To Self-Publish, or not to Self-Publish

Self-publishing is something that's been around for a while. With companies such as CreateSpace, publishing your own book gets easier and easier. You can even print-on-demand on Amazon. ,The problem I grapple with is the fact that I have a novella, ready, edited and primed to go, but novellas are not very marketable. I don't want to expand my story with useless dribble (though I could I suppose if I wanted to), and most publishers don't want something less than 75k words, hence my dilemma.

The thing about self-publishing is that it used to be widely ostracized. I'm not sure why that is though; bands create their own demos and self promote all the time, artists go on etsy & ebay, and photographers sometimes share their work on istock, yet, unless I'm mistaken, there's no blight on them for it. Writers seem to have a different caste about them, self-publishing being one of the lowest. Or it used to be.

I believe that it's becoming more of an accepted thing and that self-publishing is not for lack of talent. There are many, many talented writers out there, but not enough venues to show off work. It's not that I want to make money doing this (though that would be nice), but I'd like people to read my stuff. Ok, who am I kidding? It would be really, really nice to be a successful writer, but I haven't written things because of that. I mean, honestly, I have copywriting to make money off of (unpleasurable) writing.

I'm really starting to consider self-publishing. I have a few graphic design friends who could do a cover for me if I asked them really, really nicely. There is a bit of investment on my part to do this, but it might be well worth it, even if it is just to see my story in print form. I guess right now I'm just hunting for an answer. Epiphany, do your job!

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