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Q&A How could my friend publish his Steve Jobs biography?

The fastest way to take advantage of the current publicity that is focused on Steve Jobs would be to self-publish your book. You can go to Amazon Kindle to get it out as an e-book and have it avail...

posted 13y ago by Steven Drennon‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T01:52:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3736
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Steven Drennon‭ · 2019-12-08T01:52:39Z (almost 5 years ago)
The fastest way to take advantage of the current publicity that is focused on Steve Jobs would be to self-publish your book. You can go to Amazon Kindle to get it out as an e-book and have it available to sell within a few days. If you want to make it available in print format, you can use CreateSpace (also an Amazon company). Either avenue gives you a quick and inexpensive means of getting your book published quickly.

Having said that, I would caution your friend to make sure that he includes in the title that this is the _unauthorized biography_. Even as such, there are a lot of people who may be interested in learning more about the man, especially since he is garnering so much attention ion the press right now. He really needs to take advantage of that.

At the same time, it would be a good idea for him to put together some sample chapters and a query letter to sedn out to some agents here in the US. Because of the fact that Jobs is so newsworthy right now, they might have a chance to sell this manuscript to a traditional publisher. In the meantime, if he is selling it himself as an e-book, he may be able to start getting some interest stirred up in the book and maybe even make a little money while waiting out the traditional process.

There are some who would caution that self-publishing as an e-book will prevent you from obtaining a traditional publishing contract, but that is not true. There are more and more authors today who are making this kind of move and proving to be very successful at it. The key is in having a quality product ready to sell, and from the little bit I read, I believe he does.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2011-08-26T11:30:21Z (about 13 years ago)
Original score: 8