Self-Publishing; A Boon or a Bane – Part One
by Lee Tidball
A few observations on this current craze in book publishing today—from both sides of the fence.
First, a definition. I define “self-publishing” as any form of publishing a book for sale by an author or publisher where the author pays the publisher for some or all of the services normally provided by a book publisher (as opposed to the publisher paying for them), including, but not limited to, editing, typesetting, book set-up, making a book cover, printing the book, copyrighting it and registering it with book distributors, marketing the book, etc. etc. There are basically two kinds of self-publishers in business today; so-called “vanity presses” that will do a traditional print run of your book, send them to you, and you then sell them however you can, or the far more ubiquitous “print-on-demand (POD) self-publisher” or “author-assisted publisher” who use print-on-demand technology to make your book on an as-needed basis and, at the very least, sell it through their website (usually others as well), thus reducing the cost to the author by literally thousands of dollars over the “vanity press.”
First, the pros as I see them. No question the biggest one is that you are guaranteed that your book will be published and made available to the masses, and you’ll have control of making that happen. There’s nothing more frustrating than working your butt off on a novel or non-fiction book, and then not being able to share it with anyone because publishers won’t publish it (for any number of reasons). Self-publishing removes this frustrating lack of control entirely. You will have your book published—but you’ll pay for it.
Another pro is that, with self publishing, you usually have a huge amount of control as to what the final product will look like, read like, etc. You’re consulted on everything, given many examples to choose from, and asked for your approval at just about every stage of the process. And your book usually comes out in a matter of months from the start of the process. This does not happen in traditional publishing. You basically have to follow whatever the publisher’s wishes are, whether you like them or not. With smaller companies, you may be consulted (I have been with both of my publishers), but the big ones? Forget about it. And you’ll be lucky if you see your book on a store shelf or website inside of a year and a half. Having control is something that some authors don’t care at all about, but many do. Self-publishing allows this.
And as far as royalties go, almost always, they are higher and paid more often than with a traditional publisher. Some self-publishers even allow you a certain freedom to set your book’s retail price and royalty yourself!
And finally, lots of the self-publishers today offer you a certain amount of marketing help, including listing your book on popular book-selling websites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and others. The more you’re willing to pay, the more marketing help you get; from bookmarks and posters to even a publicist who will put together a complete publicity package for you, send out announcements to newspapers and magazines, set up radio interviews, blog tours, etc. All you have to be willing to do is pay for it…which leads us nicely into the cons of self-publishing. But for that, you’ll have to go on to Part Two of this post.
Amazon bestseller - Teen/YA Literature and Fiction
“Imagine the unimaginable.”
That was the mantra of young prodigy Hector Chevas’s mentor in architectural design, Gellini. But even Gellini couldn’t imagine the horrors that his prize student and adopted son would fill Suburbia’s new Heartland Mall with to wreak revenge on those who killed Gellini and murdered Hector’s only friends. “Black Friday” was never blacker.
But Hector couldn’t imagine that, in the middle of his deathly rampage, an “angel” from his past would re-appear into his life; wild-child Janey, whose life he’d saved years before, and who’d never forgotten her promise to “always love him…for reals.” But was that love strong enough now to learn the unimaginable truth; to call Hector’s “dead” soul back to life and resurrect him from his mad plunge into oblivion?
MALLED is a story filled with tragedy, terror, raw emotion, unspeakable horrors, and, above all, the awesome power of ferocious, undying love. Go for it. Get into it. Dare to “imagine the unimaginable.”
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – NeoGothic Horror / Thriller
Rating – R for violence & language
More details about the author & the book
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