Self-Publishing Admin-y Things You Can Do Yourself - For Free
Full transparency - I once had someone tell me that the reason they were going to pay a Self-Publishing agency to produce their book opposed to working with me, was because the agency services included “additional distribution services” as part of their pricing.
So I did some digging, and discovered that the majority of the services they had included were all, what I’d call “Admin-y Things” that you can totally do yourself online - for free!
*When I say free I mean, the creation of online accounts and uploading your details etc, is free. There may be account and or subscription fees depending on the service.
Here’s the list for you 💛
🗸 Purchase ISBN
I suggest the author obtains the ISBN and barcode themselves to ensure they have exclusive ownership. ISBN can be purchased here.
🗸 Submit Prepublication Data Service (PDS) & Legal Deposit
The Prepublication Data Service is a free service offered by the National Library of Australia. Formerly Cataloguing in Publication (CIP) This service is for Australian publishers and self-publishing authors who want the details of their upcoming publications made available to Australian libraries, library suppliers, and other members of the book industry for acquisition purposes. Application for this is found here. Create an account online to upload your book and post a hard copy of your book to the Library.
🗸 Register with Books In Print
The leading database for publishers, retailers and libraries around the world. (This is how bookshops worldwide can find your book). Libraries worldwide consult Books In Print to find titles, create lists, and decide from Books In Print’s vast inventory files which vendor, eBook platform, or online retailer to source the title. Created within the Bowker account.
🗸 List Book on Nielsons Book Database
The Nielsen BookScan service provides a continuous market measurement of Australian retail book sales based upon electronic sales data analysis. Information is collected from bookshops and internet retailers on books sold, in what quantity and at what price. The data is validated and analysed to produce bestseller lists, price and imprint comparisons, backlist analyses and other essential information such as distribution and stock levels for booksellers and publishers.
🗸 Listed with Google Books
An online book marketing programme and search engine designed to help publishers and authors promote their books by showing you a limited number of pages as a preview.
🗸 Listed with online sales platforms as the Author sees fit
Ie Amazon, Fishpond, Isubscribe.
Oh and, you know, if you want some help with the design of your publication. Drop me a line and we can start chatting about how I can help you.
If you’re not ready to say hi just yet you can read more about my services here. Or have a noisy of some work I’ve done shown in my portfolio here.
Or connect with me on socials