self-publishing

I have done a number of self-published projects over the years, I remind myself sometimes when I feel a bit anti-self-publishing. I thought I would mention some of them:

Honors Thesis
Masters Thesis
Dissertation

All bound in hard cover, about ten copies each, at my own cost, and now sitting in libraries. If you google my name at the appropriate universities, you will see the incredibly long-winded and boring-sounding titles listed.

The Best Days
Memories of Dad

About twenty to thirty copies each at the local Kinkos, in spiral bound variety with some pictures. Done for my parents' 50th anniversary and my father-in-law's 70th birthday, gathered memories from various family members and collated and edited them. Not for profit, but for posterity. An extremely limited audience.

And, if we include music self-publishing, my daughters to-date 2 CD's, which were done at mostly professional studios at my own expense and given away as gifts simply because we love her and want to encourage her talent. Dealing with copyright issues would be a hassle anyway.

I suppose if you stretched, you might include as "self-publishing" the handful of books my kids have had hard bound and glossy-paged in elementary school. We have a few copies of those and they are hilarious to look back at. 16 explained for the first time this year why some of the drawings looked as they did. Since they had been mysteries to me for some time, this was awesome.

I think self-publishing is great for these limited purposes, and for a few others, like publishing a manual of some kind for a business purpose. I don't believe it is useful for fiction that you intend to sell at bookstores and certainly not for national publication. While it is sometimes hard for me to admit, there are some projects of mine which are not going to be published (even if superbly written) by the current publishing market. I tend to feel like I should wait for the market to change. However, this may change as I get older. I don't know.