Progress on my book has been slow but steady over the past few months with the result that Chapter 12 is now nearing completion. That leaves only one more chapter remaining plus some tidying up to be done as a result of writing several chapters out of sequence, so I’ve been thinking recently about what to do with the book once it is finished. The feedback I’ve received on the sample chapters suggests that there is a market for such a book, but what would be the best way of reaching this market?
There appear to be three options available. These are (in descending order of difficulty):-
- Securing a publishing deal with a book publisher.
- Self-publishing the book.
- Putting the entire book up on the Web as a free download.
With the first two options, there is also a decision to be made on whether to go for a traditional printed book or an eBook, or possibly both. A book on a technology-related subject may be more attractive as an eBook given that people who are interested in reading about technology are also likely to be keen users of technology. However, I’d like to include plenty of illustrations in my book and there are currently issues with the use of illustrations in eBooks due to the way in which eBook readers dynamically reformat the pages in order to accommodate different display screen resolutions.
Given my chances of landing a publishing deal with no track record whatsoever, I’m tempted to go down the self-publishing route. However, to do this properly will involve considerable time and expense, with little prospect of a return on this investment as my book is likely to be lost amongst the competition unless I can find a way of getting it noticed. Unfortunately, the level of competition is formidable, with more than 2 million eBooks currently available in the Amazon Kindle store alone.
The Web is awash with sites offering advice for unpublished authors, but most of these focus on fiction rather than non-fiction and the two categories are sufficiently different that much of the advice does not apply. Therefore, if there are any non-fiction authors out there who would be willing to share their publishing experiences, good or bad, I would be keen to hear from you.
Of course, I don’t need to make a decision on this anytime soon. With a busy day job and other commitments, it’s likely to take me some time to complete the book. The later chapters have taken longer to write due to the larger amounts of primary source material to digest, so on this basis I probably have another 9 months or so before I’ll actually have something worth publishing.
The Story of the Computer 