You might have a specific book that you want to either emulate in some way or beat at its own game.  This is quite normal as it gives you a baseline.  When you submit a formal book proposal to a publisher then they will expect you to properly research your competition and know what it is they do and how your book will do everything in a more effective way.

You might think it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to find out how well your competitors books are selling, but it’s surprisingly easy.  The website Titlez will allow you to search for specific book types on Amazon, and it will show you their ranking among other information.  You can use this information to see which are the best-selling books so you can measure what you’re doing against them (as obviously these titles will be doing something right!)

Looking at the best-selling comparative titles, which will be Windows 7 books, you will be able to see the types of topics they are covering and how they are doing it.  Visiting the Amazon page for a book will probably allow you to view some pages, and usually the table of contents, so you can evaluate their content.  Don’t ape another book however, you’ll get into copyright issues there, but you may want to go in a completely different direction if you think they’re doing something wrong.

Another tip is to read reviews of these books to see how people are either praising or criticising them.  Some books are highly praised but others, including some best-selling titles also receive a great deal of criticism from the public.  You can learn from these comments how the books are failing and how you can improve on them.

If you want to sell your book, rather than give it away there are many services that you can publish it through.  You can do it through the new iBooks author portal, though currently Apple’s terms create a lock-in that mean you can’t also sell your book anywhere else.  You can also use an independent site like Lulu which is has a great reputation and is the service I self-published my Windows 7 Power Users Guide through, or you can publish directly with Amazon which you may think is your best option given that when people think of books they think of Amazon.

Wherever you publish, try and make sure that you choose an option that gives you an ISBN number.  This may incur a small cost but it does mean that you will be allowed to sell your book on many online stores.  Amazon for example now insist on your book having its own ISBN number in order to qualify for sale.

Research is everything if you want to make your book successful.  Never assume though that self-publishing a Windows book will you rich, it won’t.  If you give away a free eBook though the prospect of getting tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of downloads is quite realistic.  Since making my Windows 7 Power Users Guide free the downloads are well into the high six figures.  It is this success that you can shout about to publishers and that will help add weight and credibility to any approaches you make for a full book deal.

As an author who self-published my first book through Lulu I find this very interesting as it’s fantastic when a new publishing medium comes along to encourage budding authors everywhere.

However Wineman’s close inspection of the terms shows that Apple might have their own ideas on what is considered literary genius and how you might want to use their service.  Of particular interest is this paragraph…

Apple will not be responsible for any costs, expenses, damages, losses (including without limitation lost business opportunities or lost profits) or other liabilities you may incur as a result of your use of this Apple Software, including without limitation the fact that your Work may not be selected for distribution by Apple.

Which means that despite how great people might think your works are, they could be simply rejected by Apple for their own commercial reasons.  Now obviously this clause is intended to weed out offensive or illegal material, however it doesn’t say that.  What it does say is that Apple will decide whether your work is suitable for them.  The fact that they say that they cannot be held responsible for any costs, ie your time and hard work, incurred in writing a book using their tools is another kick.

It’s in the distribution section though that my friend and colleague Ed Bott, a veteran author, has taken special note of one particular clause.

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:

• (i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
• (ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

This is the lock-in, the clause that states if you choose to use the iBook store to distribute your work you cannot sell it anywhere else.  Personally, as an author, I wouldn’t want to sign a lock in with any one provider, especially an untested one no matter how successful the Apple stores are at the moment.  When people want to buy books I’d want to be on Amazon and this is clearly where Apple are aiming their guns.

Now if you’re about to submit an angry comment about how anti-Apple I am, hold fire!  I think that Apple’s decision to help and encourage authors is a very welcome one.  Don’t forget I’m an author myself and have self-published a book.  This isn’t an easy process and anything that Apple can do to make the process easier will be very welcome.

Nobody ever reads terms and conditions though and these clauses could be considered both unfair and anti-competitive.  I would imagine that Apple will probably have to back down and it won’t be the first time that a company’s legal department got over-enthusiastic and misunderstood the market a product was aimed at.  I’m not going to say this was deliberate because any executive with a modicum of common sense would know it would never be allowed.

The fact remains that it is currently there and it’s not gone yet.  We will have to wait and see what, if anything, Apple say about this.  But if you want to also sell your works on Amazon, and don’t want to seek Apple’s “separate written agreement”, then you might want to steer clear for now.

The model behind Lulu is that you write the book, upload it in a suitable format, select lots of options and then save it as a book. You can create commercial grade hardcover illustrated books, the tech behind it is really flexible, your imagination is the limit. There are no costs involved anywhere. The “catch” is that it will cost you more to print a book than it would if you would take it to a publisher to print 10,000 copies. The reason is purely economic (economies of scale), printing a few copies of a book is relatively more expensive than doing a large amount.

These costs are deducted from the sale of your book, so it’s all good, since you don’t actually see the cost, after one successful sale you still get money. You can set your own price for the book, Lulu will deduct its own costs, and you get the rest. They also offer lots of tutorials on creating the document for the finished version of the book, and for once they really are helpful, even for people who’ve dabbled in this before.

Overall, I love Lulu, I used it to create a book, and I will be sending myself a copy soon. If for nothing else, you can create a really great gift for your friends & family!