Self-publishing

My buddy wrote a damn good novel and went through Author House. I'm not sure of their practices, but there were not any grammatical errors at all, though I'm not sure if that's because of good editing on the publisher's part or of his own. He said they're very accommodating with their authors, though.

i worked for a self-publisher for a few years. it was nightmarish. (although I did meet my wife there, so it wasn't all bad).

there were no standards except for a vague "no porn & no hate literature" rule that was constantly overlooked because people only seem to write porn and hate literature. eventually we created an editing service to charge people more money so we could check/correct their mistakes. the thing is that most people don't think -- they see 'publisher' and they send in their half-written, unedited crap and then get all bent out of shape when they see that same crap in printed form. I can't tell you how many times someone said "I thought you were going to fix everything."

I laid out over 500 books in my 3 years there. i remember a few of them being decent, but most being horrible. i think a good portion of them were about Nazis. and the rest were filled with sex using misspelled body parts.

traditional publishing sucks because it's just about who you know or who you can impress, but at least they have the resources to edit and market and distribute a book. With self-publishing, most of the money comes from book sales and since none of the books sell more than a few copies (avg for our company was less than 100, and that includes books sold directly to the author), the companies often have to find creative ways to charge more for things. We would charge to do everything -- copyediting, indexing, writing & sending out press releases (which were completely useless since EVERYONE bought press releases -- imagine working for a newspaper or magazine and getting 100 faxes a week from some self-publisher and you can imagine how many books were actually reviewed).

In the end, you might have a nice stack of your own book, but you won't make any money off of it and the chance that some publisher is going to pick your book up and sign you to a contract is slim (at the company i worked for, we had maybe 3-4 people a year get picked up. but that's out of 2000+ books we published each year).

If all you want is a nicely printed & bound copy of your book to give out to friends and family, then scrape together the couple hundred bucks and go for it. But be prepared to lose money, because friends and family won't understand that you had to PAY to get published. they'll expect free copies or give you a weird look when you say "just cover my cost." You'll never make the initial investment back. (One of the big problems at the company i worked for was the CEO's belief that continual growth was possible. he didn't believe that self-publishing was a luxury. The avg author spent a little over 1000$ to get their book published. that's before they bought any books. $1000 is a mortgage payment, a new laptop, a major car repair. it's not disposable income.)

If you want your book to actually appear in bookstores and possibly get bought by people who aren't just buying one out of kindness, you have to suck it up and try to get published the 'regular' way. it actually turns out to be less annoying even if the idea of 'gatekeepers' determining what people read really irks you. but when the alternative is a world filled with shitty, unedited books, is that really a bad thing?

oh, and yes I did self publish a collection of short stories while i was there. it's 150 pages and costs $21 for a paperback version through Amazon.com. The hardcover is $31. So there's that whole issue as well (although I think the pricing is better these days for newly published stuff).

My sister works for Trafford Publishing. They give their authors some editorial assistance, a limited number of printed copies of the book, and a store portal that people can use to buy online.

That being said there are still some reall whackos who use her company. At her wedding reception she brought along some of the better ones. One was an entire book written in praise to a jar of odd looking blobs that some guy was convinced were aliens that were speaking to him. The other popular one was this incredibly lurid noir/porn that put most online slashfic to shame.

My self-published novel http://www.adamdecker.com/The%20Janitor.htm. The first six chapters are free online.

Alex,
I used Print on Demand to publish my zombie themed novel, Rise and Walk, in late January of this year. I did my research before I published and edited the work to the best of my abilities. I laid out the book in Acrobat and created a cover in Photoshop. It has received some good reviews from Skullring.org, Fatally-Yours.com, among others, and is featured on The Library of the Living Dead Podcast. Things have worked out well for Rise and Walk. It has become the top selling horror novel at Lulu.com. I do acknowledge that self publishing is in need of greater editing and effort by us writers but I think Rise and Walk is a step in that direction. I worked very hard to create the book, hand code my website and keep in touch with others online. I am dropping a copy in the mail to your address. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Check out my website for more information and articles about some of the stuff I put together to promote Rise and Walk.
http://www.hadrianpublishing.com/

Thank you for your time.
Gregory Solis

Self-published books never get reviewed, at least not by anyone reputable.

Well, you never know until you try. I guess I am an optimist.
I'll keep trying.
Greg

Lulu is the way to go in my opinion. The quality of the books is great. The cost is only about $100 and that gets your book on Amazon. But the best thing about Lulu is that you can set the price reasonably low. Most vanity publishers set the price at $20 and nobody will pay $20, so never sell.

Day by Day Armageddon was originally published through Lulu, it sold great, and a real publisher recently bought the book and signed the author for a second book. So you can have big success with Lulu...

So far my book has sold 54 copies in ten months. Not great sales, I know, but better than zero...

I should reach five hundred copies in the next month. THings are going well for Rise and Walk.
G

Self Publishing

I just scored an interview up at HorrorYearbook.com about this very subject. Wil asked me a bunch of questions about self publishing and Rise and Walk.
Drop by for a look if you are interested.

http://www.horroryearbook.com/542355...-rise-and-walk

Happy Halloween
Gregory Solis