Review: APE: How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki & Shawn Welch

The energy for revolution is with us, all across the world. A chip of it has lodged in me. Fed up with traditional publishing – my first book’s publication having been a less than satisfactory experience – I recently decided to take up a colleague’s offer to publish my next two books in electronic form via the upcoming publishing arm of his established Web business.

Right on cue (were you guys spying on me?) an email with a free review copy of the above book popped into my box.

It is a real gift to any writer embarking on the e-journey. As the authors put it:

“ Ebooks and tablets are rearranging the publishing landscape….”

This being the case, writers of all levels of experience need help and guidance in navigating territory with which Kawasaki and Welch are thoroughly familiar. They have brought extensive experience together with considerable expertise, honesty, humour, clarity and practicality, pointing out that

“…a successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—or APE…..”

Having done so, they spend twenty-nine easy to read, well laid out chapters covering with great thoroughness and at times brutal honesty (don’t flinch! Trust me, we need this at times) the processes of writing a book, editing it (their advice: don’t do it yourself alone. Get objective, quality outside help), financing it, distributing, selling, pricing, marketing, and promoting. No stone, as far as I can see, is left unturned.

I followed their advice by doing a fairly quick initial read-through. I then cut and pasted a brief ten-page summary to print out, so that I could see at a glance which chapters are most relevant for future perusal. My colleague will be dealing with the more technical aspects of publishing my books – thank goodness! I would rather boil my brain in turpentine than have anything to do with page dimensions, etc….

The section most immediately useful to me personally is the Entrepreneur section. Although I have happily been running a blog for more than four years, and can see that a wide range of articles continues to be read and commented on favourably, nevertheless I am not much good at bothering to do a great deal of interacting on social media. I know that with a bit more effort I could build a much bigger platform.

So – can Kawasaki and Welch turn me into a more socially interactive person than my temperament seems to dictate? That remains to be seen. But they have certainly provided all that is required by way of strong impetus to do so. I cannot in fairness ask any more than that.

And I do LOVE the quotes with which they head up every chapter. The final chapter’s quote is this:

“When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.” Michelle Obama, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

This is a first rate book which enables and encourages writers to walk through the doorway of opportunity provided by the e-revolution which is already upon us. Do acquire it for your virtual bookshelf!

500 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page