To Publish and Be Damned

That old chestnut, “self-publishing,” is discussed at some length in an article by Ambrose Musiyiwa in Blogcritics Magazine. This follows an interesting survey on the same topic, hosted last year by the Leicester Review of Books. (Survey results can be found here.)

Musiyiwa raises some interesting points, among them:

Wikipedia defines self-publishing as “the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers.” The encyclopedia goes on to explain that although self-publishing 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. “Many works now considered classic,” it notes, “were originally self-published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.”

The writer closes his Blogcritics article with these words of wisdom--and caution:

Another example is Graham P. Taylor who earned a publishing deal worth 3.5 million pounds after he had self-published his first novel, Shadowmancer. Taylor’s books have since been translated into over twenty different languages and are also going to be turned into movies.

Writers who are contemplating self-publishing need to investigate the industry thoroughly and make sure that their work has been sufficiently edited and critiqued before they haul it off to the printers. They should also be prepared to market and promote their books aggressively.

You can read Musiyiwa’s full article here.