“Should I self-publish?” No. No. No. It’s one of the most frequent questions I get from aspiring writers and 99 out of 100 times my answer is no. If it’s Grandma’s recipes you want to put together, your wedding photo album, flash or fan fiction, or a poetry chapbook, then maybe. But I don’t recommend authors self-publish. This doesn’t make me popular and I’m certain to get lots of flak from some writers who need to justify their decision to self-publish. No. Just no. Authors who majored in English and not accounting, economics, business or advertising always surprise me when they seem to think they know how to run a publishing company single-handedly. Even the best of the self-publishing houses makes its profit from authors, not from selling books. And now AuthorHouse (owned by Penguin Random House) faces a class-action lawsuit from its authors. This seems to surprise writers who have heard about the success of E.L. James’ 50 Shades of Grey, or Amanda Hocking with her Young Adult series. What the self-publishing gurus won’t tell you is that these two examples are the rare exceptions to the rule. And both are genre fiction – not memoir or non-fiction – and both happened in 2011, a fluke year for self-published book sales. Developed as a Twilight fan fiction series, 50 Shades of Grey was originally titled Masters of the Universe and published episodically on fan-fiction websites. Its release as a book was a well-orchestrated marketing campaign by the author who…

College students these days are incredibly well versed in the post-grad talk. I can’t count on my hands how many times I’ve received the “good luck with that” look after I tell people I’m an English literature major with a studio art minor. And, I must admit, for good reason. It’s hardly a secret that it’s a tough time to find employment. There are expectations of students entering the job market that simply weren’t there in the past. Along with a degree, internship experience has essentially become a necessary precursor to full-time employment. In an ideal situation, an internship not only improves one’s position entering the workforce, but also teaches valuable skills in the field and gives a student the opportunity to work with knowledgeable and supportive superiors. But as has been proven by their recent presence in the media, internships don’t always provide what they should. Former interns are suing companies for, essentially, working them as full-time employees without a paycheck; these include lawsuits against Fox Searchlight and Gawker. Other students are qualified but can’t afford to take on full-time unpaid internships to begin with, especially if they can’t rely on the “Bank of Mom” necessary to cover the additional expenses of living in a city. In my two internship experiences, both with Fresh Dirt Ithaca magazine last summer and Swenson Book Development this summer, I have found supportive environments where I have felt intellectually stimulated and valued as a member of a team, not just a gopher. I…

The business of publishing continues to evolve and new finance models have emerged in recent years. There is a lot of new middle ground between self-publishing – Amazon, Smashwords, Lulu – and the traditional route of finding an agent who sells your work to one of the big commercial trade presses – Penguin Random House, Hatchette Book Group, Harper Collins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. Small and independent presses can’t offer authors large advances or extravagant marketing campaigns, but they do offer many advantages over self-publishing including distribution. Most self-published authors recognize the difficulty of getting their books into retail stores and libraries because they lack access to the distribution systems used by publishers. Finding a good fit with a small publisher who champions your manuscript can be an ideal scenario for authors. Academic presses shouldn’t be overlooked. It might surprise you to discover which university presses today publish commercial nonfiction, memoir, even fiction. Some presses, if they endorse your manuscript editorially, may negotiate with an author for a subsidy to proceed with publication. When an author invests in the initial production costs, it is possible to negotiate a higher copyright royalty rate in lieu of an advance. Subsidy publication is an avenue to explore if the author has the financial resources or can find a benefactor to provide a subsidy for the production expenses of publication. Subsidy publication is a “dirty little secret” in the publishing business. Many traditional publishers don’t want it well known that such business arrangements can…