A Revolution in the Writing World -- Self-Publishing

By: Jen Narron

The Times, my friends, they certainly are changing... that's how the song goes. And that statement was never more true than in the world of self-publishing. Almost from the beginning, self-publishing was an option, but not one that was commonly used. The "accepted" method of getting your book into print was to cart it around to various book publishing companies in the hopes of getting it excepted. In most cases manuscripts were rejected out-of-hand.

Although self-publishing has been an option for writers since the very beginning of the invention of the printing press, and although many very famous writers in the past self published some or all of their works, it is still nevertheless true that traditional publishing companies maintained a virtual stranglehold on the book publishing industry. Because of this, traditional book publishers could be very selective in their choice of authors and book titles. But this is all changing now, thanks to the self-publishing phenomenon.

But this is rapidly changing. Self-publishing, which requires an author to learn how to publish a book on their own, is an option that many authors have chosen -- and many more are thinking about it. The old-line book publishing companies are of course doing everything in their power to discourage writers from going this route; yet the handwriting is clearly on the wall.

What is driving all of these changes? It is largely technological advance that is bringing self-publishing to Main Street. Thanks to the advent of computers, and the ability to store, edit, and consequently print books in digital format, self-publishing has become a wonderfully effective option for many contemporary writers.

A good example of how technological advance is fueling the self-publishing phenomenon is the area of print on demand publishing technology. The print on demand approach allows for the printing of books as requests and orders for those books are received, not before, as with the traditional approach. This means that huge stockpiles of books did not have to be printed in advance -- which always presented the possibility of financial risk if those books did not sell well. These risks, as well as associated costs such as warehousing are minimized or eliminated.

Another area of the self-publishing world which has experienced a lot of changes is children's book publishing. In the past it was difficult for writers to get children's books published because a glut of these books on the market meant that they could be difficult to sell. As a consequence, traditional publishing companies would not take them. The advent of print on demand publishing means that children's books can be printed as they are ordered and paid for, whether 100 or 10,000 copies are needed.

There is not, of course, complete agreement among all the experts that self-publishing is always the best option. For one thing many self published books (most of the ones printed in the past, and far too many printed today) are of very poor quality. The self-publishing field continues to be plagued, for example, by books that have not been properly edited or laid out, as well as by books that just look plain ugly.

This has given self-published books a bad reputation -- especially with retail bookstores, many of whom simply refuse to carry such titles. This can present a formidable marketing challenge, as a huge segment of the book buying public still purchase their books to their local bookstore.

Still, self-publishing can be a good choice for certain authors: for example, those who have written books on controversial subjects (which commercial publishing houses may not be willing to risk publishing) or on subjects for which there is a limited appeal (specialist hobby books, for example).

So if you are considering a jump into the self-publishing world, you should carefully consider not only the potential benefits but the potentially negative aspects as well before you make a final decision.