As a book designer who has worked with both writers on self-publishing projects and publishers, aside from promotion, the other advantage of publishers is that they offer thorough editing and proofing. It’s amazing the amount of mistakes that remain hidden until after a book is in print or goes live. (referring to self-publishing there.) Many writers resist the editing process which is understandable, but in many instances, regrettable.
However, there no reason not to self-publish first and still shop around for publishers. But yes, the logistics of getting the book into print can be a big pain. Even as someone who understands the process, i find that each PrintYourOwn place has its own peculiar procedures and it can be annoyingly time consuming to figure them out. They also could care less about the quality of your book.
And I’ll add my congrats on finishing the novel! It’s the kind of story I like so will definitely look forward to reading it.
This is a good point. It’s not a problem I’ve had to deal with myself (I have extremely good spelling and grammar, I posted most of my books to my blog first so was able to crowdsource away the more egregious errors, and I got four or five people who were knowledgeable on the relevant subjects to read over the finished MS before publishing) but it is a problem for people who don’t have those advantages.
Of the self-publishing sites, I find Amazon’s Kindle process ludicrously simple (just upload a Word doc, and it Just Works), and Lulu’s print-on-demand almost as simple. However, Lulu’s ebook process is near-impossible, while Smashwords’ is straightforward (your document needs to be formatted in a particular manner, but they give very clear, simple instructions on how to format it).
The only problem with any of them, for me, is that none of them accept plain .tex files (LyX is my word processor of choice), because that would make the typesetting process simpler—for them as well as me...
This is a good point. It’s not a problem I’ve had to deal with myself (I have extremely good spelling and grammar, I posted most of my books to my blog first so was able to crowdsource away the more egregious errors, and I got four or five people who were knowledgeable on the relevant subjects to read over the finished MS before publishing) but it is a problem for people who don’t have those advantages.
Of the self-publishing sites, I find Amazon’s Kindle process ludicrously simple (just upload a Word doc, and it Just Works), and Lulu’s print-on-demand almost as simple. However, Lulu’s ebook process is near-impossible, while Smashwords’ is straightforward (your document needs to be formatted in a particular manner, but they give very clear, simple instructions on how to format it).
The only problem with any of them, for me, is that none of them accept plain .tex files (LyX is my word processor of choice), because that would make the typesetting process simpler—for them as well as me...
As a book designer who has worked with both writers on self-publishing projects and publishers, aside from promotion, the other advantage of publishers is that they offer thorough editing and proofing. It’s amazing the amount of mistakes that remain hidden until after a book is in print or goes live. (referring to self-publishing there.) Many writers resist the editing process which is understandable, but in many instances, regrettable.
However, there no reason not to self-publish first and still shop around for publishers. But yes, the logistics of getting the book into print can be a big pain. Even as someone who understands the process, i find that each PrintYourOwn place has its own peculiar procedures and it can be annoyingly time consuming to figure them out. They also could care less about the quality of your book.
And I’ll add my congrats on finishing the novel! It’s the kind of story I like so will definitely look forward to reading it.
This is a good point. It’s not a problem I’ve had to deal with myself (I have extremely good spelling and grammar, I posted most of my books to my blog first so was able to crowdsource away the more egregious errors, and I got four or five people who were knowledgeable on the relevant subjects to read over the finished MS before publishing) but it is a problem for people who don’t have those advantages.
Of the self-publishing sites, I find Amazon’s Kindle process ludicrously simple (just upload a Word doc, and it Just Works), and Lulu’s print-on-demand almost as simple. However, Lulu’s ebook process is near-impossible, while Smashwords’ is straightforward (your document needs to be formatted in a particular manner, but they give very clear, simple instructions on how to format it).
The only problem with any of them, for me, is that none of them accept plain .tex files (LyX is my word processor of choice), because that would make the typesetting process simpler—for them as well as me...
This is a good point. It’s not a problem I’ve had to deal with myself (I have extremely good spelling and grammar, I posted most of my books to my blog first so was able to crowdsource away the more egregious errors, and I got four or five people who were knowledgeable on the relevant subjects to read over the finished MS before publishing) but it is a problem for people who don’t have those advantages.
Of the self-publishing sites, I find Amazon’s Kindle process ludicrously simple (just upload a Word doc, and it Just Works), and Lulu’s print-on-demand almost as simple. However, Lulu’s ebook process is near-impossible, while Smashwords’ is straightforward (your document needs to be formatted in a particular manner, but they give very clear, simple instructions on how to format it).
The only problem with any of them, for me, is that none of them accept plain .tex files (LyX is my word processor of choice), because that would make the typesetting process simpler—for them as well as me...