Should You Self-Publish Your Novel?

With so many aspiring authors out there it is becoming increasingly difficult to get a book published. Writers are left without much hope to get their book in print. So another option that is often debated is to whether self-publish your work. At first I wasn't at all convinced that it would be a good idea, but after some research, I think it's something that could be considered. Of course the first thing to do before going with self-publishing is to go ahead and send as many copies of your manuscript to a lot of publishers and/or agents. Once you've done this and have gotten no response, then it's time to go to Step 2.

First, you should familiarize yourself with all the different publishing services available. Make sure that they are reputable and not one of those online scams. A few to consider are Lulu.com. Xlibris, iuniverse and createspace.com (an Amazon company). There are many more out there, but I'd start with these since they are among the most known. These companies are also what they refer to as POD - Print on Demand. This means exactly what it says, they only print them when someone buys a copy. This way there is no huge stocks of books and you don't have to pay for say, 500 or 1,000 books.They are digitally printed so it is easily done and it's much more cost effective.

On Lulu.com, the one that I actually ended up using, you can publish your book and sell it on their site for free and get a royalty on each sale. Then, if you want to have your book distributed and sold by many online book stores such as Amazon, then you can get an ISBN number and make yourself the publisher for a $99 fee. This gives you the rights to your book, so that you have control over it. You can still have an ISBN number and distribution without the fee, but then the ISBN is published under Lulu's name and they retain most of the rights as publisher.

From what I could gather in my research, Lulu seemed to be pretty reasonable in their pricing, but I'm sure there are other self-publishing companies that are good as well. You'll just have to look through their websites to see what works better for you as far as what you are looking for in your book and how much you want to spend.

I think self-publishing is a good tool for new authors that want to get a book published and distributed. This way it can get into the hands of readers and develop exposure that in time may make it possible to get the book re-published with a conventional publisher. If a novel is well written and it is good, I think all it needs is to circulate and it should eventually get recognition.

One thing that I would advise you against is to get the more lavish packages they offer. These can be the super editing, or full color hard and custom cover deals. You could end up spending a lot more that you'd ever get back from any sales you'd get on the book. The editing you can do yourself and you can go with a paperback just as well. The cover you can design yourself also, by uploading any photo, or you can use their cover wizard and stock covers. As I said, I only spent $99 and did the editing and cover. The most important thing is to get an ISBN number and be able to distribute the book to online stores.

Here is a link to Lulu and also to the novel I published with them. Feel free to go investigate for yourself and see if this is something you would consider. I think it is a step in the right direction and if you retain the rights and file the ISBN number under your name, you still have the option of trying to get it published with a regular publisher if you get the opportunity.

My novel on Lulu

Good luck with your writing and hopefully your novel will be out there in print soon!