Self-Publishing

There are so many negatives to self-publishing that any writer who seriously considers it should carefully research all the pros and cons. Briefly, the significant pro is that your book is in print, and the equally significant con is that there is no support system to help your book find an audience. Of course it can be listed on Internet bookstore catalogues. But it may prove impossible to get your self-published book into any brick-and-mortar bookstore. And where is the skilled editor to get rid of that unnecessary scene in the middle, or to tighten up your ending? Where is the experienced production staff to ensure that your book’s cover is tasteful and of comparable quality to those on traditionally published books? Or that the paper and binding are of similar quality? Most important, where are the publicity and marketing departments to push your book? It’s all up to you. There are many, many pitfalls and disappointments awaiting the author who goes this route.

Self-publishing means you the writer put up all or most of the cash to produce the finished product, your book, and get it to market. Historically, this has usually meant that you end up with stacks of unsold books that you can’t sell to anyone. The rise of the Internet and of new printing technology has changed the self-publishing situation somewhat, but there still are three basic paths:  

1. Vanity presses. These companies pretend that they are real publishers. They pretend to “accept” manuscripts, when the truth is they will publish just about anything if you pay them. Vanity presses also claim to offer editorial services, at a fee of course. The problem is that the quality of editorial assistance received through a vanity press is likely to be poor, because top-notch professionals rarely work for vanity presses. Production values are lower than those of standard publishers for the same reason. The result is that a vanity press book usually isn’t up to the editorial or production standards of the real publishers, even though it costs the author dearly. Today there still are writers who fall for the come-ons of vanity presses, and probably nothing will convince those authors not to waste their money. Unfortunately, serious reviewers will not look at vanity press books, and most publicity efforts thus are pointless. Check out this LiveJournal entry about it: http://hefngafr.livejournal.com/3873.html  And look at http://behlerblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/vanity-publishing-know-realities-and.html for a nicely written blog on the down sides to vanity publishing.

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