Writers tend to be good at words. Using them to define things. Using them to hide things too. Once upon a time we had a simple term for the practice of paying someone to bring out a book that a normal publisher refused to handle. We called it 'vanity publishing'. You don't hear that much any more. Nowadays it's always 'self publishing', which is rather less judgemental.

Frankfurt had several announcements of publishers 'embracing the self publishing model' (translation: pay us some money and we'll get your book out for you). So what is going on with self publishing? And should you really be considering shoving any of your hard-earned cash that way?

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Let me put up my hand here and now. Yes, I've got fifteen or sixteen books out there from conventional publishers, in twenty or more different languages. I get paid for these, enough for me do nothing else but write. But I was once a self publisher too. Three years ago I produced <em><a href="http://www.davidhewson.com/standalones/saved/" target="_blank">Saved</a>,</em> a non-fiction account of a small rural environmental campaign I'd been involved in. That's the only book I've ever paid to get published. It was produced by a specialist publisher who handles such titles, and normal books too. They did a damned good job. We sold three thousand copies or so, mainly through local outlets. I covered my costs even if I made no money. And then, when the sales began to peter out I gave the remaining stock to a local charity and put the whole book up for download for free on <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/4074917/Saved-by-David-Hewson" target="_blank">Scribd</a> where it's now clocked up more than seven thousand reads. Self-publishing worked perfectly here, getting out a book quickly, reaching a small targeted audience, and covering its costs too.

Here's another interesting example where self publishing can work. <a href="http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2009/10/kindle-numbers-traditional-publishing.html" target="_blank">Joe Konrath</a> is an established US mystery author who's also self published some of his titles as ebooks on Kindle. His conclusion after his latest conventional and self-published royalty statements...
<blockquote>for the midlist author, I'm beginning to think it's possible to make a living without print contracts.</blockquote>
Do I detect the pricking of ears out there? Calm down children. Note that caveat: <em>for the midlist author.</em> Joe's a name people recognise. When they search for his books on Amazon they will see his conventional titles and his ebooks side by side <em>and probably never know the difference.</em> For established authors self publishing through ebooks is starting to look an incredibly attractive way of getting revenue out of titles on your back list that are no longer in print. I'm seriously thinking of distributing <em>Epiphany</em>, my second book, this way. It's a great piece of work even if I say so myself, but it's not Italian, it's very tough, and it wouldn't sit easily on the shelf alongside my current work. Ebooking it would make perfect sense.

So there you have two models in which self publishing can work. In the first, with <em>Saved</em>, it got into print a non-fiction specialised title that was very local, sold through shops and pubs, and needed publishing quickly because it was topical. For established authors with backlists currently in limbo ebook publishing looks like a way to get your work back out to the public and make some cash. If you do it as an ebook there are few production costs and no nasty stock to store anywhere. There could be other models emerging too. I <a href="http://www.davidhewson.com/2009/04/the-case-for-united-authors/" target="_blank">discussed one here</a>.

Here's the bad news: all of these developments work primarily in the favour of existing authors, not new ones. This is a limited market. Those companies trumpeting their self publishing offers at the moment principally see their customers as unknown authors, first timers in the main, often writing the most difficult kind of work there is: fiction. They are after people willing to pay to see their name in print because they can't get a book out easily any other way. Vanity publishing if you like. If there's a difference I can't see it.

So long as people go into this with their eyes open I don't see there's anything wrong with paying to be published. Lots of people simply want to see their name on a book, whether they subsidise it themselves or a conventional publisher picks  up the bill. Once that achievement's over maybe they write another, find a commercial publisher, put the whole thing down to experience, or try something else. Where's the problem with any of those? Fine by me.

But if you are going to put yourself into print, through ebooks or printed material, there are some things you need to bear in mind. Here are a few.
<ul>
	<li>For pity's sake disabuse yourself of the notion that nothing happens between an author writing a manuscript and a book appearing on the shelf or Amazon's Kindle listings. Authors are only part of the process. Editors, copy editors, cover designers, and marketeers all have their part to play. If you do not avail themselves of their skills somehow you will end up with something that shouts 'amateur' from the highest hill. And no one will hear. This is why...</li>
	<li>People won't find you in big chain book stores because big chain book stores don't, as a rule, buy self-published titles.</li>
	<li>People won't find you in independent book stores either for the same reason, except for maybe a few generous souls out there. Big or small the bookselling trade is struggling right now. Don't expect favours.</li>
	<li>Very few if any people will review your books and only desperate little newspapers will write about you.</li>
	<li>Conventions and author associations probably won't treat you as a fully-fledged author, and neither, if I'm frank, will many professional writers. Can you blame them? If you've spent years building a name and a career the hard way you're going to feel a little reluctant to share that smidgin of limelight with someone who bought a ticket onto the stage.</li>
	<li>People won't find you easily in ebook stores either because they won't know your name, and they won't track you down through the synergy of searching for existing titles from conventional publishers.</li>
	<li>You will spend an inordinate amount of time on Twitter, Facebook and the Internet at large trying to guide people to your work. In fact you may spend so much time doing that you never get around to writing the next book which just might have been bought by a print publisher.</li>
	<li>In short, while you may love seeing your name in print and feel aesthetically justified, in pure commercial terms alone it will be absolutely extraordinary if  <em>you do not fail.</em></li>
</ul>
Am I trying to put you off here? Maybe. Mainly I'm hoping that you go into unknown territory like this fully prepared. Conventional publishing is rarely a route to riches. Most people whose books are actually bought by publishers never write for a living. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not a sign of creative defeat. If it were, as I've pointed out before, we'd have to count Herman Melville a failure too, since he wasn't a professional author for a large part of his life.

There are cases of self-published authors going on to get conventional book contracts and making a stack of money. But not often. A lot more people have thrown away sometimes hefty sums of money they couldn't afford in the ill-conceived belief there was a crock of gold just over the horizon. If you think this is an escape route from the dull doldrums of everyday work you are, in all probability, highly delusional, which does at least show you've learned the first lesson of authorship anyway, since we all are.

The publishing world is in a state of flux due to the grim economy, changes in the retail marketplace and the rise of ebooks. Big changes are on the horizon. But I don't see them changing the dynamics of the business in favour of first time authors dramatically. Money's still money, business is still business. The basics of publishing stay the same, and they dictate it's hard to find readers, hard to get your books out to the stores, and difficult to get people to part with their money.

This is never going to be an easy business, whether you buy yourself a short cut or not. Instead of spending lots of time and money self publishing that book no publisher wants you might just want to consider trying, instead, to write one they do.