Tim Farris, the author of Four Hour Work Week, posted some videos on his blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYVm5g6oSk
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He and Ramit Sethi were discussing the merits of self-publishing vs. publishing with a large publisher such as Random House.
In the past, self-publishing has been regarded as for people who can?t get published by a real publishing house.? It was said, that the writing was inferior. Recently, things have changed. There are very successful books that have started out as self published and were picked up by a large publishing house after selling out on it?s own.
With the economic conditions, many large publishing companies are facing cutbacks and layoffs. So fewer books are being published. Publishers are taking fewer chances. They are sticking with proven sellers. So many authors are finding alternative routes to get their books out. There are small publishers that will do the work for a fee. The authors have to pay for that, themselves, of course.
There are new printing systems that allow small printing runs, such as 1-10 books for a reasonable cost. This is called ?print-on-demand?. It is predicted that in the future, bookstores will not have books on the shelf, per se. Rather, they will have millions of books stored digitally. When a customer orders a novel, the store will place the order into a computer and a high-speed system will print and bind a professional looking copy of the book. These systems are already in place in a few college libraries, where students can order some obscure tome that they need for an assignment.
I am a subscriber to a podcast called “The Writing Show”. Paula B, the podcaster interviews authors, editors, publishers and every other type of expert in the writing industry. The self vs. big debate is a frequent topic.?
