OK, indie book publishers. Real term? Well, you could call them self-publishers, but not all indie publishers are necessarily self publishers. Nevertheless, many of them are.

Jim Murdoch recently wrote a brilliant post on his blog about the stigma attached to self publishing. I feel his pain, but there is in some way a deserving stigma there. In music and film, indie publishers usually have much more of a professional approach to their art than do writers, many of whom believe that they can just throw together a few sentences and publish them and all is fine. If a music artist or film producer turned out anything as crappy as the product put together by most writers then they’d be roasted, and rightly so.

A few years ago I decided I would self publish a book, “Entering the Millennium.” It was the worst thing I’ve ever done. I rushed through it and the thing is full of typos. I hate it, despite the fact that there are a few good poems in the stack. And based on some self-published books that I’ve seen, mine was a charm.

That’s not to say that writers can’t produce a good product. Many self publishers do. I have reviewed some books by self-published poets that I thought were well done. But not all of them are.

Jim makes some good points on his blog, though. Much of self publishing is simply vanity. After all, a writer who self publishes is essentially paying to have his work published. But, does he want to make a profit from his book? Well, if he is wise then he will see the act of self publishing as a business as much as anything else. And I think that writers who approach self publishing from that perspective have a lot more reasons to expect success even if they never actually achieve it. Some of the things that a self-published writer has to consider include:

• Artwork for the cover (possible expense)
• Book binding
• Reviews (expense when you consider that you have to send out books to reviewers)
• Printing (how many initial copies?)
• Marketing (how will you let people know about your book?)
• Print or electronic publishing?
• Editing (possible expense)
• Layout of pages (especially if you include photos and graphics)
• Effective structure of the work (table of contents, sections, etc.)
• Blurbs
• Forewords, Afterwords, Prologues, Introductions (Will you have them? Who will write them?)

Publishing, even self publishing, is a business. You have to keep track of your expenses and know your break even point. Who will buy your book? Do you have a target market?

There are a thousand questions to ask yourself regarding the publishing process, and just as many about the writing process. You have to be willing and able to look at your work objectively, or have someone else look it over and identify the weak spots. What will you do about those?

Indie book publishers have a hard job. Not only do they have to write their own material, but they have to edit it and market it. Are you prepared to do the whole thing? If not, then you might want to reconsider being a self publisher.