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I must say I am somewhat on the fence on this one.

On the one hand I have had publishers email me about my submissions and say directly "This is an excellent work and we do wish you well with it but we do not publisher books that have been previously self-published".

On the other hand, I have self-published some of my books and made a very reasonable profit on them. However, this does involve some financial risk. But that can be minimized.

For example, I self-published: Freedom from Fear: Taking Back Control of Your Life and Dissolving Depression (ISBN 0975999605).

At first I printed only 200 copies at $6.78 each. I sold the books for $21.50 from my own website and Amazon.COM. The book got very strong reviews on Amazon and the 200 books sold in about 4 months.

So I had 1000 printed up at about $2.76 each. That is an investment in my own books of $2,760 plus shipping. But I sold all those books in about a year for gross sales of $21,500. That is a very good return on my investment even if it did take a year to sell them.

My regular publisher pays me 15% after I have sold 5,000 books. Until then my royalties are 10%. But I need not make any financial investment myself in the books at all. My publisher, small as they maybe, has better distribtuion for my works too.

All my books through my small publisher have sold more than 5000 copies. Even so I made more on Freedom from Fear than I have on my books that my publisher sold.

No, it is not all about money to me either. But writing is a business and do not fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Such an attitude will not serve you in the marketplace.

I self-published because my publisher does not handle self-help books and I had some experience and learning that I sincerely wanted to share. One does not live long enough to learn everything one needs to fulfill their lives. I think it is a real gift when one can relate their experience and enlightenment on an important aspect of life. I feel love is the most important aspect of our lives too.

We might wonder if some of the people advocating the position that publishers are no longer the experts, the people are, are not engaging in some level of wishful thinking.

The publishers never were the "experts" after all,They are just the guardians of the gates to publishing and major distribution. It seems to me that on the whole, they still are. Perhaps that is changing though.

Learn more about this author, Peyton Quinn.
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