Backyard deer hunting

In almost every case there is some production issue that rises up and bites us authors in the butt.

“He who shall not be named,” is a well-known line from the Harry Potter series of books, but I did not expect to find this sentiment in the book business. To cut production expenses, I decided to publish the softcover edition of my new business book, “Create Your Own Job Security: Plan to Start Your Own Business at Midlife,” using Amazon.com’s Create Space (www.createspace.com) publishing platform. This has the considerable advantage of no up-front costs if you submit PDF files that fit their formats. However, it does grant exclusive sales rights to Amazon for the title.

I wanted my book to be able to reach other book outlets, so I elected to produce the e-book through Book Baby (www.bookbaby.com). For a fee they will design the book to fit all available…