The Dynamics of Dealing with an Online Self-publishing Company.

There are great advantages in self-publishing. Before Amazon.com turned the writing and publishing business on its head the alternative, the Traditional Publishing House, placed a huge obstacle in the path of the aspirant author – the acceptance of a manuscript.

Acceptance of manuscripts by a publishing editor became the graveyard for many novel writers. There are many stories of rejection after rejection.  In my case, capitulation and resignation from the hope of seeing my manuscript in print, sidelined my writing career for years. Eventually I took on the agonies of traditional self-publishing and self-marketing, an arduous and thankless task. A good deal of money had to be invested in the editing,  formatting and printing of a manuscript plus travelling to fairs and conventions, looking for any reasonable outlet that would bring the book to market. 

Online Self-publishing changed these dynamics to a great extent.

Today a cash-strapped author's book can be self-published for virtually zero dollars. Spending nothing on your manuscript, however, lessens your chance of successful marketing. There is a ton of "junk-writing" out there by zero-dollar authors, trying to do it on the cheap. Readers are generally informed people when vetting a novel's performance and do not take kindly to poorly written material, particularly if they have paid for it.  So, good writing technique, backed by a good story plus the attentions of an editor, will always pay better dividends than spending zero dollars.

The world of online self-publishing is a well-oiled business, growing in efficiency and performance every day, offering the average writer a wonderful opportunity to get their story into the digital format or print. There are millions of readers thirsting for a "good story", and willing to pay a small fee for it. 99 cents might seem to be giving a book away but if you sell a million of them.... 

A company like Amazon.com provides the following services to self-publishing authors:

•  A one-stop service where you can up-load your manuscript, have it in an online shop visited regularly by millions of readers and receive a handsome royalty when you sell.
•  A regular report on book sales.
•  All sorts of helps and tools for the author's use - book formatting service and cover-making tools.
• Print on demand service, through Create Space.
• Marketing services: count-down deals and free promotions. There is also a "Create Add campaign" where you invest a certain amount to provide an add and only pay when someone clicks on it.

Everything difficult with traditional publishing, or the old style self-publishing, is now made easy for the struggling, average author. When I say "easy" I don't deny there is a learning curve attached to being involved in the industry, however, there is now so much information out there to ease that curve.

But obstacles do still exist. I will talk about the final hurdle to this entire process in my next blog, "Who Really Markets my New Book".

I have always held to this saying:

 "There is always a "coming down to Earth" involved when things seem too easy but  having your feet on solid ground is safer than being all up in the air!"