Hello Everyone
Might be talking rubbish now, but is there a way to publish/be published on line? Anyone know anything about this?
Mary

Mary, what kind of publishing do you have in mind? There are lots of online-only magazines, or are you thinking of doing it yourself? That I guess would involve setting up a website.

Emma

Or there's also blogging (on-line diaries). And, at a slightly more distant level, e-books, which you can read on-line.

A
xxx

And PDF files for selling e-books online.

The question is, how many people buy e-books from unknown authors or read stories on websites from unknowns...

However, self publishing, and then promoting and selling through your own website is common, and so long as you keep up the footwork, pushing your work locally, you can make a steady income.

Colin

And of course you can list it in the all-new all-singing all-dancing WW Book Shop!

Emma

Thank you everyone; you have given me things to look at and think about.
Regards Mary

And of course you can list it in the all-new all-singing all-dancing WW Book Shop!

And register it on Amazon

The main problem that I have with self pubished books is that they look self published. There is usually a dead give-away in either the cover, the cover graphics, the inside typography or the (lack of) editing. I saw a guy in a local book shop with a display of his books; a self published author who visits schools and bookshops to promote his stuff, but it only took a glance to see that he's got a friend to design the cover, rather than a professional illustrator, and another friend to design the type. The inside design was all over the place, tabulations differed from chapter to chapter and in internal illustrations were as shoddy as the cover. The whole thing looked amateurish because he'd tried to cut corners, and that's before I'd read a single word.

The other tell-tale sign of a POD book is the cover price. Who's going to pay £9.99 or more for a paperback? One way of keeping this price down is to avoid POD and go for lithographic printing. You'll have to shell out in the beginning, say two or three grand to cover a big print run, but if you expect to sell 2000 copies over a period of a year, and have the space to stock them, then it's well worth it as the profit margin is way above anything you'll get with POD.
eg -

average price to print a 150 page book with POD: £6
average price to print a 150 page book with litho: £2

I'm all for self-publishing, just not people half heartedly kicking a novel out and cutting corners to get it published, just to say they have a book. Much better to take your time, do your homework, use the "right" friends/colleagues to help you and make it look and feel professional. If you can add a reasonable price tag, you might end up with a product to be proud of that people will buy.

Colin M

As always, it really depends on motivation. If you want to get published simply to get read, the most cost effective way of doing this is paying for an Adobe Acrobat licence, stuffing it all in PDF, and posting anywhere and everywhere.

If, however, you're getting published as part of an investment on which you expect returns, the fastest way is obviously POD. However, this requires an acceptance of risk on your part, and the expertise to make it look professional. But if your writing is good enough to justify someone spending money to obtain it, then it might be worth having the patience to find an agent and a publisher and go down the 'traditonal' route.

<Added>

Oh, I've just been looking around, and Lulu.com seems almost too good to be true. Free self-publishing!!