Will self-publishers be the publishers of tomorrow?

Years ago, I was hired  by a local florist as a florist arranger. I had never arranged flowers before but I needed the money as I had two young kids to support.  I figured I loved horticulture with a passion and this would be right up my alley.  My huge awakening came when it was harder than it looked and I found myself looking for work elsewhere.

Are you serious, you ask?  How hard can it be to put a few stems of flowers in a vase?  Well harder than you think because there was a science to it as my patient co-workers tried to help me ease into the job painlessly and explain it to me so I could understand.

I have a saying I tell my now grown up daughter when trying to get her RN certificate - "If something was easy, then everyone would be doing it."

And this brings me to self-publishing.  It does seem that everyone is doing it.  Before there was a Kindle store and before ebooks became the next best thing, I did self-publish.  It was an ebook for promoting self-published ebooks and I sold it right off my website.  I don't sell the ebook anymore because it needs updating as most of the links have come and gone, but it was then that I discovered just how easy it really was.  And yes, at $19.95, I still sold quite a few copies and to this day I have to turn down inquiries because it wouldn't be fair to sell something that didn't quite work the way it did at first.

Today, it's a bit more involved if you want to start off with something like KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) for example to sell your ebook.  There's the book cover you have to get made or make it yourself, there's the formatting so that it looks just right on the e-reader and not to mention the promoting end of it.

So yes it takes a lot of work on your part because, after all, you are to take on the role of publisher.  I do believe that self-publishers will be the norm years from now as more and more authors figure out that even though it's not cut and dry and there's always something new to learn, it's something about keeping those profits not to mention the control that makes self-publishing look like the perfect choice.

Sure we'd all love to be published by a NY house, but who knows, there are certainly more Amanda Hockings out there.  It could be you. ;o)