If you want to publish a book, there are two ways you can go: look for a publisher or self-publish. I have addressed the traditional publishing route in my article “Publishing Your First Book;" now let us take a look at pros and cons of self-publishing.
Some think that self-publishing your book is almost like admitting your defeat as a writer: you cannot get published, so you do it yourself. That is not so. While there certainly are some authors who have no chance of getting published because of their poor writing and therefore turn to self-publishing, the amount of good quality books produced that way grows continuously. Many self-published books make their way to the market and compete quite successfully with their traditional counterparts, sometimes even leaving them far behind. Judge for yourself, here are just a few examples provided by www.bookmarket.com at their Self-Publishing Hall of Fame:
Craig Alessebegan Amherst Media by self-publishing his own how-to photography books. His company is now one of the premiere how-to photography publishing companies in the world, distributing to photography stores across the country.
In a little over two years, author Laura Duksta and illustrator Karen Keesler sold 130,000 copies of their first book, I Love You More.
William Byham self-published the bestselling business book, Zapp: The Lightning of Empowerment. The book has sold more than 2.5 million copies in self-published and Crown Publishing editions.
Richard Paul Evans self-published 8,000 copies of his little holiday story,The Christmas Box, in August 1993. That fall he sold many thousands of copies in the Salt Lake City area alone. When the major publishers became interested in the book, dozens of them participated in a two-day auction. Simon & Schuster came out the winner. They only had to pay Evans a $4.2 million advance (which included the rights to a prequel as well). He retained the rights to his softcover edition. The next year, both editions ended up on the bestseller lists. The book has sold more than 7 million copies in 17 different languages.”
Like I said, these are just a few examples, there are hundreds of them in the above mentioned Hall of Fame. As you see, self-publishing can be a successful endeavor, but, of course, it has its drawbacks as well as advantages. Let us take a look at those. First, we will talk about subsidy publishing, then we’ll discuss a newer technology called print-on-demand publishing.