Not self-publishing—independent publishing

Creative Commons

I am not a self-publisher, because I did not publish my books by myself. I was part of a team of talented, dedicated, professional, skilled and very giving people, to whom I am indebted and grateful.

You know by now that my new book, Army of Worn Soles, will publish in e-book form on June 22, 2014—less than a week from the day this post goes up on the blog.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been busy with all sorts of not just last-minute details on the book itself, but also with advance promotion and publicity. I’ve been answering questions, and learning, from those answers. A question that has come up (however, not as frequently as I expected) was about “self publishing.”

I prefer the term “independent publishing,” simply because I think it’s far more accurate. I don’t publish any books by myself.

Publishing any book calls upon a wide range of skills:

• writing—creating the story or the information for the reader
• substantive—“story editing,” a review and critique of the overall worth of the manuscript, whether it’s complete, or there’s too much material, and whether the basic ideas make sense
• copy-editing—ensuring it’s clear, grammatical, logical?
• proofreading—looking out for spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes and silly little errors in logic (like setting the opening of a chapter on a spring morning and ending, without indicating any passage of time, with a winter night)
• design—of the cover as well as the interior
• layout—setting up the interior according to the design, and making sure that the whole book follows the same design
• manufacturing—transferring from manuscript to e-book or print format with the highest fidelity to the final manuscript and the highest production quality affordable.

Each of this is a major task requiring specialized knowledge, and no, I don’t attempt it myself. I can do many of them, but not all—not well.

And I have always said, “You can’t edit your own stuff.”

The team

When it comes to publishing my books, I call upon a supportive team. For Army of Worn Soles, that team included:

• Fred Brooke, Alan McDermott, Russell Blake and Cinta Garcia de la Rosa as pre-readers
• Rebecca Dickson as my stalwart editor
• David C. Cassidy as cover designer
• a large team to help promote the cover and excerpts, whom you are meeting through other posts on this blog.

Army of Worn Soles, like my other books, is a truly collaborative effort.

No, I do not self-publish. Army of Worn Soles, and all books I write, followed a cooperative publishing model, one promoted and supported by Independent Authors International. Like those published by the Big Five commercial publishers, are the result of a team of talented professionals applying developed skills to producing a quality book.