. You will have the right to sue anyone who steals your book, too. Check with Amazon. You will have to pay a percentage of the sales, but setting it up is free. Forbes had an article about self-publishing with some of the numbers you are looking for. http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2014/04/25/how-to-self-publish-your-book-through-amazon/#624f1bda4447
Anonymous
Depends on the deal the author makes with the publisher.
And in your case the Liability Insurance & Lawyers fees since it involves possibility of personal injury. [That is why the market is open]
If a name Publisher buys your book you get Royalties.
If you have to publish yourself (Vanity Press) you pay for everything, printing, advertising, shipping, etc. And may keep all of any profits.
http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/vanity/
http://theworldsgreatestbook.com/self-publishing-vanity-publishing/
Anonymous
Well, I suppose if you don't want anybody to steal it, you could station an armed guard in your basement, where all the cartons of unsold books will probably end up.
?
To start you need a ISBM # and a pack of ten numbers is over $200.......