publishing 101: is self publishing “real” publishing?

We’re off for the holidays until January 2. During this period, every day I’ll be presenting one of my popular Publishing 101 posts. I hope it will inspire all you writers and illustrators for 2009!

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There’s an interesting article over at the New York Times Book Review which explores the phenomena of self publishing. Self publishing has grown tremendously over the past year, which is no surprise when you consider how easy and inexpensive printing has become. Here’s some hard numbers: In 2007, 400,000 books were published or distributed in the United States, up from 300,000 in 2006. This sharp rise is attributed to the popularity of print-on-demand books and reprints of out-of-print titles. Even my small Brooklyn neighborhood is getting into the act. Next door to a local coffee house, there’s a store devoted to self publishing. The store is named (appropriately enough) Publish Yourself. Most of the books in it are decidedly of the personal family memoir/poetry/political manifesto variety.

The Times article presents some facts that might be useful to anyone considering self publishing or, as it’s called in the industry, micropublishing. For example, the vast majority of people who self publish sell less than 200 copies of their books — a good explanation for why these small book runs are called micropublishing. It is assumed that these books find their ways into the libraries of friends and family, rather than into bookstores and other retail outlets. By comparison, the average trade industry book needs to sell anywhere from 10,000 to 25,000 copies to financially break even for the publisher and author.

From the Times:

“‘As publishing has become less expensive, the urge to write my own self has become the opportunity to publish my own self,” said Gabriel Zaid, a Mexican critic and the author of “So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance,” a meditation on literary life in an over-booked world. Today, he added, “Everyone now can afford to preach in the desert.’”

Yes, they can afford to. But should they?

Here’s my measured response: It depends.

If you just want to see your book printed under any circumstances, then micropublishing is a wonderful tool. It’s a rare example of instant gratification in the delayed gratification world of publishing, where creating a book can be insanely slow. I mean, it can take years to just place a book with a publishing house, let alone finally see your words in print and on a book shelf. Aside from the issue of time, there are some books which may not have the market available to make a commercial print run feasible. Nonetheless, they deserve to be in print.

However, if you’re looking for something more — fame, fortune, a career as an author or illustrator — then self publishing is problematic for numerous reasons. Printing a book is not the same as publishing a book. Plus once you have books printed, you still have to deal with the industry bugaboo of distributing and selling them.

In other words, self publishing is definitely not a case of “if you build it, they will come.” But that’s a subject for a whole other post on another day.

To read more about self publishing in The New York Times Book Review article, click here.

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