Self-publishing doesn't have the stigma it used to with all the new ways one can get their words out to the reading world. The Telegraph examines the current state of self-publishing.
From the piece...
If you are prepared to design the book yourself, using software supplied to you by the publisher, and have a decent digital camera, you really can self-publish on a shoestring, ending up with a passable imitation of a glossy coffee-table book.
Most self-published books on the Blurb and Lulu websites are quite small. Wedding albums and holiday diaries are particularly popular. But there is no reason, theoretically, why the same publishing model should not throw up a David Copperfield or a War and Peace. Just don't expect many people to buy it.
That's the catch. You may think your collection of organic chocolate pudding recipes looks terrific, but how many bookshops will stock it when their shelves are already groaning under the weight of Nigella? How many papers will review it? In terms of achieving fame and fortune, you have got precisely nowhere.
"Whatever newfangled technologies are developed, publishers will always exploit them for their own ends," warns Johnathon Clifford, who has spent his life championing the cause of self-published authors.
Image: Gabriel Metsu's "Man Writing a Letter"
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