I came over from twitter, and have found a lot of good info at this site. Thanks!

Excuse my tardiness, but here goes. My new book is a grownup fairy tale, not a memoir, and yes I think my general experience of the publishing process and putting books together undoubtedly helped. However, there is nothing in the process of writing a book, formatting it for publication and sending it to a printer that you cannot learn about fairly easily on the internet, assuming you are a capable writer to begin with – no-one will write it for you.. And there are increasing numbers of internet companies that will do all this planning and formatting for you at reasonable cost.

I have recently set up my own blog to help me publicise and sell my book, and there are already a few posts on there that you might find helpful. Click on my name to go there. Writing and reading and posting on other blogs is I think a good way to try and get your name and book known. It is so easy for someone to just click on a link if you make it sound interesting, then you can give them more information and a means to buy when they get to your website (which is separate from my blog, although linked). I am emailing lots of book review blogs to try and get it reviewed, as I am sure a few good reviews will begin sending folk to my site for a look. Then hopefully news will go round the huge audience that is connected to the web. The potential is just mind-boggling.

It is clear from my researches and experience that anything remotely unusual (as my book is, and yours sounds like) is going to involve a massive, thankless, endless round of disinterested mainstream publishers. I would not even consider it. There is a fascinating article in a Canadian newspaper that I link to from my blog called “Oh heck, I’ll just publish it myself”, which describes the healthy attitude of a number of people who wasted years of their lives flogging round conventional publishers before saying just that. One has 50,000 self-published sales and still selling!

Do bear in mind, however, that a major complaint all across the internet about self-published books is that they are all too often not well enough edited to qualify as a professional product. There is a link on my blog to a lady who reviews self-published books and her observations are worth reading. You must edit, edit and edit again, and when you think it is perfect you get a friend to go through and edit, edit and edit again. I have always considered a book finished only when I can read right through it three times without finding anything I want to change or correct. It is amazing when you look back just how much your book will have improved through this ruthless process. If you stumble even slightly over a sentence you must stop and say “why?” and keep saying it till you know. Then correct it. Good enough is not good enough, as someone once said.

Rather a long comment – hope nobody minds. Your book sounds interesting – bytes and compile sound somewhat computerish. Care to elaborate briefly?

You’ve confirmed something I have been wondering about — that self-publishing is growing – and you have twelve professionally published books, so you must know something about the market.

One thing I wonder about, tho, do you think your prior successes had anything to do with the successful self-publication of your memoir? Also, how did you market?

I’m in the process of writing a Creative Nonfiction Memoir by writing what I call ’story-bytes’ that I plan to compile.

Any ideas on whether to self-publish or not?

Elf

Self publishing, as Bradley Robb pointed out, may not currently have the same independent spirit of indie music, but it will. It is already snowballing. I recently published a book myself, without using any organisation at all, with no financial outlay other than charges from the local printer for making the books. Everything else I did alone on my computer. I have a track record of twelve professionally published books, and one of the major factors in doing this one myself (different genre) was the memories of how long and dispiriting is the traditional route. I have total control over everything – text, layout, cover, marketing, rights, and make a hugely bigger percentage on each sale than I would from a publisher. And from finished manuscript to book in hand was about four days instead of a year!

Marketing is probably the biggest challenge, but it is increasingly clear to me that the scope on the internet for a self-publisher is simply mind-bogglingly enormous, with blogs etc. It is a wonderful opportunity. If you want to write and publish a book then do so, and sod the naysayers. Do it now; you won’t be able to do it when you’re dead. And if only your mother buys one, so what? She’ll be proud of you.