How to Publish Your Book

I am active on a number of social networking sites, one of which is a group geared to writers. It amazes me to find out how many of them are hung up on how they should publish their book. Their concern is that any book that is self-published or published by what is known as a POD, standing for published on demand, is doomed to failure. I’ve read many comments calling this vanity publishing with all sorts of derogatory consequences. These include labeling such authors as being somehow inferior to traditionally published authors. These comments usually come from authors who have had their works published by one of the big New York publishing houses.

I am sure these authors are completely unaware of the fact that many of the authors, whom we consider masters of their craft, have at one time or another self-published their work. If you go to http://bookmarket.com/self-publish.html you will discover a long list of names of such authors, among them Margaret Atwood, Lord Byron, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Zane Grey, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf, and the list goes on and on.

At a time in which we find ourselves today, getting published by a traditional publishing house is extremely difficult, considering the recession/depression we are experiencing at this time. These houses are suffering from the same economic downturn as the rest of the country. It is no wonder that they are turning down even more authors than ever. So my question is: what does an author do with his work at this point in time? Is he/she to wait an unknown amount of time for the world to set itself right?

 Another thing to consider is the fact that a greater and greater number of authors, being unable to get a traditional house to publish their work and who have self-published or gone POD, have been extremely successful. With all that in mind, and having not an unlimited amount of time ahead of me to play with, I decided to join that hallowed list of writing masters, and published Becoming Alice myself. It was one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made.

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