So You Want to Get a Book Published: Lessons from the Front

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I share the lessons I've learned from my experiences in getting my nine books published and not published. 

Why The Book (even the e-book) is Dying

Here's why I believe the era of the book, especially the how-to/self-help book, even in e-book format, is dying faster even than most people think:

• People want info that's more current even than possible in an e-book. Most authors do not continually update their books. And even if an author does, if today he's updating page 300, page 1 may not be current enough.
• People want information in shorter bites: distillations like Top 10 lists.
• They expect it free: either as an article or, alas, a pirated book.
• An ever larger percentage of books sold are used, which means no royalty for the author. So, except for famous people, who can still expect to get lucrative book deals, writers who need or want to make money from books are less likely to write them.
  
• Book distribution is unwieldy. Certainly, traditional distribution is obsolete: print thousands of copies, store them in a warehouse, get a salesperson to flog chain buyers (forget about tiny-ordering independent bookstores) and when they don't sell, the books get shipped back to the warehouse. And, if you expect to make money selling your books, print-on-demand is too expensive. CreateSpace is probably best for creating a book but as long as Apple and Amazon keep fighting, the CreateSpace distribution network isn't wide enough.
  

That all said, I think CreateSpace-created-books with diligent e-marketing is probably the best way to go if you're eager to write something book-length. I think, however, that for all but the famous, book writing must be viewed only as a vehicle for consolidating one's learning or otherwise providing its own reward.