I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A TYPE OF BOOK

MAISY

I have an idea for a type of book but I have very little capital to make my idea a reality.  I also have no idea how to go about the design and print of it but I do have an exact picture in my head of what the book should look like etc.  I also want to have a web page where people can order the book direct from me.  I know absolutely nothing about marketing etc HELP, 
 

robertj

Maisy,
Your request encompasses a very broad spectrum, so let me respond in 3 parts.

The first part is creating the book. This includes:

Writing
illustrating -if applicable
Editing

Next is producing the book. With print on demand one doesn`t need to invest in a large production run but it still needs a professional to get it ready.
Once you have the book ready then you need to get people to buy it. Here again, there are several ways to accomplish this.

As we tell our client`s a book is a product  and if you want it to generate profits, you need to treat it as such beginning with a basic "business" plan for it.  Is the book written?  
 

KerryJS

Maisy,
Are you looking at the ebook market? If so, take a look at e-junkie.com where you can host your book and be paid via paypal. It`s easy to use and the only $5 a month.
If you are looking at an ebook, you won`t need much capital. Programs like openoffice (free opensource) are as good as Word for doing ebooks, in fact better because they can export direct as a PDF and you can insert and control the graphics.
GIMP is a great graphics program, as good, if not better than Photoshop, again it`s free and opensource and you can use this to graphically produce your cover page. For an ebook cover page there is some good free software out there as well.
If you write it as an e-book and what to then see if you can get it published in paper format, you can submit chapters and outline to publishers.
You can of course do it the other way...submit an outline and a couple of chapters to publishers and see what they think. The only thing here is if they want the rights and you want to sell it yourself, you`ll have to make a deal with them along these lines about who gts what rights.
Have a look at the e-business page on my site and you`ll see links to the website program that I use. The beauty of this program is that you don`t need to know anything about marketing to start a website where you will be able to presell your book when it`s ready.
I would suggest that you don`t go for vanity publishing (where you pay a publisher) that instead you look at self-publishing, there are some great books on self publishing, see what the internet and the local library has in this area.
Because you already have the vision in your head, set it down on paper in an outline form. What it`ll look like, where you`d like it to be available, bookstores, internet. Then start. If you`ve already written it, send out queries to publishers with a brief outline to see if they`d be interested in seeing some more of it. If you want it digital format primarily, start writing it. If you want to write it in word. Most publishers accept this, then if you want to you can export it straight from Word to Openoffice and into PDF...All while you`re working on the marketing logistics.
Good LuckKerryJS10/14/2008 12:14 AM