Books: Become a Published Author!

When I started writing my books, I had no idea how to even begin publishing. A number of years ago I had written a couple of regimental histories from the civil war and I had tried to go through a number of publishing houses to get my books published. I received a number of rejections, one of which surprised me was from the University of Wisconsin Press.

I was always under the impression that the university presses were there to publish relatively esoteric tomes and doctoral dissertations involving their State. Since my two regimental histories involved the1st, and 2nd, Wisconsin cavalry regiments during the civil war I thought that it would make sense that they would want to publish these books.

Like all university presses, they serve a purpose in the state to assist faculty members from their universities and scholars in publishing writings that are of value to the state that have little or no sale potential. I realized my works were rejected because they offered no profitability for the university.

During COVID in 2020 I wrote another esoteric book, “The Civil War History of Harrison County, West Virginia, 1861-1865”. After my experiences with the university presses, and my contacts with the University of West Virginia press I ran into the same issue. Rather than even considering publication I donated the copyright of my book to the Harrison County Historical Society.

One of the members of the historical society indicated that the book could be self-published through Kindle Direct Publishing; or KDP for short. This was a surprised, I had never heard of self-publication, except in the vanity press where an unknown author contracts with a printer to have their books printed.

Within a matter of a few weeks, I had the first copy of the book that I had written in my hands. When I donated the copyright to the Harrison County Historical Society, I asked that they provide me 10 copies of the book for my own use. I was able to give friends, family, and associates a signed, autographed copy of my book as written.

When I finished writing my next book, “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam 1969-1970”, I went through a small company and asked them to format the book for me to publish it as a paperback. I had to submit my book to them, electronically, in a WORD format and they use the KDP rules and formatted the book so that it could be printed. I was shocked, within a few weeks I had copies of my own book that I had written.

What I found was that I could also published the book in a variety of different formats. One of those is the eBook format. A reader can go online and purchase the book and read it on their computer, laptop or other electronic device.

One of the biggest advantages of this publication was that it was FREE. Formatting was relatively easy, and within a few weeks I had my book not only as an eBook, but also as a hardcover, a paperback, and later a large print volume. I did the large print for those of us who are getting older and having a hard time seeing smaller print that’s used in most books.

One of the things that I found was that it was very simple to make corrections and update the book when I found small errors. It was just a matter of uploading the corrected file to their system. Since each book is printed individually the next time that someone ordered my book the corrections were already there. I found out from a friend that this is a distinctly advantageous publication system because you could correct errors that were spotted.

A friend of my son is a published author in the Washington DC area, and his publisher requires that they print 500 copies of his book for sale. If they find an error after the fact, something an editor didn’t catch, or perhaps a sentence that was improperly structured, or some other type of minor error, you are still stuck with 500 copies. I was also informed, by my son’s friend, that in order to get the book published through the publishing house he received royalties for the books that were sold, but the publisher owned the copyrights. Using KDP press I also get royalties through Amazon.com for every one of my books that are sold. Additionally, I still hold the copyright.

I don’t know if you have seen the movie “The Martian”, or not, but the book was self-published and therefore the author received all of the monetary rewards for the use of his book in making the film.

Additionally, I can order authors copies of my books through Amazon at a reduced cost. This allows me to purchase a few copies of my books for sale on my own. Of course, a publishing house will provide advertising and sales promotion to some degree. But it’s still basically up to the author to sell their own books. In my case I have to arrange my own publicity and conduct my own sales. However, all of the local libraries are always looking for authors to come to the library and do presentations. Our two local television stations also do human interest stories in the afternoons and they’re always looking for talent to come in and talk for a few minutes about their works.

Now don’t get me wrong, I doubt if I will ever be a Nobel laureate, nor make the New York Times bestseller list, but then again one never knows.

So if you decide to write a book, and I hope that you do because everyone has at least one book in them. We’ve all lived interesting lives in one aspect or another. It may be the job that you hold, something unique about your family, your family history, a hobby or some other thing that makes you stand out from your peers. I encourage you to write about it and if you do self-publishing is an easy way to go there are companies that will help you format your book and some that will even help you sell them if that’s the way you’d like to go.

But I encourage you to write!

If you’re enjoying these blogs please drop me a comment or if you have any questions that I might answer, again submit a comment on the comment pages. I’m always glad to hear from you.

Again, please take a look at all of my books that I have listed. They can be purchased from Amazon.com with the click of a button directly from my website,

• The Advisor Series:
• “The Senior Army Instructor” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0GSXJ2ZHC)
• “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam, 1969-1970. A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B09L4X5NQ3)
• “The Province Senior Intelligence Advisor, Kien Song Province 1970-1971; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0BHL2XCX5)
• “The Hardchargers,” Vietnam 1972-1973; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0C7SPR1JY)
• “The Tuscarora Trail” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0D3QY2GM6)

Check out my website for other books that I’ve written or edited.

www.ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com.  Until next Friday, Have a good week.