Getting an instructional book published?

[mcmurray]

Hey guys.

 

I'd like to write a book regarding sight reading and ear training for guitar.

 

As a complete novice to the book publishing arena, how would one go about getting their book book published and marketed? What is the process to get your book published by a big publisher such as Hal Leonard? (assuming of course, that the book's content is valuable and meets their standards)

 

Alternatively, has anyone self published? Was it worth it?

[jeremy_green]

I cant help you other than to say you might want to PM Jon Finn on this one.

[gennation]

You can check out TGP. Let Jzucker tell you his story about what it took to get his groundbreaking Sheets of Sounds out the public and how the publishers won't want you to do anything groundbreaking but want you to water it down to "just like everything else we release that sells".

 

Also, Ed Byne's at the allaboutjazz.com forums is full of information. He seems to do it all correctly time and time again.

 

If you do planning on moving ahead with it you need to push the crap out of them and have that whole aspect of marketing and distribution confirmed before doing anything...other wise your book ends up like the CD's of all those bands who put all their effort into recording a CD and have no idea how to market it...IOW, you don't want to end up with a 1000 books sitting in you closest to decades

 

I've been writing books since about 1990 and haven't released anything. It would be great to get them out sometime, but personally I'd rather start writing the next book than spend time dealing with the last book.

 

Good luck and look those guys up, they will help you...but remember the hard work happens AFTER the book is released.

[mcmurray]

Thanks guys.

[ZebraSteve]

You might want to try self publishing and promoting on the web. There is a ton of free content on how to write an e-book and market it. It takes allot of hard work but you get to keep all of the profits!