Self-publishing

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Self-publishing is the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers. Although it represents a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales, it has been present in one form or another since the beginning of publishing and has seen an increase in activity with the advancement of publishing technology, including xerography, desktop publishing systems, print on demand, and the World Wide Web. Cultural phenomena such as the punk/DIY movement, the proliferation of media channels, and blogging have contributed to the advancement of self-publishing.

Contents

1 Business aspects
2 Printing and production quality
3 Motives for self-publishing
4 Vanity publishing
5 Self-published best-sellers
6 External links

Business aspects

The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead the creator or creators fulfill this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers. Less often, the author prints the material, usually using a xerographic process or a computer printer. In some cases, books are printed on demand with no inventory kept. This places the bulk of the financial risk for the venture on the creators, with many self-publishers ultimately subsidizing it rather than making money from it.

Printing and production quality

Many self-published books utilize printing and binding techniques chosen for their suitability for short press runs. They may be printed with a xerographic process rather than offset printing. In many cases the lavish full-color cover used in mass-market publishing is not present. Bindings suitable for short press runs, like staples, comb bindings, or wire-bindings are often used rather than the perfect binding or signature binding typical for larger press runs. Technology has enabled high-quality short-run print jobs to be successful.

Because professional-quality typesetting suites, such as LaTeX, are available as free software, the typesetting of a self-published book may be as good as a traditionally published work. However, these tools require some technical skill, and many self-published works are formatted using a word processor, which can give less appealing results in comparison. The development of relatively low-cost desktop publishing software has put more powerful tools in the hands of self-publishers, but without any guarantee that they will be used to professional standards.

Authors using lower-cost, short-run techniques are often focused on content rather than appearance. They may wish to avoid a polished appearance for reasons that have little to do with cost, such as maintaining an anti-establishment aesthetic.

Because bookstores believe that cover appearance and content is important for successful sales, self-publishing authors that plan to distribute their books through mainstream distributors and bookstores often strive to achieve an overall appearance similar to that of the major publishing houses. This in turn mandates a larger initial press run, because of the set-up costs involved for offset press work.

Motives for self-publishing

There are a number of reasons that writers choose to self-publish, most often however, they choose to self-publish because their work is not of interest to a commercial publisher. Publishers must be confident of sales of several thousand copies to take on a book. An otherwise meritous book may not have this potential for any number of reasons:

author is unknown and does not have substantial resume
popular topic but of interest only in a small geographic area
addresses an obscure topic in which few people are interested
content is controversial enough that publishers do not wish to be associated with it
author wishes to obtain a larger percentage return from retail sales

Occasionally an author may choose to self-publish for reasons of control. When working with a publisher, an author gives up a degree of editorial control, and has little input into the design of the book, its distribution, and its marketing. This has been a substantial motivator in the rise of comic book self-publishing. In the late 1970s, creators such as Dave Sim and Wendy and Richard Pini chose - in spite of offers from publishers - to publish their work themselves because they wanted to retain full ownership and control over it, and they believed they could do the job of publishing more effectively than a publisher that did not have an ownership stake in the material. This was facilitated by the development of comic book specialty shops, and the distribution network that serves them, which is more open to small- and self-publisher material than traditional bookstores have been. Numerous cartoonists have followed their example since then, and by the late 1990s, the majority of comics (in terms of titles) were self-published. They remain a small percentage of overall sales, however, with sales of a given book often falling short of 1000 copies. A similar movement took place in the music industry during the same period, coming largely out of the punk rock phenomenon, as some musicians eschewed deals with record labels and published their own recordings.

In addition to the issue of control some authors with limited markets may also self-publish in order to obtain a better financial return. An author in a specialist area may be confident of a certain number of sales but also realise that the maximum number of sales is limited, and wish to maximise their earnings. In this situation the author may risk a significant amount of their own capital to self-publish their own work. This avoids a publisher taking a significant cut of the proceeds and if also self-distributed avoids distribution fees as well. The payoff is a much larger percentage of the sale price being returned as profit. For instance in a limited market such as Australia an author who is confident of sales can gain a better financial return by self-publishing their work, such as was done with Complete School.

Vanity publishing

Main article: Vanity press

Self-publishing is sometimes difficult to differentiate from "vanity publishing". The latter term is a pejorative one, usually referring to situations in which a publisher contracts with authors regardless of the quality and marketability of their work. They appeal to the creators' vanity and desire to become a "published author", and make the majority of their money from fees charged to the creators for publishing services, rather than from sales of the published material to retailers or consumers. In his guide for would-be self-publishers, How to Publish Yourself, author Peter Finch unequivocally states that such presses are "To be avoided at all costs". Vanity presses often try to disguise themselves, calling themselves "joint venture" or "subsidy" presses (neither term is accurate; in a vanity press arrangement, the author undertakes all of the risk (unlike a joint venture), and pays 100% of the cost of publication (unlike in a true subsidy arrangement)). The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website maintains one of the most comprehensive scam-alert sections in the publishing industry, and works hard to keep writers and potential writers aware of the risk of being scammed by duplicitous vanity presses.

So-called vanity presses may not necessarily engage in deception or fraud, however, and some creators knowingly and willingly enter into such deals, placing more importance on getting their work published than from profiting from it. Because there is no independent entity making a judgment about their quality, and because many of them are published at a loss, self-published works are often perceived as equivalent to vanity-press works, or equally deserving of skepticism from distributors, retailers, or readers.

Self-published best-sellers

Many works now considered classic were originally self published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.

The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson
Life's Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown
In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters

Self-published works that find large audiences are rare exceptions, and are usually the result of self-promotion.
Another popular self published author is Aaron Cometbus, who started as a zine writer at the age of 13, and continues to write today

For a list of self-published best-sellers, see [self-publishing].

External links

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