Self publishing

The Writers' and Artists' Year Book (if you can get hold of a copy) has some great info on self publishing, although they also say "Authors are strongly advised not to pay for the publication of their work..." I gather it can cost a packet too, although you can do a lot of the leg work yourself. Hope this helps.

Thanks Andrea, for the advice. I will look in to it, and thanks again.

I strongly advise against it. Anything you do, however good it may be, will never win against the publishing trade. You will not get into bookshops, you will not get promotion and you will end up paying out a lot of money for an inferior product. Stick with us - if your stuff is good enough then, with any luck, we will see it. We have one author from the site who we are promoting to the book trade at the moment. We have an agent who works with us and we're testing the water with this one. So far the responses are good but I'd hate to pre-announce that we have our first published author. So many websites proclaim that they have the ear of the publishing trade and it's a load of rubbish. We do have excellent contacts here but it will take time and trust to build up a relationship with the trade and we don't want to make any extravagant claims. Keep writing - make your work unmissable and then go for it. We'll do all we can to help you but rejection is hard to take and it needs a strong constitution and a healthy outlook to see it all through.