Self-Publishing?

[ewlyn]

Greetings everyone!  With my first novel in it's final revision, I have been trying to decide what to do next with it.

I noticed that the upcoming May issue of Talking Writing is going to be about self-publishing.  Previous issues have had a lot of interesting essays written by various writers on whichever topic they are covering.  I'm hoping the

Comments

[svenjaliv]

I have no firsthand experience; I'm to-be-published, in that I know my story's been accepted, but the process as such hasn't really started for me yet. As far as I know, though, self-publishing is easier in the sense that you can just DO it, without having to fight to be accepted by an agent or a publisher. Unfortunately, that makes it harder in a different way; self-published books tend to be fairly low-quality (not all, but many) since there's no acceptance progress, you can publish whatever you like. This also means that self-publishing has a bit of a bad reputation (much like fanfiction: much of it is bad, some of it is excellent, and some is in-between, but the amount of bad is greater than the amount of good, so the whole field tends to be tarred with the same negative brush). And most self-published books don't do well because they aren't promoted, distributed in bookshops, etc. If you go the traditional route, the publisher will take of all of that and they have the network, contacts, etc, which are necessary to do it

[ewlyn]

Congratulations on being accepted! That is wonderful news!

I am more drawn to the idea of allowing a publisher house, if I can find one to accept my novel, do most of the work. Self-publishing seems a bit overwhelming to me. Especially because of the promotional side which, honestly, I am not good at.

Thank you so much for your input!

[svenjaliv]

Thanks! :) Yeah, I would say definitely try the "traditional" route first. It's harder to get accepted and you have to be prepared for rejection, but if you can manage it it's definitely worth it. I'd always look at self-publishing as the second option, the one I'd go for if my stuff didn't get accepted by a publisher, you know? Or if it was a book just for me and my friends or family, or something. But I'd definitely advise everyone to try getting published by a company first. Or get an agent, who'll then get you the publishing contract with a house.

[ewlyn]

The rejection letters seems like part of the process, so it's not really that daunting to me.

I've been skimming the bookshelves at my local library and bookstore for novels which seem similar to mine and then researching those publishing houses first to see if I might be a good fit for them...

[kassidy62]

I've gotten published at a small ebook company twice (extasybooks.com), and then self-published, starting at Amazon

[ewlyn]

I am fascinated by your experience.

I was reading an article recently about someone who published only on Amazon.com in ebook format and had managed to sell something like a million copies just through her own promotion. I just worry I do not have the promotional skills needed.

Did you find doing your promotion to be hard or not as overwhelming as you originally thought? Did extasybooks.com do any promoting on your behalf?

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me!

[kassidy62]

I think I know who you're talking about - the author who promos through blogs and such? Builds herself a relationship with the blog and the people on it? I wish I were a tenth as successful as she apparently is

[ewlyn]

All of this is very valuable insight. Thank you.

I have heard a number of people mention that it is important to find someone to edit, edit, edit for you if you choose to self-publish or go with an ebook publisher. And then get someone to edit again before you submit the final draft. :)

It's nice to know that this is not always the case!

I will definitely be checking out eXtasy if I am not successful with publishing houses/decide to try the ebook route.