Monday, March 19, 2007

Self-Publishing

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I'm falling behind again and not just in blogging, but reading. Here's an interesting something about self-publishing from the January 8, 2007 Publishers Weekly.

Apparently, independent bookstores are doing events with self-published authors, especially ones local to their area. Most of the authors mentioned have non-fiction in print, but at least one novel was mentioned. The stores hedge their bets by charging the authors a stocking fee to carry their books and most insist on the copies being returnable if they don't sell. But a few quotes from the article show how self-publishing is gaining respect, albeit slowly.

From Arsen Kashkashian, a buyer and inventory manager at Colorado's Boulder Book Store:
"I think self-publishing is just going to keep growing. You ignore it at your own peril."
From Bill Petrocelli, co-owner of Book Passage Bookstore, in California:
"Self-publishing used to be a dead end. Now it's an alternative. When you talk about people who've written a book and they live in your community, they are your customer. It's important to do what we can."
I can't see this being workable in NYC, where everyone, it seems, is a writer, many are possibly self-published, and indie stores are getting very difficult to find. But it is an interesting view.

2 comments:

  1. I have been looking into this. There are a lot of self publishing places out there. Any way to tell the good from the bad ones?

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  2. Do a websearch and read what folks have to say, not just testimonials. Also, see if they do more than take your money and hand over books. Try to avoid PublishAmerica at all costs. There's another one with a really bad rep, but I can't think of the name offhand.

    Good luck.

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