Hi all. I'm getting a bit confused about the self publishing information I'm reading. I was under the impression that to self publish is not the best thing to do. You pay too much money out and get hardly anything back. But in a back post and also in Adrian's last one it seems that Amazon is ok. Is Amazon a self publishing agency? And if it is ok, why is it different from the other ones?
The other things you will need to pay for if self-pubbing are editing - absolutely essential! - and proof-reading - ditto- and a cover. What you pay for the cover depends on whether you want it bespoke or off the shelf. You'll find stock images everywhere on Amazon: all those long trailing (historically incorrect) red skirts, and the same models, or heads cut off so you can't see they're the same models... It's entirely up to you how you much you want to pay.
The difference is between self publishing, where you manage the whole thing (or pay people to do it for you), and Vanity Publishing, where an external company will take on your book at a price, which will not only cover all their costs, but will guarantee them a profit upfront. They will not necessarily provide you with good editing, if they do any at all, but they may supply the cover and will do the formatting; they will not have a budget for publicity and will expect you to do that yourself unless they really think your book is going to earn them lots of money. So in the end, you are better off paying for your own book, done under your control - unless you can find an agent and a good publishing house, in which case you are a very lucky writer!
Be aware that most writers do not make much money out of their craft. You have to have a lot of books out there and you need to shout about them as loud and as often as you can (though without annoying people - it's a fine line!) in order to garner sales. That's what you have to put in the balance against costs, whether your own or a VP's. (Let' not get into the question of giving your work away for free - a lot of readers would love that, but you'd starve to death as a result!)
Like Marlon, I have self-published my book. I joined numerous FB groups of various sorts, and I have my own FB page, but I don't expect sales to be high, and I'm deliberately not spending out on advertising (not that I have any cash!) until the next book is due out. I've got great reviews, but it comes down to a reader browsing the relevant Amazon section and deciding to take a punt on a novel by an author they've never heard of. I don't want to put you off at all - I'm so pleased I self-published, even if I did age ten years in the process, not being the most computer-literate of people. (Dropped capitals are good in Createspace. They are not good on Kindle.) The alternative was to spend a lot of time subbing to a lot of agents who would take time to consider the book, which could have been out there earning its keep in the meanwhile. I'm really not a good supplicant for crumbs!
Anyway, a long answer, but I hope it helps!
Lorraine
Hi Marlon. Thanks for your input I'm learning a lot from this. I don't think I'll be going down the self publishing route if I ever get to that point.
Jonathan's comment is spot on. I had used Amazon to self-publish my first book. I did all the work myself like formatting before I uploaded in Createspace. But one thing that I lack enthusiasm with is the marketing side. It felt like writing the book was the easier part than trying to sell it. To put it diplomatically, it is not easy to sell a book en masse. Good luck.