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I've published a book. To some, that may sound quite impressive. To some, it is quite impressive. To me, it's not really a big deal for two reasons. First, because the impressive aspect of publishing a book isn't in having it published, it's in writing it. Anyone who says differently is either in it for the money or has actually had a book published and therefore doesn't need to say cheesy things such as, "The impressive aspect of publishing a book isn't in having it published, it's in writing it."

Second, I'm not impressed with having a book published because I published it myself. Or at least I paid to have someone else publish it for me. My reasons for doing this are many, and a handful of those are actually justifiable, but I'll save all of that for another time. For now, let's just focus on the process.

Print-on-demand (or, as the self-important yet slightly embarrassed crowd calls it, "author-driven publishing™") is kind of the literary equivalent of MP3, I guess, as it makes novel publishing accessible to those who otherwise would be stuck handing out heaping manuscripts in three ring binders to their friends and family. Now, for a couple hundred dollars (at press time, anyway), they can hand professionally bound and packaged copies of their novel to family and friends, and even to people they don't know and who therefore won't say things like, "Was character X based on real person Z?" or "You never really killed someone when you were in high school, did you?" Better yet, rather than just hand your book to them, you can charge them $20.95 or so. This is a very good way to find out who your real friends are, actually. Those who buy a copy and ask for an autograph? Keep them close. Those who simply buy a copy? Just keep them. Those who ask for a free copy? Lose them. Those who don't even want a free copy? Dump them in the river.

But how do you even get to the point where you've got a book ready for purchase? It's actually a bit easier than you might think...in parts, anyway. First, and this is somewhat important, write a book. Better yet, write a good book. Print-on-demand has a somewhat justified stigma to it in that, well, if the book is good, then wouldn't it have been picked up by a traditional publisher? Well, no. Far too many factors come into play when publishers decide what to add to their line up. Not every book that gets published is good, obviously, and not every gook that doesn't get picked up is bad. So, it's time to prove a point with self-publishing by writing something good. Write it, edit it and rewrite it as if you were sending it off to Harper-Collins, and only publish it yourself when it's as good as you can make it...or, as was the case with me, when you're just too tired of making it better.

There are a few different print-on-demand publishers from whom you can chose these days, so feel free to shop around. I looked no further than iUniverse, mainly because I'd purchased a book through them and was impressed with how it looked. That's where I came up with this idea in the first place. They've since upped their prices and are now charging extra for services that used to be free, so they're probably not your best bet. However, since they're what I know, they'll be the focus of this article.

The thing about iUniverse, though, is that they accept your manuscript in one of two formats: Word and WordPerfect. Now, any self-respecting Macintosh using author will not use Microsoft Word. That would be like trying to write a novel while being beat upside the head every two minutes with a sock full of grapefruit (which, I'm told, is how Stephen King is writing the upcoming books in his Dark Tower series). WordPerfect? Well, that's all well and good, provided you can even find a copy of it. While writing my novel, Mowin' the Heavenly Lawn, I actually used both of those word processors along with MarinerWrite and--my personal favorite--Nisus Writer. When the novel was finished, it was in Nisus Writer for OS 9. So, how to get it to iUniverse in a workable form? It's actually not too hard.

The good thing about iUniverse is that they allow you to throw out everything you've learned from your dozens of manuscript guideline books. Forget spacing and headers and page numbering and all that other bunk, iUniverse is just going to throw it all out anyway. They've got their own way of doing things, and they clearly define their rules in the publishing guide they'll give you when you sign up. So, the trick is to just strip you document of any heavy formatting (including headers and footers) and save it in RTF format. Then, pirate a copy of Word from a...no, wait. Let's make this all nice and legal. Get a one month trial copy of Microsoft Office and open up your RTF. Bring it up in Word and print the whole thing off to make sure what should be bold is still bold and what should be italicized is still italicized, then give it yet another proofing round. You can never have enough proofing rounds.

If you pay iUniverse $250 extra ($449 for Premier Program versus the standard rate of $199 for Select Program), they'll have provide you with an editorial review. This is a waste, if you ask me. Who knows who these "editors" are or if they're worth the money. If they like book a lot, they can bump your novel up to "Editor's Choice" status. Again, a waste. All this does is make your book more prominent at the iUniverse bookstore, and no one's going there to buy your book anyway. They also offer other services at this higher rate, including free distribution to Amazon.com, B&N.com, etc. This was free when I published my novel, but I only ended up at Amazon.com, B&N.com, and Wal-Mart.com. Now, for an extra $99 to Select Program subscribers, they claim they'll make your book available to over 25,000 "traditional booksellers worldwide." They don't, however, identify who those booksellers are or exactly how far they go to make your book available to them.

Finally, they'll provide copy editing for $0.012 a word. Again, a waste. For proofreading, certainly you have some literate friends somewhere who would be thrilled to read your book. How about an old teacher from high school or college? They're busy, yeah, but won't they be thrilled to know that, when you were sleeping in their class, you were at least dreaming up ideas for the next great [insert native country here] novel?

If they are stingy about it, just promise them you'll put their name in the author acknowledgements. Nothing wins people over faster than the promise of immortality.

Now, once you're happy with your proofreading, it's time to send it (along with your credit card number and everything else on their checklist) off to iUniverse. They will take your document and--if it meets their guidelines--set it up for their production, a process which takes about 9-15 days. During that time, you can take care of some other things such as registering the book with the Library of Congress, developing your marketing plan, and getting started on your next novel. iUniverse will assign you publishing services assistant with whom all contact will be made. It's a nice, personal touch. My guy was quick to respond to my e-mails and was patient with my dozens of questions and requests for status updates...although he never did solve that cover problem. More on that later.

Before you submit the novel, you can get iUniverse's guidelines on how to lay out all the acknowledgements, author info, dedications and such. Afterwords, they'll make sure you get all the legal junk straight at the front. Your ISBN will provided soon after you place your order, so all of this can be handled during this period.

In my novel, I twice quoted songs by Wall of Voodoo, along with bits by Paul Simon, Sammy Hagar and Jimmy Webb. I highly recommend quoting your favorite celebrities, as it gives you the chance to speak with them. Kind of. I mean, I dropped the quotes from Simon, Hagar and Webb, figuring that a.) Simon wouldn't want to talk to me, b.) Hagar would just try to sell me some of his damn tequila, and c.) I'd be too tempted to punch Webb for writing the most godawful lyrics in music history. But Andy Prieboy of Wall of Voodoo, he and I exchanged e-mails for about a month after he gave me permission to use his lyrics. I'm now writing novels specifically to quote other musicians so that I have an excuse to talk with them, as well: Brian May of Queen, the guys from Splitsville, Rockwell.

Okay, I'm not really quoting Rockwell, I just want to see if he's still alive. I don't think even VH1 knows whatever happened to that guy.

I should now talk about the cover. iUniverse allows you to submit your own cover graphic, or you can just send them ideas and have one of their artists create a cover for you. I first went with the latter approach, but wasn't happy with the results. So, I did my own. The problem there is that the crisp, clean graphic I sent them ended up printing horribly blurry (blurrily?) and muted. Not sure why this happened, as I followed their specs perfectly (my background is in electronic prepress, after all). However, it's partly my fault as the PDF proof they sent also looked blurry and dull, but I attributed that to jpeg compression within the PDF. Don't make that mistake. If you don't like how the cover looks, let them know right away.

Okay, proofs. Along with the cover proof, you also get back the layout proof. Here's where you get your final chance to clean everything up. If they make a layout mistake, they'll fix it without question. If you find typos or need to change some things, they'll fix those too, but only a certain amount (fifty when I published my novel). Beyond that, you have to pay them. Therefore, it's important your novel be in finished form before send it off. And, after you make your corrections to the proof and send it back, never read your novel again! If you do, you will inevitably find another glaring typo or something you should have changed, and it'll take you quite some time to forgive yourself.

The proofing round is quite simple, really. iUniverse will give you a document in which you simply indicate where the typo is and how it should be fixed. You can get this document in either PDF or Word form, thereby either filling it out by hand or on the computer. You also only get about a week to do this, so make sure you take some time off from work. Or, you can do what I did and just give it to your sister-in-law while you go to the Godzilla Fan Club Convention in Chicago.

A few weeks after this is all completed, you'll get your complimentary copy in the mail. Depending upon the promotion that was run when you signed up with iUniverse and upon the package level you purchased, you could get more than one copy (I received six). iUniverse now also publishes in hardback if you pay $199 extra. They didn't offer that at the time, and I don't think I would've done it anyway. Their trade paperback binding looks just fine, and my novel already costs $20.95 (price depends upon the number of words: starting at an estimated $9.95 for 30,000 to 57,600 words and topping of at an estimated $24.95 for 140,703 words...probably subject to change), and hardbacks cost about ten bucks more. Them's Harry Potter prices!

The main drawback to self publishing is that it's completely up to you to market the book. iUniverse will make your book available in various online retail channels (if you pay them, that is), but it's up to you promote it. I'll offer no suggestions here, as that's an entire book in and of itself. Indeed, iUniverse will offer some basic assistance, and you can pay them even more for marketing and book signing tool kits. This is probably fair, and isn't really that out of the norm. From what I understand, most published authors are receiving little to no marketing assistance from their publishers who are content to pump all their money into their high profile, big profit authors.

And finally, there's the money. iUniverse pays 20% of the royalties on the novel, which is quite high compared to traditional publishers, but kind of low considering you had to pay them in the first place. You also receive your checks quarterly (most publishers pay annually), and you can track your monthly sales online. Best of all, though, you retain all the rights to the novel. It's copyrighted in your name. So, if a big publisher decides the book is good and there's a market for it beyond the scope of iUniverse, it'll be simpler than you would think for you to sign your life over to them.

So really, that's it. That's basically all it takes to become a published author. You'll quickly learn how awkward you'll feel when signing autographs, how odd it is to see that people who bought your book at B&N.com also bought The King of Torts by John Grisham and The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, and how good it feels to hold years worth of work and creativity in your hands, or to see it sitting between Joseph Heller and Homer on your bookshelf (different authors may apply). Is self-publishing worth it? Yes. If you're not in it for the money or for the ego trip, yes.

I just hope I don't have to consider it again. And hey, before you consider, I highly recommend you read some other (or a particular) self-published author. In fact, I know of a great book that will also let you see just how professional your self-published book will look. You can check it out here, or order it directly from Applelinks. It'll enrich your world...or at least enrich my world by about $4.10.

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