It's a subject I've been thinking a great deal about in the last few months. Although I know I have a long way to go before I have something polished enough to even consider sending out into the wider world, I think it's important to have a plan for when the time comes.
On the one hand, it's every writer's dream to have something published by the Big Houses and done professionally and properly. On the other hand, it looks like a very arduous process - not only do you need to polish your novel within an inch of its life, but you have to court and woo agents with query letters, who then court and woo the publishers, who then rip your baby from limb to limb before it can be released. And then you have to share the royalties with all and sundry...
It made me seriously consider saying 'Screw it!' and doing it all myself.
But ( and it's a big But) no matter how much better self-publishing it becoming, I have still yet to read a really decent self-pub book. To me, it still has the stigma of inferior quality. Of course, I know that people can and do do it properly but, unfortunately, the majority do not. The majority is vanity publishing and/or impatience whilst waiting for The Big Break.
I recently had a conversation with a friend about her self-published book, which isn't doing as well as she had hoped. I suggested that she look at websites like CreateSpace and LuLu which not only enables you to publish to kindle but also distributes hard copies as well. She ummed and aahed and eventually told me that she was waiting to be picked up by a publisher, which meant she couldn't fully commit to the road she was already half-way down.
I hope it works out for her, I truly do, but it seems to be making her so miserable. She's feeling disillusioned with her writing because she can't fully commit to taking it down a single route and neither are working out.
I don't know. I know that being a writer's tough, whichever route through publishing you take, but I guess the one thing I am certain of is that it is crucially important to choose One Way and do it the very best you can.
