On Self Publishing

At the request of a follower of the blog, I thought I would throw my 2 cents worth in on this.

Self publishing is always an option for writers, but I think for many, they fully don't understand all of the aspects of self-publishing as well as the pros and cons of this approach.

First of all, with self-publishing, it is entirely up to you as an author to work through the project. This includes not only the editing (although some places will provide some feedback) but marketing of the book. This, in no way means you will make more money because you don't have to pay someone. In fact, it often means a lot of extra work for you that you didn't know you would have to do.

Secondly, many authors believe that if they are self published this moves them further up the "food chain of publishing." In reality, it does nothing to move you and actually, in some cases, becomes a negative for you. If, for example, someone comes to me procaliming all of these books they have written, I do check to see where the books were produced. Many times I find people who are self published and the books have already been submitted to many editors and agents with a ton of rejections before they dove for that option.

Next, many authors will use the self publishing as a way to produce something that is far from ready for the market. In other words, the document is something that just will not sell (for whatever reason). Putting it with a self-published group doesn't suddenly make the story marketable.

Now, on the other side, the self-published market is great if you just want to see your book in a well formatted project. Sometimes, you simply want to produce a document that you are proud of. Nothing wrong with this approach.

The thing with self-publishing is:

a) you will not make more money than if you go through a publisher (without a heck of a lot of work and a very serious market for your book).

b) it does not make you a more marketable author when pushing other books.

c) it is a lot more work than you would imagine.

Still, it is an option.