[Charles Albert]

Any thoughts out there on self publishing? I'm not talking about the sleazier versions of the vanity press industry, which pretend they are publishing you via one ruse or another, just to sell you dozens of copies of some horrible anthology.

I actually did self-publish once before--my ex brother-in-law runs a beautiful fine press in Austin, Cloverleaf Studio and did an absolutely gorgeous run for me. The poems were mostly pretty bad, but I was able to sell out in local bookstores because the cover was so pretty.

I want to do another small run, and I'm looking at Amazon's createspace, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than the fine press venue. Anyone have experience with them?

[George Simmers]

For a small run, Lulu Press offers good value, and a decent-looking book.
I've just printed a book with coloured illustrations, and am really pleased with the sharpness of the printing.
Warning: You have to do all the work yourself. This is not for the author who is not sure how to format his or her text into an appropriate book format. It's not too difficult to get a pleasing result, though.

[John Riley]

I know a few people who have used Create Space and Kindle Direct Publishing. There is a learning curve and some tedious work involved in setting up the files so they'll convert properly. The print versions sold on Amazon are a little pricey but the Kindle versions are much more affordable. Overall, they seem pleased with the results.

[John Whitworth]

This is just general. The great J.L. Carr ended up self-publishing ALL his works, having bought back the rights from commercial publishers. He made money on it too.

[Charlotte Innes]

Hi Charles,

A poet friend Jim Natal and his wife graphic designer Tania Baban do a great job at Conflux Press, which they founded seven years ago. The link is below. Their lives are somewhat in flux at the moment--they just moved back to LA from Arizona--but I believe they are still in business. At any rate, check the link below. Their books do look beautiful. And the full length ones have ISBN numbers. The chapbooks are handmade and hand sewn, and are real pieces of art.

I'm not sure how expensive they are, though.

Charlotte


http://www.confluxpress.com/index.html

[Roger Slater]

I'm intrigued by Smashwords, which will put your e-book up everywhere but (for now) on Kindle, which you can do separately.

[Gail White]

I don't have personal experience with this but Karen Kelsay used Create Space for my new chapbook and then had it listed with Amazon as well.
I think she's pleased with it & I can vouch that the results are beautiful.

[John Riley]

Here is another site that may be worth checking out.

http://www.fastpencil.com/

[Charles Albert]

Thanks--this is all very helpful. I'm checking out these other printers.

Anyone who wants to know how it came it is welcome to IM me in a few months.

[Rose Kelleher]

I'm reviving this old thread in hopes of gathering more information. I've had a few friends express interest in the subject, and while I'm happy to tell them what little I know, it would be nice to be able to send them a link to more info.

Actually, what I'm interested in is not so much self-publishing as Print On Demand. Several small presses I know of use POD services of one kind or another. I'd love to hear from publishers who use POD, if they have the time and feel like sharing some trade secrets.

Julie Carter used Lulu to self-publish her poetry collection a few years ago, and it came out looking good; I believe she was happy with the results. Bill Knott used to use Lulu to self-publish his books, but switched to CreateSpace - I don't know why, probably some technical reason.

I have only ever used CreateSpace. I was pleased with the service and the finished product. Mind you, it is not for the computer-illiterate. If you're not comfortable working with templates, file formats, fonts, etc., forget it.

Here's everything I know about CreateSpace.

The way it works is you upload your manuscript in electronic form, and CreateSpace makes it available for sale on the CreateSpace and Amazon websites. They make it pretty easy, even assigning you an ISBN if you don't have one already. CreateSpace then prints copies one at a time, as people order them. The nice thing about POD is that you aren't charged for the copies up front; the printer takes a percentage of every sale. Of course, if you want to send free copies to reviewers, or keep a stack of copies on hand to sell at readings etc., you have to buy them yourself (at an author's discount).

Some notes:

CreateSpace accepts several different file formats, including MS-Word and PDF. They provide MS-Word templates to format your manuscript, or you can do it yourself as long as you follow their formatting instructions. I used OpenOffice and then exported the file to PDF.

You can use their web-based tool to design your cover, or you can design your own from scratch and upload an image file; again, there are formatting requirements.

I ran into an issue that's likely to affect poets, since poetry collections tend to be short. If you want your book to have spine text, there's a page minimum: 130 pages if you use their cover design tool, and 100 pages if you upload your own cover.

Some CreateSpace users have complained of poor print quality, crooked text on pages, etc. I haven't run into this, myself.

There's a feature in CreateSpace for making your book available on Kindle. I didn't bother making my poetry book available on Kindle because of formatting issues. I did manage to create a Kindle version of another book. It was a huge pain in the ass. I don't have a Kindle device, so I had to test my file using special software, and carefully proofread each page, making little tweaks here and there and then re-converting, re-testing, blah blah blah. This was last year, and it felt to me like the technology was still in a very early stage of development. If you can afford to pay someone to do it who really knows what they're doing and can do it efficiently, that's what I'd recommend.