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Moderator: Spam URL removed.
âIn the past, authors believed that they should never have to pay to publish their work.â
Well, I believe this is also true today. A serious publisher is still an indispensable guidance for a writer that is going to publish a book. Vanity press simply cuts out the work of a professional editor, leaving the book unfinished.
However, since Iâve also worked as an editor, maybe I could get profit of their offer 
Paolo
Xlibris is a strategic partner of Random House Ventures, the investment subsidiary of the worldâs largest trade book publisher, Random House. Our authors have published more than 20,000 titles! to date and that number is still growing - every month we add hundreds of new titles - and last year we sold over a quarter of a million books. For over a decade, Xlibris has been helping authors achieve publication through our simple, effective and affordable publishing packages.
Mmmmmm. The ripe smell of bullshitâŠ
Paul
It is. Self-publishing your novel is just a first class funeral for it.
How far in the past? In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, authors did pay. I remember reading one 17th century authorâs justification for having his book published in the Netherlands was that because they paid him (which apparently the English publishers werenât doing yet).
Later, in the 18th century, many authors were published through a subscription process or through different folks taking out âsharesâ of a book.
My point is to show that publishing changes and evolves just like everything else.
(Iâve never self-published any kind of book, but I have been considering using POD to bring back an old OOP book of mine.)
There are some success stories, such as The Celestine Prophecy, How to Be Your Own Best Friend, and The Joy of Cooking. But I think itâs important to note that they attained their greatest success once a mainstream publisher picked them up.
In these cases, the author had a built in distribution system, such as an established teaching or lecturing schedule that allowed them to get the word out.
Because thatâs what a publisher offers most, besides editing and aesthetics. Itâs the distribution and sales system you need on your side.
After all, the desktop publishing tools, and the use of PDFâs, allow anyone to get the book into a publishable form. And organizing it yourself is cheaper, if you think the Internet will let you go that route.
One notable recent entry like that is:
Bob Altemeyerâs - The Authoritarians
home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
which is a fascinating psychological study of the dangers of authoritarianism by a respected researcher in the field. He was discouraged by publishers because of the supposedly controversial nature of his findings, so he went ahead and put it out, quite simply.
Hmm⊠Iâm always a tad wary when new users post only a singular post that is advertising somethingâŠ
Good olâ forum spamming⊠
I quite like the Omnigroup forum approach to this - a âHere Be Spammersâ drop-zone. Simple, and a mite embarrassing for the recipient.