There are two answers to this question, the easy way and the right way.
The easy way is to hand over your manuscript to one of the many companies that advertise a publishing service, along with a cheque for whatever their fee might be, and leave it at that.
I could go on with a long diatribe against such companies, but for now I will simply link that subject with the purpose of this post with the statement that;
A great many authors believe they have published their own book when in truth they have done no such thing.
These authors may have been told they have self-published their own book. They may believe it to be true, but the true publisher of any book is defined and identified in a very specific way and this is not by whoever has paid the cost of that publication. They may have paid through the nose, hundreds or thousands of pounds/dollars, it matters not one iota.
So how do you become a publisher?
Before explaining it must be pointed out that anyone can produce a book and offer that book for sale. However, for that book to count as being published, according to the official definition and requirements of the law and the book trade, that book must be officially registered with the assignment of its own individual ISBN number.
The ISBN number, or International Standard Book Number, can be described, in part, as a marketing and distribution tool. When introduced, each ISBN consisted of 10 digits. These digits comply to a specific mathematical formula. In January 2007, the number of digits in an ISBN was increased to 13 digits.
Each ISBN consists of 5 elements.
(1) The prefix element; always 3 digits in length.
(2) The Registration Group element; identifying a particular country, language area or geographic region of those participating in the ISBN system.
(3) The Registration element; identifying the particular publisher or imprint.
(4) The Publication element; identifying the particular format and edition of a particular title.
(5) The Check digit is calculated using a Modulus 10 system with alternative weights of 1 and 3. This check digit mathematically validates the rest of the number.
The part to note is number 3, the registration element, the part of the ISBN that identifies the publisher of any book. This means that if you use anyone else to produce your book and as part of the service they provide includes the provision of an ISBN, and that ISBN is one issued under their imprint name, then officially, they are the publisher. If they are the publisher, you have not self-published, you’ve simply paid someone else to publish your book for you.
The simple fact is that before you can publish your own book, you must first become a publisher.
Publication and production are two different aspects of the process and while a publisher can pay someone else to produce the required volume of copies of their book, a publisher must always retain their authority as being ‘the publisher’ and to do this, you must register yourself as ‘the publisher’ with the relevant ISBN Agency.
The U.K. ISBN Agency is Nielsen UK. In America is Bowker. Simply search ISBN Agency on the internet to find the one that applies. Books do not need to be registered in every country they are sold, only in the country of publication.
When you contact the ISBN Agency they will expect you to have an Imprint Name. An Imprint Name is comparable to a business name and can be anything you choose, with a few caveats. It must not be anything derogatory or indecent, nor can it be a name registered to and used by any other similar business. You will then need to purchase your first block of ISBNs, the larger the block purchased the lower the cost per ISBN, so purchasing 100 ISBNs is cheaper per ISBN than purchasing just 10. Remember that the cost of the ISBN must be included when calculating the cost of publishing your book.
Another responsibility for the publisher is fulfilling the legal deposit requirements relevant to the country of publication. In the U.K. it is a legal requirement that a copy of every printed publication must be given to the British Library and to five other major libraries that request it. These are, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, the University Library, Cambridge and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
If you have truly self-published your own book then you are legally responsible for depositing a copy with the British Library. The address is: the British Library,
Boston Spa,
Wetherby,
LS23 7BY
In return you will receive a legal deposit receipt.
Any request for copies to the other libraries listed above will come from:
ALD(Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries
Causewayside Building,
Causewayside,
Edinburgh,
EH9 1PH.
Note that supplying the legal deposit copies is the responsibility of the publisher. These agencies get the publisher name and address from a books ISBN registration.
Dealing with legal deposit requests is all part of being a publisher. If you haven’t done this, you are either legally at fault or you are not the publisher, despite what you may think or have been told.
Whatever you may be told and whatever you believe, the first step to publishing your own book is to become a publisher. There is no other way to do it.
This and other issues are dealt with in the book:
Available through Amazon: An Independent & Comprehensive Guide for Authors Wanting to Publish Their Own Books: http://www.amazon.com/dp/190030743X
radicalrog 