Shaking Up The Big Boys: Self-publishing Is Here To Stay
The Times, my friends, they certainly are changing... that's how the song goes. And that statement was never more true than in the world of self-publishing. Almost from the beginning, self-publishing was an option, but not one that was commonly used. The "accepted" method of getting your book into print was to cart it around to various book publishing companies in the hopes of getting it excepted. In most cases manuscripts were rejected out-of-hand.
Although self-publishing has been an option for writers since the very beginning of the invention of the printing press, and although many very famous writers in the past self published some or all of their works, it is still nevertheless true that traditional publishing companies maintained a virtual stranglehold on the book publishing industry. Because of this, traditional book publishers could be very selective in their choice of authors and book titles. But this is all changing now, thanks to the self-publishing phenomenon.
Let me be very clear right from the start: most traditional publishing companies do not want you to learn how to publish a book on your own; they would rather you remain in the dark about all of this, as a way of keeping you dependent on using their book publishing services.
The major force behind the advance in the self-publishing field is technology. Book publishing software is becoming extremely sophisticated, enabling a skilled user to produce a printed book whose quality parallels that of books published in the traditional way -- and the big boys are worried.
Another area of technological advance is print on demand publishing technology. Print on demand publishing technology allows books to be physically printed and bound very quickly after an order has been received for them. The advancement of print on demand publishing technology means that even traditional publishers no longer have to maintain huge inventories of back listed books.
And here is a dirty little trade secret: even the big boys will sometimes rely on print on demand technology -- for example a publisher may use this technology to meet customer requests for a particular book, one which does not sell in high volumes, but remains in constant demand. If you order such a book, it will be printed as requests are received and not before -- but you will never know it, because only the publishers imprint will be on the book.
Self-publishing has its critics, as well -- and many of them come from within the self-publishing field itself. It is still true that many self-published books do not meet the quality standards of traditionally published books, in particular cover layout and design and a lack of professional editing plague many of these titles.
Of course the self-publishing field has its naysayers as well -- and at times their criticisms are well deserved. For example it is still true that far too many self published books are of inferior quality (poorly edited, crappy cover designs, inferior materials, poor page layout). Because of this many retail bookstores refuse to carry self-published works. And this lack of access to bookstores should be taken into careful consideration by any one who is exploring a self-publishing option for their own book.
Still, self-publishing can be a good choice for certain authors: for example, those who have written books on controversial subjects (which commercial publishing houses may not be willing to risk publishing) or on subjects for which there is a limited appeal (specialist hobby books, for example).
So if you are considering a jump into the self-publishing world, you should carefully consider not only the potential benefits but the potentially negative aspects as well before you make a final decision.
