Publishing your own book

Has anyone here ever done it? How did you find the process? Do you think there's any dignity in self-publishing?

I don't have information, but now I'm quite curious.

In a lot of cases its a scam.
They do publish your book but its up to you to market and you take the financial risk.

Let me go a bit futher into this for you.
They print your book for a price per copy
They do not edit it
they print what ever you have writen
they charge you for each copy
They ship the copies to you
that is it.

That doesn't sound good at all. Thank you Tate. Back to plan A.

I did not write a book I have writen plays under another name and they have been produced. I just know a lot of writers who have looked at this. With plays you can do it on a machine on word print it out take it and have it put into a binder
with books its a lot harder.

Well I'd go with my poetry and short stories, requiring ..oh heaven knows how many pages really. It'll make for good loo reading.

It's not quite as dismal as james tate puts it, actually. If you're really interested check out www.createspace.com

Mocha

There's a great self-publishing site: www.lulu.com and they offer 3 great publishing packages - "Beginner's" (about $ 700), "Masterpiece" (about $ 1500) and "Pulitzer" (about $ 4000). They also offer about 3 different distribution packages, and the option to purchase an ISBN in your own name at $ 99 or you can get it from bowker.com for $ 150.00 with the barcode. If you opt to get an ISBN in lulu's name, it's completely free. Once your book is complete, it will be available through online retailers such as Amazon etc, etc.

VB - hope this helped a bit.

M - I wanted to do something for younger people. Not necessarily a children's book but more like an inspirational piece for young girls.

JT - What a way to dash the hopes of an aspiring writer. LOL.

mochacaremel - Thanks! I heard of createspace.com. Haven't checked it out yet. There is another one I believe called arthur house.

Dash the hopes
If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

I am an author. I know of what I speak. Out of all of these: Xlibris, lulu, authorhouse, createspace

Createspace is the one to go with if you want respect in the field and great royalties. But, if you must learn by trial and error? Feel free.

Mocha

hmm, dignity in self-publishing..
I think self-publishers do so for their own keepsakes.. they cannot expect very much exposure if their publishing house is not popular or well respected. It's like you can publish your own book and just put it on your bookshelf for posterity reasons.

my friend showed me this:

...

we're both thinking of doing it, but the idea needs more reserach. still, at least you aren't under a contract or anything. it's not like it's easy to write on command, sometimes the insp is there, sometimes it isn't.

Some mediums are more suited for self-publishing (aka the "vanity" press) then others. I would say poetry tops this list. As a poet, I have friends who've used 24hourbooks because it's not that expensive but very good quality. It really depends on the type of work your doing- if it would be a good idea or not. I know milkweed editions holds a contest each year for the best submissions (varying style s) that publishes your work for free if you win. I would try entering some contests or literary journals and see what the response is before I laid out $ 1000- $ 4000 base for self publishing🙂 Good luck!!!

IT is really simple to publish your own book nowadays. There are many websites that you upload your information and poof your book comes in. Selling your book to a publisher well that is a harder task. I was actually quite curious of it myself but have not had the time to really research it.

What type of a book are you thinking of publishing?

once i read on amazon.com , they will publish books and help us to sell it or market it at less cost I guess...not sure..but it's worth finding out..