Is self-publishing for you?

I've been hunting to find a suitable agent for my literary output and, for those agents who take submissions through Query Manager, one of the common questions asked relates to self-publishing. If you have published a book yourself, you might be asked how many copies you sold in the first year. Then, regardless of how many copies you might have sold, some agents won't touch you.

So what's the story on self-publishing? What does it mean and what is it all about?

To "publish" a book or story simply means to put it out there to the public. But usually when writers talk of publishing, they are talking about commercial publishers who take an author's work, make it into a book, and offer it for sale to the public, usually through bookstores.

When you self-publish, you skip the step of having your work "accepted" by a commercial publisher who would edit, manufacture, and distribute it to booksellers. Instead, all will be on you, from creating the book to marketing it. Once you're done it you'll see how much non-writing work is involved. You're also likely to see sales results considerably lower than what you were anticipating, and lower than they might have been if distribution and publicity had been handled by an established publisher.

I've self-published a number of books but they were technical books, intended for a special audience with which I'd developed a relationship. These books make sales, small sales perhaps, but the sales have continued, month after month, over a period of years. Overall, the results have been satisfying.

I know someone who published his own novel, a pretty good novel, worthy of publication by an established book publisher. But he did it himself. I don't have his sales figures but I'm guessing they were minimal. What stood out about his book, aside from a good story, were the terrible errors in formatting. At several points the typeface changed abruptly for a number of paragraphs and then went back to the original. Why? Because whoever was responsible for the graphics failed to hit the right format key for those paragraphs. A simple mistake but a glaring giveaway of an amateur job.

Sometimes you self-publish simply because you want your work to be out there, where it has the potential of being seen, and no major publisher wants to work with you. I've published some of my short stories on my website simply because I don't see a commercial future for them but I still want to share them with readers. Academics sometimes self-publish for the same reason.

In my (unpublished) novel, Two Writers, I have some scenes dealing with self-publishing.

Seeing your work in print can be exciting. Self-publishing can give you some of that thrill. But don't expect to make much money, or any money at all.

-- PhilipGoutell