Have you ever wanted to publish your own book? I thought this was the last thing that I would ever be able to do. But it was not as hard as I thought. Well, I did learn the hard way, but you can learn from my mistakes and self-publish your own books. I’ve had so many people ask me about this that I thought I’m going to write an article on it! If you’re a writer with AC, then you already have many articles that you have published already. So, in the strictest sense, you are already a publisher. If you have always wanted to publish a book and pass on your writings to your family or for posterity’s sake, then self-publishing is the way. It doesn’t matter if you have written poetry or Haiku’s, you can still publish your own book. I used the old fashioned printing press to publish my own book. But what I know now, I would do differently, and here’s where you can learn from my mistakes. I am in the process of writing my 4th book but this one is going to be in the C.S. Lewis style of fiction with a message of morality. It is decidedly out of character for me, but I’m branching out. I normally write Christian theological books since I’ve been in education and a Sunday school teacher for years. And as a father and grandfather, I’ve learned a few things…including things from my own children and grandchildren. But me, write a book!? Never in a million years…or so had I thought. But I have learned to never say never. So many have encouraged me in my writing that I’ve decided to branch out into a different genre but whatever you love or have a passion for is usually the best thing to write about. I love history so I use what my passions or interests are in. I also love Biblical theology and human compassion stories. If there is something your really know a lot about, then you must obviously have a passion for it, so write about it. Perhaps you already have dozens or hundreds of articles that you could use and condense into one document. I’ll tell you the best document in the business to do this with and its absolutely free. I have investigated dozens of publishers. I got prices estimates from Crossbooks.com, Random House, Outskirts Press, Publishers.org, Harper Collins, MacMillan, and dozens of others and I have discovered that the minimum costs were several thousand dollars up to 40 to 50 thousand dollars. I thought there must be a better way. And I believe that I have found it. When I published my first book, I did the editing, grammar and spell checking, proof reading, and even did the liner notes and introduction. I had 120 books published in my small Kansas town of Belle Plaine, Kansas at the local printer. This printer does phone books, cook books and others so I thought, why not use them. I had it done perfect bound, glossy finish, and in paperback with about 80 pages. My cost was $828.48 for 100 copies. They gave me 20 extras and printed some for themselves, including giving the local newspaper copies. This small town had its first published author. Me, a small time author with a big time project. It took me, from start to finish, about 6 months in all. But I did all the editing, proofing, page set ups, etc. I wish I had known then, what I know now about a certain document that lets you create your interior file for a book. Its all contained in one document and then you can export it into a PDF to download to self-publishers and send via email as an attachment. I have written over a hundred articles and I started categorizing them into chapters. What I ended up with was 12 chapters in all. My first book was called “Blind Chance or Intelligent Design?, Empirical Methodologies and the Bible“. Since I know that 3 out of every 4 graduating High School or college-bound Christians leave the “faith once delivered”, I wanted to keep my former Sunday school students grounded in the faith. So I wrote a book about empirical scientific, biological, archeological, paleontology, mathematical, historical, etc. book about evidence for creation and for Jesus’ existence being a fact, as well as convincing evidence for His resurrection. I pledged to donate 10% to missions work and 10% to local churches and the remainder for setting up a homeless shelter in Sumner County, Kansas, which has no homeless center or shelter. There are over 6,000 (est.) homeless people in this county. My plan was and still is, to use part of the proceeds to open a shelter for the many people; families, single people and children who live under bridges, in cars, in (who knows where else?). I’m a member of the First Baptist Church in Belle Plaine, KS and would love to get started in the process of opening a shelter in our severely underserved county of Sumner, just south of Wichita, KS. My passion is to help homeless people break the poverty cycle, secure a GED and to clothe, feed and house the homeless. My first book was “Blind Chance or Intelligent Design, Empirical Methodologies and the Bible” and it was done on the printing press. But then I discovered self-publishing and had it published through lulu.com, which is owned by Google. I then wrote book number two, “Do Babies Go To Heaven?, Why Does God Allow Suffering?” And finally, I wrote my last and 3rd book, “Teaching Children the Gospel, How To Raise Godly Children“. I had all three of these books published by Google’s lulu.com and they are a publish on-demand book. That is, when someone orders one, they print it and mail it. I made them as inexpensive paperbacks as possible so most everyone could afford one. I began as a freelance writer and I [...]