The Self Made Author
Up and coming writers have always bemoaned the difficulty of getting a publishing deal; there has always been a certain element of disappointed angst at the continual rejections and general disinterest in new work by old school agents. Now though, the ability of writers to publish their own books and to market them world-wide has turned the tide on these publishing establishments and into the future I believe that we will question the relevance of traditional agents and publishers as writers take more control over their product and their public image. In what other business would someone spend a considerable slice of their life, often many years, only to have to expect that their product will still be altered by someone else before it is considered to be finished? Would Homer or Livy have produced such enduring classics of literature if their works had had to pass through the gauntlet of agents, editors and the rest? Certainly it is the author that knows if his work says what he means- how else can a writer mean what he writes? Print on demand publishing, with its high level of author control, is the most important innovation in publishing in a century. For the first time in at least that long writers can be in control of their own destiny. This is the opportunity of our times for writers but like all opportunities it comes with a cost. The largest expenditure for the self published author isn’t the meager cost of actually producing a hard copy of a book, that is relatively cheap now and getting less expensive all of the time as the fledgling industry grows. The greatest cost is in time; the time that it takes the author to publicize himself to his book buying public. Most people think that the publisher will do most of this kind of work but the truth is that publishers will put 90% of their effort into 10% of their stable of writers- the most successful, and so the new author is still left to publicize himself. The self publishing writer at least knows from the outset what is ahead of himself in that regard and in many ways may be better off for taking such comprehensive control over his work. There are many avenues open to the self published writer to publicize their work. I have found that publishing material where it can be read for free has attracted a lot of traffic to my book on amazon.com, some of which has even translated to actual sales. Also, I blog, and blog, and blog. For all of my interests there is the potential to blog about them. Developing a presence on the web has been a long slow process but I have a sense of being out there now that I don’t know that I would have if I were just another paperback writer in a stable of hundreds of others receiving the same scant attention as myself from the omniscient gods of publishing.
Please go to amazon and buy my book- http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609117239
And check out my works at:
http://www.docstoc.com/profile/dgmattichak
and at:
http://www.scribd.com/dmattichak/shelf
and my blog when I am a chef at:
