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Is
Self-Publishing for You?
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How's
your determination quotient?
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TO SELF-PUBLISH OR NOT TO SELF-PUBLISH—DO YOUR HOMEWORK
FIRST
Can you publish your own work? Of course. If you have
some decent managerial skills and you’re willing to
work hard, you can do it. Nothing about publishing is
complex, but it is demanding. Thousands of people have
successfully published their own work, but many others
have failed. Why did the failures happen? Most of them
could probably be blamed on a failure to do one’s
homework up front. In a hot frenzy to get out the best
novel since “Gone With the Wind,” novice publishers
trust to luck or worse, sometimes to companies that are
mainly interested in separating them from their money.
More on this later (see Vanity Publishing).
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FOUR
KINDS OF PEOPLE
From a
publisher’s point of view, there are four kinds of
people:
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Readers
(who buy the books)
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Authors
(who write the books that readers buy)
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Publishers
(who produce the books that readers buy)
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Publicists
(who sell the books that readers buy)
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If you
decide to self-publish, you are 2, 3, and 4 combined,
whether you like it or not.
“Whoa!
The first thing I have a problem with,” you say, “is
number 4. I’m no publicist.” Maybe you aren’t, but
the reality of today’s market is that you are forced
to toot your own whistle. Publishers don’t have
budgets for promoting any but the top 200 or so authors
who already have established names. Excepting the
occasional wunderkind, even if a big New York publisher
puts out your title, you had better be ready to pitch
your book like a raging hurricane or three months after
hitting the shelves, your title will be history. Someone
once said that books have the shelf life of cottage
cheese.
Books
seldom just walk off the shelf. They have to be pushed
off the shelf by a “buzz,” that indefinable aura or
charisma that your book achieves through promotional
efforts. But, what if you can’t afford a publicist?
Guess who gets to carry the ball? More on this later
(see Publicity).
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AUTHORS
AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES
Before
you start spending a whole lot of time and money to
print your book, take a serious look at what you’ve
written.
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Have
you written a book with a specific audience in
mind and does it fit that group?
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Can
your book pass the “so-what?” test?
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Can
you objectively say that your work is better
than anything else in the genre? (It needs to
be, just to compete.)
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Have
you had a professional editor or critic
evaluate your book?
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Do
you regularly attend a read-and-critique group
composed of people who tell you the truth
about your work without sugar-coating?
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Is
your book clean—no typos? no butchery of the
language?
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Do
you have a well-structured book that takes the
reader logically from beginning to end,
fulfilling the promises you made at the start?
(See “Structuring Your Novel,” by Robert
Meredith and John Fitzgerald and “Writer’s
Journey,” by Christopher Vogel. The latter
is based on Joseph Campbell’s work in
comparative mythologies, especially his “Man
of a Thousand Faces.”)
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Are
you willing to rewrite? and rewrite, and
rewrite . . . ?
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Have
you tried your best to crack all traditional
channels—agents/established
publishers—with no luck?
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| If you can honestly answer
yes to all the foregoing, then you could be a
candidate for self-publishing. |
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Mark
Twain |
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Copyright © 1998 - 2004 Wild Ink Productions™. All Rights Reserved. |
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Updated: 02/19/2004
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