In a lot of ways self publishing is huge these days. Even a website or blog is essentially a form of self publishing. But when you talk about it, most people think of self publishing as getting a book into print.

Good thing there are a lot of options for that too. Just do a search and look at all the companies that offer it.

Lulu.com is one well-known option. They publish all kinds of books as well as digital media such as DVDs. You can print one copy or thousands, depending on what you need at the time.

And of course there’s iUniverse, Xlibris and many other companies.

There are times when publishing a book makes a lot of sense. Getting published by a traditional publisher is difficult, although not impossible. But people place a certain value on printed books that is different from how they view online material, even if they paid for it.

There are a few factors you will want to consider when self publishing. For example, can you offer your book on sites like Amazon? If you want to sell to the general public, that would be an advantage.

Cost is another factor. Self publishing isn’t necessarily cheap. Then there’s how many copies must be printed. Sometimes you are buying a lot of copies, other times you are essentially doing print-on-demand.

You’ll also want to think about whether they offer things like an ISBN number, cover design and so forth.

There are some advantages to self publishing. You can set the price. You decide when to print. You aren’t generally stuck in a contract. You generally keep the rights to your work.

But there are disadvantages too. People may not take you as seriously, since your book didn’t go through the traditional publishing process. It can be harder to get into bookstores. It costs money, often upfront.

If getting a book published is something that will help to build your business it’s very much worth looking into. Don’t let the negatives keep you from moving forward if the positive factors outweigh them.

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