Self-publishing - by jermac

[myriam angelica]

My Experience With Self-Publishing
I had been writing poetry for about twenty years, and I had had a number of poems published in various publications, but I had grown tired of submitting poems to different publications, and submitting my work as a whole to different presses in hopes of having it published in a single volume. So I decided eventually to have a collection of my poetry self-published. Here is the way I went about it:

At this time I was working at a newspaper/printery, and I also had a position as literary editor of a monthly tabloid. I was fortunate in that I had access to printing facilities and the materials I needed at no cost to me. All I had to pay out of my own pocket were for certain materials that came to a cost of about fifty dollars.

I did all the work myself. This included everything from typing, typesetting, layout, design, compository work, arranging, reproducing, binding, etc. It took me about a month to do all the work. I printed and bound a total of one thousand copies of my volume. I also did all the circulation, distribution, advertising and publicizing myself. I was fortunate in that I was able to place my volume of poetry in a number of places for free--including two bookstores, a newspaper, a printery, and a monthly publication, and I was able to do a lot of advertising and publicizing of my work for free. I even set up a blog on the internet and advertised my work and gave examples of my poetry and an address where someone could order my work if they wished--which didn't cost me anything--and I even ended up selling about one hundred copies of my work over the internet. Of the thousand copies of my work, I sold about five hundred in the first three months. Within a year, I had sold virtually all of the thousand. I ended up making about $8,000. But considering all the work I put into it, and the time involved, it probably actually worked out to something like twenty-five cents an hour.

But the thing is, I did it. I self-published a volume of my poetry at minimal cost to me. The bottom line is, if you want it enough, you can do it. It may cost you more than it did me because I had access to a printery and most of the materials I needed didn't cost me anything. But if you want to self-publish badly enough, you can do it.
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I found the experience of publishing described by this author very interesting and perhaps you also will be interested to know how difficult it is to get published if your are writing with a view to publish.