Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age

Time was, printing and publishing your own work was frowned upon. In many quarters, it still is. But before I give the link to the piece on self-publishing I saw over at The Washington Times, I'd like to share a quote from it:

"The stigma is much greater among writers themselves than among readers or even publishers. Readers aren't biased against self-published books; they're biased against bad books."

And here's the three-page article: Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age. More excerpts:

"Publishers are going into hibernation right now," said Jason Boog, an editor at the publishing blog GalleyCat, to The Washington Times a few months ago. "While they hibernate, a lot of writers aren't going to have a place to publish."

Some already are looking elsewhere. Wil Wheaton declares, "The incredible ease of distribution online and the fact that more authors — and actually, all creative people — can reach their audience and their customers more easily and more directly than at any other time in history, I think makes self-publishing an option that can be considered in the first round of choices rather than the last resort it's been perceived as up until, let's say, 1998 to 2001."

Melinda Roberts last month got what she calls "the holy grail" for authors — an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Her book? The self-published "Mommy Confidential."

She published herself after agents said they loved her writing but couldn't sell another memoir. "My mother is a writer and editor. I'm a graphic designer. Between us, we had all of the publishing skills we needed," she says. Her book, based on her humorous blog, has been described as "Erma Bombeck meets Bridget Jones."

She admits it's been tough going: "When I sell a book, I can buy a Big Mac, and that's about it. My last quarterly check, which is sitting on my desk waiting to be deposited, was $24."

She worried about the stigma, too. "It's almost like marrying beneath yourself," she says. "It's a matter of public record, and you can't take it back once you've done it."

Now that she's been on "Oprah," though, she has agents calling her. "One woman said, 'If you want to write anything else at all, call me,' " she reports.

An author can get his or her Lulu book in days. One also can self-publish within minutes, thanks to the increasing popularity of e-books. Amazon.com allows authors to upload a book in minutes and see it for sale in its Kindle store within hours.

April L. Hamilton has done just that. Her two novels are available as Kindle books and paperbacks, and she has published the IndieAuthor Guide to help others do the same. "At last, we're living in a time when authors can go 'indie,' just like musicians and filmmakers before them," she enthuses.

She had an agent but couldn't get published — like Ms. Roberts, she found people liked her work but thought it couldn't sell. She entered Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest on a whim and got dozens of glowing reviews from the site's customers.

"I decided maybe New York editors don't really know what the book-buying public wants," she says. "I think the publishing industry is looking more like the movie industry all the time. Big, mainstream publishers want blockbusters and sure things. They can't cover their overheads on books that only sell a few thousand copies. But that doesn't mean a book that's destined to sell only a few thousand copies isn't a good book that would be very much enjoyed by its audience. And many an aspiring author would be very happy with a loyal readership of a few thousand."

Click here to read the whole article.

I like that part where writers are described as being able to go "indie" like musicians and filmmakers. However, there is a downside, of course, and that's not being able to work with an experienced editor. A lot of our favorite books improved and benefited from having been read by editors. Perhaps getting comments from test readers is a way to address this? But really, if a story works, it works. The traditional process of finding a publisher for a book may take longer, and the product may not even be marketed to an author's liking. The internet has opened a way for writers to go "indie", and I think the stigma attached to self-publishing will diminish over time, especially given how so many traditional publishers are holding back (and even retrenching) because of the bad economy.