The deal with the second printer ended up dragging on, I paid more than originally anticipated, and was threatened with legal action by some snotwad who had preordered based on the original anticipated publication date. Meanwhile, I'd advertised books based on the price I thought I was originally going to pay to produce them, so had to honor that price, lost money bigtime, and ended up in debt. Printed again with a more reputable company, but never made much. Back then had to advertise by mail and those costs ate up a lot of my profits. If you find some way of advertising and selling online without putting in the sort of money I did for paper, ink, envelopes, postage, etc., then maybe.

By the way, back when I self-published twenty years ago, you had to order a "print run" and the more copies you ordered the less the cost per copy. Now there's a thing called "Print on Demand." Not sure of the quality of the products and how they vary from company to company, but they don't print until there's an order, orders can be one at a time, and I think the books are bound like regular books.

The ONLY good things about self-publishing were:

1. I had complete control over the look and contents of the book, didn't have some editor snipping it up and some publisher cutting corners on quality.

2. Was able to get it into readers' hands and get their positive reactions right away, thus avoiding having to shoot myself for being a crummy author for being rejected by every agent and publisher around.

3. The experience gave me some insight as to what publishers are up against and made me less critical of them for rejecting books which should certainly be good enough to publish.

You get out of self-publishing what you put into it. Your book won't magically show up on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, and you won't start getting invited to all sorts of conventions. It's tough work -- all the publicity and sales and everything else you can think of begins and ends with you. If you don't know how to do a cover or text layout, you're going to need to have someone who does take care of that for you.

Don't sugarcoat it at all -- you will have a book, but no one will know about it until you tell them. And there's still the stigma people have of "oh, he's published by Lulu. That means he wasn't good enough to be picked up by a *real* publisher."

I can't tell you how many conventions I've been to where self- and e-published authors tout the wonders of "never having to worry about pesky editors or agents" and how "you're going to have to do all the marketing yourself anyway, so why bother stressing yourself out?"

I self-published a "how to" book on sculpting, which I knew would have a small niche market. I found a digital publishing company here in my local city (Dayton OH - I used PDI and was very happy with them). I have a glossy cover with a color photo and color font, a glossy back cover, a tear-out order form in the back, a color title page and the rest is B&W with loads of photos. It's comb-bound, which is what I wanted so the book would lie flat when people are trying to follow the directions in it. I can wholesale it for $15 and make a good profit, and I retail it for $30 - and it sells very well. I'm nearly out of my first print run. The largest sculpture supply house in the country sells it in their store and catalog, and I sell it on my Website and through my booths at art shows and equine trade fairs (which is how I market my bronzes). Self-publishing is difficult in some ways, but you get out of it what you put in it. I didn't expect B&N to carry my sculpting book, so I didn't worry about "distributors" beyond this big sculpture supply house. I'm satisfied with how this venture has gone, and will do a second printing the same way. But for my novels, if I self-publish, it will be with a company that uses Ingrams as their distributor so the book will have a chance at being sold through the big chains.

I could be mistaken in some of the info on iUniverse because I haven't dealt with them, but my friend is very happy with them so far. Good luck!

Do your research before committing any money to the project. You MUST get a copy of the book “The Self-Publishing Manual” by Dan Poynter. It's considered the bible of advice for this industry.

Join the Self-Publishing forum sponsored by SPAN and Marilyn and Tom Ross at Yahoogroups.com. These folk are serious about self-publishing and you can learn a lot from their experiences. Be prepared for a huge volume of emails, however... it's a big list and it's very active.

Do your research into the physical requirements of your book. Booksellers and distributors won't even consider your book without the ISBN number and EAN bar code because they use scanners to manage inventory, re-order, and to track sales. In the USA the ONLY legitimate agent to use to purchase an ISBN is R.R. Bowker. If you buy your ISBN through any other resource, you'll find THAT company "carries" your book as part of THEIR catalog, not your own.

Books with a library market should also acquire a Library of Congress number and a CIP (Catalog In Publication) data block. The CIP gives librarians the information they need to add a book to their database or card catalog.

Don't be shy about asking people for advice. I once invited Michael Powell, the owner of www.Powells.com out for lunch, and he kindly accepted. I spent the time picking his brain about HIS perspective on self-published books. He told me the most valuable resource on your book is the spine. Most bookstores don't have the real-estate space available to display books, cover forward. Your spine, and your title, are gold. Consider the spine the "first 13" of your cover design... it's going to make people reach for the title or pass it by.

Self-publishing is not a part-time thing. It must be treated like a full time job if you expect to be successful. Is it for you? I can't answer that. But if you self-publish, you will join the ranks of Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and those "Chicken Soup for the Soul" guys, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield.

Publisher reps sell their books to B&N just like they sell to Ingram. Those publishers can also pay to insure that their books are placed in certain areas in the store. If a book is on the front table at B&N, it's because a publisher paid for it to be there.

You too can put your book on the front table at B&N, if you are very rich and plan on printing at least 50,000 books for your first print run. But I wouldn't go mortgaging your house off just yet.

A B&N buyer's opinion can make or break a book. An Ingram buyer doesn't have quite that much power.

Every book that is published by Lightning Source is listed in the Ingram system. Also, if you have an ISBN (they can be purchased from Bowker--the smallest package you can get is 10 for about $250), you will get automatically listed on Amazon.

I might try self-publishing someday, after something traditional happens---but I'm just not interested in doing it before.

Before you go the self-publishing route, you need to be absolutely certain that you have realistic ideas about the potential demand for your book. Graphical artists have a big advantage in this, they can go to a convention armed with a sketchpad and count how many people are willing to fork over $5-$100 dollars for an original sketch. They can start small by selling self-published high-quality posters or lithographs.

Giant names also have it much easier. They have several experiences with the market, the publishing industry (albeit at a slight remove), and a large audience waiting for their work, whoever publishes it.

People who are publishing something for a very small audience, such as Orthodox Jews dealing with congenital hermaphroditism, also have a big advantage, since they probably already know most of the people in their market.

note: i haven't purchased ISBNs for the books cause i just couldn't afford it... yet. once i've got ISBNs, i could submit the books to actual booksellers, amazon and whatnot.