By Zach Schanzenbach

Staff Writer

“Fifty Shades of Grey.” 

Doubtlessly, you’ve seen a book with this title and an ominous-looking cover somewhere recently, possibly in our very own bookstore.  It’s a relatively new popular trilogy. Did you know, however that it was originally self-published?

Self-publishing.  It sounds like an aspiring author’s best friend and that’s not far from the truth.  It is what it sounds like: the author publishes his/her work him/herself or with the aid of a company that specializes in converting the product into eBook format, then distributing it to digital retailers. The author retains full rights to the work and keeps all the cash he/she makes off of it. For authors looking to get their novels out in the world, self-publishing is the quickest and cheapest route. There is no cost for printing physical books, and eBooks have become more attractive in this technological day and age.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows – no author’s life could be like that, especially if their sole income came from writing.  There’s still no guarantee that someone will buy their book. Aside from that the odds are generally against the author.  On average, the self-published print book will most likely sell 100 to 150 copies.  Pricing a standard book at about 10 bucks, that’s a revenue of 1000 to 1500 dollars.

To a child, that might sound like a lot.  To an adult, that’s small. And how often do we see children publishing books?  I rest my case.

With how easy it is to self-publish, it should come s no surprise that “everybody’s doing it.”  Aspiring authors can expect the competition to be massive. And, of course, not every self-published book is going to be good. By “not every book,” I mean the overwhelming majority of books. That being said, there can be some pessimism about the market and an actually good book may get turned down based on potential prejudices towards self-published books. People who are serious about getting their book published would really have to invest time and effort into making it the best it can be, and marketing it, if they want it to have a chance and stand out on the digital shelf.