Would you Pay

It goes back to our old idea of why you actually want to be published. If it is for money and fame, self-publishing won't do that; if it is to circulate your work to a wide audience the web probably does it better (it's free for starters and you can try to post up links for your book in suitable forum (fora?) ) If it's so that you can have a physical, tangible bookshaped object, then self-publishing will do that. I'd agree with everything Mark said about getting the manuscript in good order. I'd certainly hit the agents and publishers if I had a good zingy commercial novel - I know not to bother with short stories, because there just isn't a commercial market for them, but you can try anthologies/magazines. I don't think it is necessarily 'vanity' more than the idea of writing itself. Very few people self-publish in the belief that this somehow makes their writing 'good' or 'worthy' - they do it because most people still prefer to read from a book than a computer screen and they hope that they can sell some copies of their book and get it out there for people to read. I wouldn't necessarily knock that. As long as the writer is aware that none of these companies assist in promotion or selling and that the chances of breaking-even are slim, why shouldn't they produce a book? If you were interested in pottery you'd want to make a pot at some stage, even if it was a fairly mediocre pot, if you wanted to paint you would eventually want to put your work on canvas - books are the end medium for writing as a form of creative expression.

I considered it but frankly, couldn't afford the outlay. Also, I'm a writer and know nothing about promoting and selling books - I wouldn't want to do it alone. The publishing biz does tend to exclude new writers to a worrying extent. Seems like there's a lot of closed doors out there. My only answer to this is to try and improve to the point where they can't ignore me any longer! Right now I'm happily (if sporadically) immersed in writing my second novel and am in no hurry to get back on the treadmill of submissions and rejection slips...

You've been peeking at sirat's posts haven't you?

no pay, no way

I am self publishing the first five hundred copies of a novel that should be finished by june. I am sending 400 copies to librarys around the world, which i have already contacted and distributing 100 copies in to community centers in the UK. After that i am going to see what kind of feedback i get and if it works out then i am going to approach a publisher. The book is kind of different and it tells of a story of how people can win, battle to beat the odds of mental ailments through hope and inspiration, although it is told in a story. I am quietly confident.

Having said that I really think this is the medium for poetry and the shorter end of short stories - though of course there's no money in it! I read recently of a woman from the south-west who self-published crime novels and sold them to libraries; they were well received and at long last were taken up by a commercial publisher, although one cheeky sod wouldn't publish it but asked for a private copy so he could find out what happened in the end! [%sig%]

I think that if you wish to go down the self publishing route, you have to be fairly certain that the reason why your book remains unpublished up to that point is that the way the publishing biz is set up. You therefore have to be certain that there is a readership for your book that has remained ignored or untapped by the established routes. If you are uncertain of that, then perhaps it might be worth using some of the money that you've set aside to self publish to get some form of professional advice or help to make your manuscript as good as it could possibly be, then resubmit to agents and publishers then se what the state of play is. I do kind of feel that self publishing can be a boost to flagging spirits but I would hope that if it is the route that a person chooses, it is more than that. You are a writer because write, not because you have a book. The thing about being published is that it get your writing to an audience, so being published yet still not having an audience doesn't seem to advance you that much. That's my two penny worth.