Actually strongly considering self publishing. I want to be in control and my theory is that if people want a book like this, they will find it. May not be on book store shelves, but being listed on Amazon ain't so bad.
I think it depends on whether you want to write for yourself or whether you want to write more for your readers. Either is a great motivator, especially if you don't have to make a profit from it.
I was going down the self-publishing route until I realized that without a certain distributor the book would likely be locked out of the military exchanges forever. Since I wasn't [-]a starving author[/-] in any particular hurry and I was [-]making it up as I went along[/-] trying to learn everything I could about publishing, I decided to see how hard it'd be to find a publisher. We readers all know the bar can't be very high, right? My personal expectations were certainly low enough to get me through the manuscript-writing process, so I extended them to the publishing process.
I'm just a newb, but the publishing world seems very dysfunctional-- or perhaps a better description is "overwhelmed by chaos". Editors must prefer to let agents [-]tell them what they think[/-] be their filter, and you'd expect both species to be better at communicating with at least the written word.
Despite many publishers' apparent inability to make a decision, let alone discuss it, when I went through the process I taught myself a lot and learned even more. Before I could write a query letter, let alone self-publish, I had to learn more about the publishing business. Before I could approach the publishers I had to learn more about their motivations... which led me to figure out exactly who would want to buy the book in the first place (other than a couple hundred loyal E-R.org members). Then I had to actually persuade these faceless authority figures why they'd want to spend their time (and hopefully their money) stamping our deathless prose on dead trees.
Editors grope for decisions by asking annoying and seemingly pointless questions like "Who should want to buy this book?" and "Why is that the title?" Another editor told me "20-somethings don't buy books." They got me to realize that I was writing for too narrow an audience and picking a title that might drive away a lot of customers. I had also put a few other [-]snarky[/-] irreverent features in the book that didn't seem so funny when an editor asked how they'd attract an audience.
One publisher actually (*gasp*) expected me to write a marketing plan with the query letter. (Well, damn, isn't that what publishers are for? Oh.) People want to see the authors marketing the book, not the publishers. Besides, if I self-published then I'd have to craft the marketing plan anyway, so why not write one now and get some free feedback?
In some ways I got lucky. I ran the manuscript by one publisher twice, got turned down both times, and later learned that I'd inadvertently evaded the author's version of editorial & legal hell. In the process they asked a lot of great questions and helped me improve both the manuscript and my query letters. Another publisher drifted away from me but left behind a fantastic guide to online marketing. A senior editor at a large publisher agonized over their decision for six months (even hiring a consultant to tell them what they thought) and eventually lost out to a more decisive rival. But when I took back the manuscript they very nicely forwarded both their comments (and the editorial board's comments) as well as the consultant's comments. They couldn't ram a freakin' decision through their committee, but I'm going back to this particular editor for more blogging and advertising.
And so it went for nearly a year. I taught myself more before approaching each publisher, and then they taught me more just by asking questions and talking about what makes their lives easier.
I'll put in a shameless plug for Impact Publications. By the time I got around to them I'd about burned out on the idea of using a publisher, and I'd held off writing them only because they weren't quite as "big" as the whales I'd been chucking harpoons at. (I'd been approaching one publisher at a time instead of shotgunning the crowd. That was probably another newbie mistake, but my aim got better with each reload.) Impact had done well for a couple authors I knew and Impact's distributor puts their books in military exchanges. In some ways their query letter was the most difficult to write, especially if by this point you're expecting to be dragged through a mosh pit for another six or eight months. But they were on my list so like a good little nuke I kept plugging away at it no matter how painful or tedious it seemed to be.
The response was stunning and gratifying. Publisher's school had clearly forgotten to teach Ron Krannich how not to make a decision. He got the query letter on a Wednesday afternoon and must've deliberated for, gosh, nearly 24 hours before
calling me on the phone to talk about it. Once he'd heard enough to decide that I wasn't a blithering idiot (which took a few minutes while I got over my shock and realized that my friends weren't playing a practical joke), he told me he was sending me a contract.
And then he sent me a contract.
Control has not been an issue. The editor has made the manuscript better at every turn. If they thought something wasn't relevant or if a technique wasn't working, then they shared their opinion and asked for my reasoning before we (!) made the decision. As an engineer, it had never occurred to me to have a real no-foolin' graphics artist do the cover. It had never occurred to me that there were typesetting techniques which would make the text pop even more than our compelling prose already does.
If you approach a publisher then you might be pleasantly surprised to discover that this experience hasn't been about control-- it's been more collaboration than competition. Nobody at Impact has been trying to "win" any decisions. They've appreciated the way I've approached some topics and they've promptly backed off when they've understood why I've chosen some techniques. A few of my ideas have turned out not to work for the last 15 or 20 authors or during the last couple decades, and would probably only be worth doing in an e-book or in a blog. So I'm still learning.
Another "director's cut" way for an author to exert control is through their blog. I'm using mine for all the material that wouldn't make the book (for one very good reason or another). If the publisher or editor won't do something, then I can take solace in realizing that [-]they're right[/-] I can always put it in the blog. If it's popular on the blog then I can take it back to the publisher for another discussion.
Here's some questions that Ron taught me to ask: Would your book sales be bigger if you also offered a 4"x5" 64-page "pocket guide" version for your readers to carry around as they saw the town? Would the Las Vegas Visitor's Bureau (or, more likely, one of the hotels or casinos) want to buy 50,000 or 75,000 customized versions to hand out to their customers? Would your sales be improved by writing a custom version of your manuscript to appeal to certain types of visitors? (We Hawaii residents enjoy a popular weekly newspaper column by a Hawaii expat who tells us the latest Vegas gossip & deals, and then encourages us to visit
his website for special offers.) Would you want to put together a smart-phone version of your text, perhaps augmented by Yelp! or 3DLasVegas, for customers to download as a 99-cent paid app?
I think you have nothing to lose by engaging in a discussion with a publisher. After all, the default case is self-publishing. The only issue is how much time you spend on design & marketing before moving to sales.
Customized Pocket Guides and Books
Impact Publications - Impact Travel
Under Construction
Once I publish the book, I can call myself a published writer, all my blogs not withstanding, then if I sell any books, I can call myself a professional writer.
