As I reported in my last blog post, I’m embarking on a study of self-publishing, to see if that is an acceptable and attractive alternative to traditional publishing (i.e. with a print based, royalty publisher). The last couple of days I’ve been trying to define the problem. It is complicated in that now, as compared to say ten years ago, self-publishing has become more complicated. Now there is e-book self-publishing in addition to print.

Print self-publishing hasn’t changed all that much. You plunk down a chunk of money, give the e-publisher your manuscript, and they make a book out of it. You buy some number of books required by the publisher, and you sell you books yourself with no help from the publisher.

Changes have happened in print self-publishing. Print-on-demand machines have brought down the up-front costs, as well as reduced the amount of inventory the writer needs to carry. Of course, the cost for this is the higher cost per book printed. It used to be that self-published books were of dubious quality, both the writing and the printing. Paper quality was low; binding quality was low; cover art quality was low.

The publisher did nothing in terms of line editing and copy editing. So if the writer couldn’t do that, or didn’t pay a freelance editor to do that, the quality of the finished writing was poor. And, let’s face it. The gatekeepers in the publishing industry (acquisitions editors and agents), filtered out most of the poor material, the writing that was just plain bad. Lots of these manuscripts became self-published books. That part of the print self-publishing industry doesn’t seem to have changed.

Now comes e-book self-publishing. E-books have been around for a few years, and sales have been soaring while sales of hardback books and paperbacks are pretty flat. Recent changes in pricing structure and royalty share from Amazon and some other sellers, as well as improved platforms to allow authors easier production, have made this much more attractive route to self-publishing. Cheaper too.

But this has spawned a whole new language, it seems. And a whole new list of things to learn. I’ve been reading back posts on Joe Konrath’s blog, and following links from there to other e-self-published writers or related services. Looks as if I’ll have to learn what Smashwords is and how it related to e-self-published. And PubIt. And learn how to work with the Kindle and Nook formats. And the iPad.

This research is going to be harder than I thought. Stay tuned.

In previous posts on this blog, I’ve written about my journey into the writing life. The idea for Doctor Luke’s Assistant came to me. I wrote the novel, began looking into how to get it published, and learned publishers don’t want to publish someones book—they want to publish career writers. That was in 2003, and that was okay, for as I wrote the first novel, ideas for many other novels began to occupy gray cells.

Then I learned that the desire to be a career writer was not enough. You needed a platform (i.e. a ready made audience) or almost no publisher would touch you. So I switched to freelancing for platform building. That was in 2009, and was okay, since I enjoyed that type of writing and have seen a little success with it. I also worked on Bible studies, and enjoyed writing them.

During this time, my primary writing goal was to have a book, preferably a novel, published by a royalty paying publisher, the type of publisher who pays an advance against royalties. This, to me, was a sign that my writing was good. An alternate route was always open: self-publishing. I have resisted that for a number of reasons. First, it can be expensive, both to pay the set-up fees and to purchase a quantity of books that may or may not sell. Second, self-publishing carries a stigma, a statement that this writer is not good enough to make it with a real writer so he publishes himself with a vanity press. Third, the conventional wisdom is that no royalty publisher will ever touch someone who first self-publishes. Fourth, the quality of self-published books is often very poor. So why would I want to self-publish?

However, several things are changing in the self-publishers. Availability of print on demand (POD) type printing machines have brought down the cost of set-up (although often with the requirement that books cost more). The quality of many self-published books (cover art, paper quality, binding) has greatly improved. There are still lots of lousy self-published books added to the market due to bad writing, but good ones can rise above the chaff.

The big change, however, is the emergence of the e-book as an alternative means of distributing books to readers. This takes care of much of the cost. The writer gets a bigger share of the price paid; there’s no inventory; cover art can be just as good as with printed books. There are lots of e-book mediums, from the Sony Reader to Amazon Kindle to B&N Nook, and even more. And, perhaps most importantly, many writers seem to be having success with it. Joe Konrath reports on his blog about these successes.

So maybe I need to rethink my previous decision. I’m going to take at least two months, maybe longer, to consider what to do. I’ve had these sorts of inspirations before, and don’t want to make a quick decision. Don’t mind me if I discuss this out loud on the blog.