This book is an introductory guide for newbies in publishing. Being a small and easy to read paperback, it's a good starting point for anyone who never read about publishing before and wasn't involved into the publishing or self-publishing business.
The book covers two major areas. The first area is publishing in general (how to produce a book and get it selling), including self-publishing. The second area is business aspects of running a small book publishing company, including accounting principles, sales tax issues, business structure, and so on. Being the author of the business titles: "Thinking Like an Entrepreneur" and "Becoming an Investor", Peter I. Hupalo couldn't resist from exposing basic entrepreneurship principles in this book.
To the date of publication, the book was is very timely: it gave valuable and up-to-date information on prices and conditions on various services related to book publishing: offset printing, Print-On-Demand, book storage in climate-controlled warehouses, retail distribution channels, sales through amazon.com, and so on. This information helps to the reader to make the right choice. Moreover, there is a special, deep chapter "How Many Copies You Should Print".
The author also gives valuable experience of being a member of various publishing-related Internet discussion lists. At the time of publication, publishing-related discussion lists were not known to be mentioned in other publishing and self-publishing titles.
While this book is concise and is not tedious, there is never enough. Consider getting more information and valuable references from "Complete Guide to Self Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote, and Sell Your Own Book" by Tom Ross and Marilyn Ross.
Review #2
Not up to the price of the book.
When I initially saw this title and the positive reviews, I decided to purchase it to see if it had any more information to add to what I read in The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Tom & Marilyn Ross. ...
I was disappointed with the first part of the book, which seemed to be nothing but promotions of other books. And while he does discourage direct mail advertising, he does so for pages! He seems to find it necessary to explain ad nauseam why direct mail advertising is wrong. Other topics are covered in such a way that he ends up referring you to another book for more information.
There are a few areas that he does go in-depth about, such as the matter of bookkeeping and accounting, but at times he goes into too much technical detail - possibly even more than most budding publishers would ever have to encounter. And when it comes to the issue of printing he has a tendency to over-promote POD publishers, especially since his book is printed through a POD publisher (which tends to be more expensive that other books of its type and size).
About the only useful information that I was able to glean from the book were web sites where I could find additional information as needed. But this isn't enough to justify an overpriced book that is more hype than substance.
Review #3
A Bit of a Disappointment...
Peter Hupalo's book was very highly recommended on Amazon.com so I was quite excited to see what information it could give me about starting my own publishing business. I knew that I was going to be disappointed when I saw the book and realized how cheaply the book was designed. While I know that it is important to cut costs in production, I felt that the author was lying when he said that it is easy for an author to learn to design a cover by himself and still look professional. Who is he trying to kid? The book is obviously self-published and designed. The author uses shameless self-promotion by repeatedly mentioning other books that he has written that could help the reader with other aspects of running a small business so that he can milk you for more money instead of giving you a few tips in this publication. I also thought that the title was misleading because it is really geared towards self-publishers - not a publishing company. I don't mean to say that the book is completely useless, as there was some decent information inside, as well as some suggestions as to printers and designers who don't mind working with smaller companies. However, as a whole I was pretty disappointed because there is little or no practical application for most of the topics that are covered in the book. For sections on inventory accounting, profitable book pricing, etc. the author spends a great amount of time running through math problems to show the reader all of this gobbledegook that doesn't make sense because you don't run your own publishing business and are not really sure of what the heck he is talking about! Other sections like cover design & book layout are obvious - make your book look good so it will sell. Duh. How do you make it look good, what are some things that have sold really well in the past? Anyway, it is a good introduction to publishing in general, but I was left with a lot more questions after the book than I had before!
