Anyone here self-published a novel, a collection of poems or ... a book? How difficult / easy is it to self-publish an e-book? How about a printed book?
Self publishing is not an easy task and should not be taken lightly. I myself have not done so but I do know people who have self published poetry and as they have said it can be very daunting and costly and a lot of work is involved with the whole process.
My insight to self-publishing is that it's good if you just want a copy of your book/whatever for yourself, or for friends and family, but it's unlikely to actually become a big success. I know that there are stories of authors self-publishing, and then being picked up by big publishers, but those examples are few and far between I'm afraid.
It really depends on how good you are at marketing really. Also how much you are willing to spend in your endeavours. A friend of mine self published her poetry a few years ago and managed to sell 3000 copies of her book. Not really sure how the profits and all that went, but 3000 sales is not bad at all really for a poetry book in my opinion.
Are there any services to help you to self-publish? What if you use one of those services? It might be costly but not that difficult to do ...?
I guess it is possible that there are services to aide you in self-publishing. I have never actually looked into it myself though. I guess if it is the path anyone wishes to take with their writing then it is something to look at really.
look on the internet. there is one site like lulu.com or something. you should type it in your web browser (google i find the best) and see what comes up. Heather
Actually Lulu.com I have heard about and they are meant to be really good. Haven't heard anything bad about them yet.
it's not that lulu is 'good' but just that it's 'less bad' than the others... they still turn out books that are so overpriced for a paperback that few beyond friends and family will buy them... and you still have to do all the promotion, marketing and distribution yourself... and you still won't be considered a 'published' writer/author/poet if use them, as with using any other variety of 'vanity publisher'... the only way to get to that stage is to have a publisher pay you to publish your book...
Yes but in order to be taken seriously by a paying publisjer maia you need to have a portfolio. Well that is how it works over here in Australia.
pages?... i sure hope you meant 'words'!... if you mean to self-publish, it depends on who does the printing... a good printer won't print just one and will charge several thousand dollars for 750-1,000 copies... but you'll have complete say over how it gets printed, cover art, etc.... down side is they do no editing usually, so all goofs you miss will be in the print copy... which is no different really, from all other varieties of vanity publishing, including the pods... a pod publisher like lulu may not charge anything for the printing, but you have to buy the books from them at the price they set... which is way above the cost of a normal pb...
