Self-Publishing Looking Better

from the who-needs-a-publisher dept

Self-publishing of books has had a pretty bad reputation for a while. There were a few success stories, but not many. Now, however, technology is making it easier and much, much cheaper to self-publish, meaning that self-publishing is losing some of its negative connotation. It's certainly not going to wipe out professional publishers, who are there for a reason. However, it does open up more possibilities for people who want to publish books for very focused audiences, or those who see self-publishing as a kind of minor league "warmup" for publishing a book the traditional way. While some fear being inundated with dreadful books, that seems silly. If the books are bad, no one is going to buy them. Besides, there are already plenty of dreadful books out there that you never hear about. A successful book generally requires a marketing campaign that many individual authors are incapable of doing on their own - which is why big publishers are around. However, for some authors, doing their own publicity is a thrill, and gives them much more control over how their book is promoted.