18th November 2008
Ruth Barringham

With the rise in the number of self published authors, there is much debate as to whether it's better to self publish your own books or whether to still follow the traditional route of trying to find a publisher.

There are many people who say that self published books won't sell or that no one trusts self published books, but the people saying this are not publishers or published authors. They are simply people who want to be published authors, but their not, so they spend their time trying to discredit the work of self published authors.

But when it comes to selling books, the only opinions that matter are those of the readers. And readers don't care who has published the book, as long as it's a good book.

So the only decision you should be making is which type of publishing is best for you and your personality type?

Traditional publishing means that the author has to relinquish all the rights to their own work and some authors don't want tot do this.

A publisher will control the cost of the book, the interior layout, the cover design, the editing, any changes to the finished manuscript and the publishing date.

If you're a first-time author a publisher may delay publishing your book for quite a while. So the time between you signing the publishing contract and the time your book is published, can be several years.

It also may take several years before you find a publisher which can mean a lot of writing time lost in sending out query letters and proposals. Even the first "Chick Soup for the Soul" book, which has now sol millions of copies, was originally turned down by over 140 publishers.

A publishing contract is also something that needs to be taken into consideration.

A contract will be dozen of pages long and is best looked over by a lawyer who deals with intellectual property law to make sure that all the clauses are fair to the author.

And even when you've found a publisher and negotiated a contract, you will still be responsible for marketing your won work because publishers prefer to use their marketing department to work on their best selling books or celebrity biographies.

And after all that, if your book fails to sell at least a few thousand copies quickly, it can be withdrawn in only a few months.

But if you prefer to have a large publishing company publish your book then this is the way for you to go.

On the other hand you may want to retain complete control of your work and this is where self publishing can help you.

Everything about the publishing process is left in your complete control and with the use of modern technology, publishing a book, or a thousand books, can be done from home with only a computer and internet connection.

You can easily set out your book, create a cover of your own choosing and have your book selling internationally within only a week or two.

And you don't have to worry about the low sales or your book being withdrawn because while a sale of only a couple of thousand copies after publication is bad for a large publishing company, it's great for a self published author, who, instead of receiving a small royalty from book sales, is making $15 or more per sale.

And you can keep your book "in print" for as long as you want.

With the ease of modern publishing methods, you can now write as many books as you want to, as often as you want to and you can relax in the knowledge that they will all be published.

And once you become a regularly self published author, even if you only sell a few thousand copies a year of each book, you can still achieve a 6-figure income. And if you want to increase your income all you have to do is write and publish more books.

Now isn't that the kind of life you've always dreamed of?

Ruth Barringham is a writer, author and publisher. To learn more about the how easy it is to publish every book you write, go to http://selfpublishworldwide.com .