Some of the most famous authors of our time were self-published. Mark Twain, Mary Baker Eddy, and Upton Sinclair are just a few of the authors who were self-published; they took their works directly to the press, without going through a publisher. When James Joyce couldn't get a publisher for his decidedly racy Ulysses (it was considered pornographic in the early 1930s.), he sent the manuscript to an Italian printer and had the books made that way (they couldn't understand the decidedly erotic text!). Getting them into the country was something else again, but..he did.

Self-publishing might be the only way to get your book published today, as the major publishing houses only work with established authors (not first-time authors), or with celebrities who are well-known. It's very difficult for the first-time author to sell to a major publishing house without an agent. Book publishing has moved from being a field dominated by major publishers to small publishers. It is the smaller publishing houses you might have a better chance in, if you're reluctant to go the self-publishing route...but I can think of some better reasons why you might want to self-publish your own book.

One reason is that you keep artistic control. You alone are responsible for the content, and you don't wrangle with an editor who doesn't understand your literary style(!) (did I say that?!). The drawback is that you have to give your book the haircut, and it is just like giving yourself a haircut—difficult at best. Still...you can hire an editor from the outside, and get around the problem like that, if you have the money to do that. If you're detached enough, you can always do it yourself. I am; it's most definitely possible.

The other reason is that you have control over advertising and promotion. If you have an idea to whom you're writing your book, you also know enough to perhaps know where to find your reader. The publishing houses might not promote your book; they'll want you, the author, to do that, anyway (at least according to the Self-Publishing Manual.).

Of course...the drawback to self-publishing is that you need money in order to do it. You have to pay for everything yourself; the advertising and promotion, and the press run. The good news is, it's getting cheaper and cheaper to print books. Gone are the days where you had to print 5,000 copies in order to get a decently cheap per unit price for a book. With print-on-demand (POD), it is possible to print the book as you receive orders. If you know where to look, it is possible to get a good price on a short print run of, say 25-50 copies. You submit a PDF file to your local printer, and you're good to go. The other way to go is...the E-Book!
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E-books are even easier to make! A simple software package can take a Microsoft Word file and turn it into a nice e-book, ready to sell on a website of your own creation (if you know how to do HTML. Even if you don't, there are web hosting services that offer web page templates that can get you off to a great start, even without you knowing a word of HTML.). Best part about making e-books? It doesn't cost anything! You heard me right...Microsoft's website has the RMR (Read in Microsoft Reader) e-book compiler freely available. The catch is, it works only on Word 2002 and above. If not, there is still another free software package available to you. You can be dirt-poor, and still get started. As long as you have a computer, and a word processor, you're good to go. Today, you can get a perfectly usable, Internet-ready computer for under $400.00, thanks to the rapid advances in technology. It won't be the latest...but it will be quite respectable.

I was more than a little excited upon seeing this. It was right then, while in the Boston Public Library, that I began thinking up ideas for e-books. I felt then this was a big chance for writer to publish their own works. I still feel that way, even though some online bookstores won't stock e-books anymore, because they're not making enough money. There is still Amazon.com, and they still sell e-books. The Internet was the first big revolution for writers who wanted to get their ideas before a larger audience; the e-book represents the second big revolution for authors. It has the power to turn authors into publishers and booksellers, all at the same time! And did I mention, once you have the computer and the word processor...it can be done for almost nothing?

In 2003, over a million e-books were sold. This is a nascent industry, just getting off the ground. Whether e-books will ever get off the ground, in terms of sales, is a matter to be seen. Today, over 130 million Americans have a computer, and are hooked up to the Internet. That is a potentially large audience for e-book patrons, if the topic is right. There is now a certain comfort level to reading via the Internet; the e-book is the next logical extension. Handheld computers now exists that allow the public to read e-books in the palm of their hands. Other e-book readers are either in the works, or on the market, that allow people to read e-books in any one of several proprietary formats, including Palm Reader, and Microsoft Reader®. For some e-book software, click here. For e-book readers, click here.

Next: The business of e-books: Startup costs.

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