The Student Room Group

Has anyone self-published a book or perhaps knows how to self-publish a book?

Hi!

I am wondering if anyone here on TSR has ever self-published a book, or perhaps knows someone who has? I have so many ideas for many different book genres and I have decided to finally start writing at my own pace.

However, I do not want to spend money on standard publishing plus I have read just how difficult it can be to find the enthusiastic publisher, which is why I would definitely want to learn how to self-publish online.
I do know some people who have self-published books online and it does have both a good side and a bad side to it.

Self-publishing online is a great way to see how you'd be able to undertake writing as a passion because a lot of people like the idea of wrting but find it difficult when they have to sit down and write it all out. You're free to write at your own pace and ease of time. There is no pressure towards completing on a deadline, you can even work on multiple books at the same time. And yes, it is cheaper to self-publish than find a reputed publisher/editor elsewhere and that is definitely difficult for new writers. Plus, you get a lot of insight on how people react to your book and whether it would be worth the trouble of actually making it into a hard copy book oneday.

However, self-publishing a book is not going to get you any much of a reputation or publicity as a real book does. Most readers of such self-published books can rarely make a judgement on whether or not the book is worth it. For example, a lot of self-published books are filled wih typos, grammatical errors, misplaced story ideas, etc. Yet these books would have a high readership maybe because of the plot it holds or the kind of genre the book is, say YA novels. And some authors would take that as a sign and approach multiple publishers only to be turned down one after the other. Being a self-published author is not much of a permanent job that earns a permanent income. You honestly cannot charge more than about £4 to £6 for such books because your market of readers is as such people who are randomly browsing the internet.

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you