Self-Publishing...or Not?

Ten years ago. The founder of SPAN was on the car radio. My husband rushed home to tell me. We were new to publishing, had one book to publish, available in the UK and ready for its first US edition. What next? How to publish it?

SPAN is about self-publishing, and in those days, the professional publishing world did not think well of self-publishing, called vanity publishing. That needed to change. 


We knew that the main problems was that self-published books too often had poor, unprofessional, editing. A change in that direction, for the better, was essential.

Since those years, a multimillion-dollar industry has grown, to capture the self-marketing writer or group. You will see ads everywhere offering to "publish your book." Is that a good thing? You need to find out.

Here are some key things to look for:

• Does the offer include professional editing?

• If the offer includes book formatting, does it also include professional marketing, including placement on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and other book-selling web sites? Most do this, by the way.

• If the offer includes marketing, will it cost you too much to buy your own copies, for your own book signings and other public appearances?

• If you seriously consider going this way, it is essential that you not rush into a decision with the first offer that looks spectacular. There are lots of "spectacular" offers. 

• Three things to do, taking the time, before you decide: (1) Study the most appealing offer, and (2) compare all of it, line by line, with at least five other businesses offering similar services, and (3) see if recommendations from other offers include praise that their books are doing well, or only praise that their books look good and the service was excellent.

Your book was important enough that you spent time writing and rewriting it. Make sure your book gets the right help for sales!