From childhood, self-publishing has been cast in my mind as the route of vain spendthrifts. But when I was a kid, you had to make a real committment, spend some serious money to self-publish. When Frank Herbert self-published 'Dune,' it wasn't a cheap proposition.
In my early graphics career, self-publishing tended to make sense for niche non-ficiton. Kevin Jamison's 'Missouri Weapons and Self-Defense Law,' for instance. He was the first guy with a book that addressed Missouri gun owners specifically, and it was based on two decades of practice as a lawyer in that area. He had such a reputation that he was getting orders before he knew what his cover price would be.
And if Phil Gramm had gottent he 1996 GOP nomination (which seemed likely at the time Rich Nadler's bio of the Senator came out), Rich would have been the first on the seen with a positive biography of our likely next president. He'd have been positioned roughly as well as whoever wrote 'Young Man In A Hurry' right when Bill Clinton proved that fucking around wasn't fatal to your campagin. If Gary Hart had known!
But the main people who still put a stigma on fiction writers who self publish, well, they're agents and editors at establishments that stand to lose if anyone can publish anything and let the market decide. While the 'market' tends to decide that we needed a McDonalds and Taco Hell in my town instead of Max's Auto Diner, I tend to favor market oriented systems. The idea that an agent gets me in the door with an editor, who then marks up my manuscript by hand, and back and forth we go, me doing my best to make a word processor look like an IBM Selectric, until finally a goombah keys the ms back into a computer? Fuck that shit.
What sells a book? When did you see a TV commercial for a novel. I've never seen one. Radio spots, occasionally, but none that have made me buy a book. What makes me buy a book?
Word of mouth. Two ways: Jay or Julie D, or another friend who reads a lot loves a book, I might try it. Often, these two actually send me books.
The marketing term is 'Sneezer.' A guy who can't shut up about a product is a sneezer, who gets other people to check whatever out. Three bladed disposable razors, beer-flavored tampons, novels, whatever.
And in a world where so-called 'legit' houses pulp unsold books after a few months, or remainder them (to my pauper's delight at Foozles), print on demand offers a world where a book never needs to go out of print. Ever. Even if it sucks or is not popular (or both).
So maybe, if I ever decide I'm finished torturing Wealth Effects, it will show up on the Midwest Rock Lobster colophon as a trade paper back. Or maybe the Bird Pepper Press. I'm claiming that trademark, and as far as I can tell the U.S. Patent and Tradmark Office hasn't seen such yet. Of course, one of the things I'd do before self-publishing is run shit by an intellectual rights attorney to make sure I'm not automatically putting my ass in a sling...
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