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You Can Publish Your Passion, Free

by Average Joe Boomer

All by themselves every Tom, Dick and Harry can now publish their creations for free (or with very little cost)!

Where do musicians, movie makers, comedians, authors, educators, photographers, graphic artists, hobbyists, political activists and business speculators find converge for a global audience with no traditional publisher? On websites that are completely automated, enabling everyone to self-publish using state-of-the- art technology, of course! These services print-on-demand, incurring product costs only when they receive an order, so they offer services at low cost or for free. Self-publishing action is increasing.

Anyone can now publish their passions by printing books, compact discs, photography or original artwork on posters and framed prints, or graphic designs for clothing and other products! It is automated so all the content, artwork, product selection (with some limits), retail prices and profit margins are self determined and self published at websites like CafePress.com and Lulu. This writer has done it on both of these sites. Of course, the intellectual property must be your own because all copyright laws apply. How cool is that? It is very cool and state-of-the-art!

For all of us except traditional publishers, this is a dream come true! If I were a traditional publisher, I would start thinking a career change toward more of my own intellectual property creation might be needed, to survive.

Back on point, for traditional publishers and everyone who wants to self publish and sell something they have created, below is an overview of what it takes to get it done. What you must do in the case of a book for example, is everything. You must write the manuscript and prepare it in PDF format exactly as it will print. Adobe Acrobat is a popular program to convert your text to PDF format.

You must prepare the cover art, spine and back cover artwork files in a graphics art program, exactly as it will print with margins, bleeds, all of it and then convert it to the format required by your self publishing service. And you must set the sale price and profit margins! Costs from the print-on-demand publishing services are predetermined based upon variables of book size, paper type, book style, page count and binding options. Options can include hard cover, soft cover and more unusual choices.

A little reading about copyright, trade mark and trade name laws from easily found websites through search engines and you will know how to incorporate those symbols into your files.

Once you have all of that prepared, with your own legal protections on your intellectual property in place, you upload the files to your online self publisher(s) of choice. Then order a sample! When you have it the way you want it, then you have a new task to undertake.