I’ve been writing and publishing ESL books with several different companies in Taipei for three years now. However, I’ve only ever been able to get one-time payment for these efforts. Now I would like to publish a series of books of my own design, and would like to receive continuous profit in the future, assuming the book sells well. Is it possible to independently print and publish a book and then sell it to directly bookstores? Does anyone have any experience regarding this method of publishing? Many Thanks in Advance
Not an easy task. Go with publishers. They know what the market desires, while you’re taking a stab in the dark without their support and marketing.
If you’d like to submit a proposal, feel free to PM me and I’ll send you my email and guide you through the steps. The company I work for carries a lot of weight in TW EFL publishing, and pays on a royalty basis only.
You must be the guy who writes the books my students learn from before they come to me.
Send me a draft copy, and I’ll photocopy it for my students to see how they like it. If they like it I promise not to photocopy it again. Maybe.
(Aside from giving you unnecessary crap, I should add that there are a few people here who have published their own books in Taiwan. They’ll be along shortly.)
This is an interseting take on PRINT ON DEMAND books. It’s one way to publish your book. Your do the publicity etc, they print on demand.
title:
A Philistine’s Journal: An Average Guy Tackles the Classics
My book has peaked at #1,066,635 on Amazon’s listing & it’s dropping faster than Colin Farrell’s underwear. Understand, a lesser man would be far bitterer than I. That is, of course, assuming you can find a lesser man – not an easy task on even my best days.
“A Philistine’s Journal: An Average Guy Tackles the Classics”, came out in May 2003. Sure, it received nice reviews from web reviewers (Rebecca called it one of the best books of the year – okay she said I was a close second, but that still makes it one of the best books, right?) & I was invited to speak at a couple of different author conferences. I have done 15 in-store appearances &, well…put it this way, sales are well into the double digits.
Why isn’t it selling better? If we discount the notion that it might very well suck (& on my best days I can do that) we’re left with the fact that it’s a POD – Print on Demand – book. This is not a bad thing, assuming there’s a demand in the first place.
Creating that demand is a problem. Here’s the knock on POD:
I can confirm that Alien works for one of Taiwan’s most respected English language publishers. I have had a number of titles published by them in the past. Royalties are paid twice a year.
Actually, that’s once a year, Hartzell. For EFL publications at least.
And johnhenry has already made contact. 
You mean in Taiwan
You’d be surprised just how much, too…
A ‘static book market’ is an oxymoron.