Going it Mostly Alone: the Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness

With the Star designation, iUniverse commits further resources to the book, effectively completing an entirely new, author-controlled onramp to the Traditional Publishing Path.

First, the cover gets reassessed. Not only has this book met industry standards in writing quality and shown a market exists for it, but the book has reached the market and demonstrated an actual demand exists for it. The book has proven it can sell. To make sure the book looks like the seller it is, the cover gets a second Cover Copy Polish. This would include, if necessary a professional editing of the back cover copy and author bio, possibly adding blurbs from reviews it might have gotten, as well as another turn through design, including, at the very least, a new ISBN and a new colophon:

The logo changes color, again dependent upon the book’s actual cover, and transforms into a star; the swoop up remains; the matching color dot returns atop the i, and as the book and its author are no longer merely rising, the single word Star appears below iUniverse. 

If Barnes & Noble had not stocked the book as a Rising Star title, this new, more rewarded version of a now proven title is sent to them again to reconsider stocking on their physical bookstores’ shelves: it is, after all, a new book, with a new ISBN.

Then, additional marketing and publicity support kicks in, such as placement in a separate STAR Program section on the online iUniverse bookstore, and being featured on the main page of the iUniverse Bookstore with a Star icon next to its title. This placement is perhaps best for marketing—I hadn’t known that this bookstore existed before I became a client, but being featured on the front page of a bookstore is something to crow about. Plus the book gets additional promotion through iUniverse’s social media. The Star author also gets access to exclusive publicity services such as a web-optimized press release, and more significantly, opportunities available only to publishers open up for the book: such as iUniverse submitting it to the Clarion Book Review. If the book earns the Star designation within its first year of publication, iUniverse enters it into nationally recognized book award contests such as The Independent Publisher Book Awards (the “IPPY” awards) and the Foreword Book of the Year.

All these benefits all in addition to everything earned by Editor’s Choice, and in the case of A Perfect Blindness, the Rising Star as well.

As good as many of these benefits are, the most important benefit is the transformation of iUniverse’s role: from merely a book’s self-publisher, and part-time promoter, it becomes the book’s full-time agent.

Know someone who might like this? Post it or Forward this email to let them in on it.

To ask a question or follow along with the self-publishing adventure, join the “Publishing Path of A Perfect Blindness” here.