Publish or Perish?

The hottie of the day! Isn't he just adorable. His name is Marat Safin, and he's a Russian tennis player. He won a Grand Slam Tournament against Agassi back in 2000, and he's been trying to win one since then. I don't know what his ranking is, but I give him a 10!

Had our monthly RWA meeting this month. Unfortunately had to share sad news since our Treasurer's husband had passed away. Our thoughts and prayers are with her right now. The rest of the meeting was the usual. We discussed plans for our annual Golden Apple Awards reception, and our first annual summer outing in July. After the break, we waited for our speaker to show up.

And waited. And waited.

Finally, I called his cellphone. Despite the fact that I had told him that the speaker portion of the meeting started at 1:30, he got stuck at BEA, and then couldn't find a taxi for the crosstown trek. He finally arrived at 2:10 p.m. and we got under way. On the recommendation of one our members, I had invited Infinity Publishing to speak about their program, as alternative to being published by a mainstream publisher.

Everyone is talking about self-publishing these days, and the authors who've gone on to be picked up by the mainstream publishing companies like Zane, and the guy who write The Celestine Prophecy. Writers Digest even has a whole magazine devoted to self-publishing and a contest where you can win valuable prizes.

What does this mean to a newbie, who has sent her book out to agents and been rejected but still believes in the book? Should I consider self-publishing?

Infinity seemed to have a nice package. It's $499 for them to set up the book in terms of printing, but they don't copy edit or proof read the book. Of course that's extra. The books are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, and the Infinity website, and the royalties they pay are higher. Of course, you don't sell as many books unless you are able to do a big push, and get people to buy your book. I think the average Infinity book sells about 5,000 copies, which isn't alot.

Afterwards, a few of my friends from the chapter had a debate on whether or not it was worth it to self-publish. The general consensus seemed to be that the books just didn't look or feel like 'real books'. They had a seemed to scream self-published book, not that there's anything wrong with that. Although it costs $499 to publish with Infinity, in order to effectively promote the book and get it reviewed would cost about $400 more.

At the moment, I don't have that kind of money, and if I did, it would go towards things like rent, food, clothes, going to National or NJRWA conference. I still haven't given up on getting published by mainstream publishers, but it's nice to know what the options are out there.

Has anyone ever thought of going the self-publishing route?