Publish and be Damned?
Is self-publishing really such a bad idea?
Consider the treatment new authors receive from both publishers and agents. Are you really prepared to wait for years before you place your manuscript?
Yes, many tales are timeless. Yes, many of us keep their day-jobs while patiently pursuing a distant dream of “making it” as an author. But some of our travel writing may expire with time, especially if current political developments play a part in them and if they are unlikely to be important enough to become historical documents or timeless classics.
True, dorks with more money than brains resort to vanity-publishing. As do people who are desperate to see themselves in print. Of course I am. But whereas I may not have much in the brains department, I definitely have less money (an overdraft facility, in fact).
On the other hand, while this pesky manuscript is kicking around my office I can’t concentrate on the next big project.
And my mates are asking too many questions about “the book”.
However, I’d feel even more of a dork to see several hundred copies of my book pulped because nobody wants it – especially if I actually paid for printing them.
On-demand publishing, however, seems to be environmentally sound and could put my mind at rest. Even if “Publish and be Damned” (yes, they are for real!) insist that you order at least 10 copies of your tome, these would be easily housed. In the UK I have to deposit six of these in reference libraries for starters.
So why not? Maybe I never become rich and famous and maybe I never publish another book (I have a project in mind but it is so intensely personal that I may chicken out, even though a mid-life crisis affects many of us…). On the other hand, receiving feed-back from friends and rellies who feel compelled reading the hard-copy I press on them may give me just the encouragement I need to take on the publishing world. Who knows?
I keep this on the back-burner for now. I’ll fire off one last salvo of query letters to the few travel book publishers that remain unapproached. But once I have amassed all of their rejections, I’ll give it a go. Watch this space!
Tags: publishing, Tag Index
Denni