Has anyone written a book and had it published? We were thinking about it and wanted to get some tips about how to proceed. Any help would be great. Thanks

I have written a book on business speeches. The key is finding a cheap printer because they eat up 1/4 of your profit then Amazon eats up another 1/4 and you are left with the other 1/2. Make sure you pick a topic that is popular and there is not a lot of competition.

We have written two ebooks one did well the other didn't you have to be sure to select a niche that does not have a lot of competition. I would avoid hard copies as the note above suggests it is very expensive and hard to make a profit.

Go to LuLu.com you will find that once you have done the hard part, the first hard part you can take your document as a pdf or have a service make it into a pdf for you and LuLu.com will print it for you (POD_ Print on Demand), the great part is they charge you a flat fee for each book when it is printed to fill an order, they cut you a check for everything over that amount. You set the price. Anything that you cannot provide for yourself they can through a number of fee based services. Then it is a matter of the second hard part... promotion, but for some that is easy so that is the context of another question though.

I would not do a print version. It is too expensive and reduces your profit - Amazon has a ebook division called mobi pocket. If you have a lot of success with the book you may then consider selling a hard copy version.

We bought a book from a guy who shows you how to "speed write" he brings you through a process that allows you to put together a book very fast I have written one book in two weeks and have down fairly well with it.