Andrea Beaman

The Road To Self Publishing

My journey into the world of book publishing, and escaping to become a highly successful self-published author began after naturally curing my "incurable" thyroid disease. I decided to write a book about the experience. After typing the final sente...

Bad Boss to Boss Book - My choice to Self-Publish

Bad Boss to Boss Book - My choice to Self-Publish

My author journey began with my job and the need to find a solution to a common problem - bad boss behavior. My first real HR job was a transition out of the business and recruiting arena. As a Generalist, I was ready to tackle organizational issues,...

Bill Voedisch

An Adventure in Self-Publishing

Mitten the kitten was my "cat of a lifetime" for over 19 years, and apparently the two of us drove the family crazy. The kids would say "We don't have to read Calvin and Hobbs, we're living with them." Mitten was gone from this life for six years w...

Brad Berkowitz

The 21st Century Guide to Bachelorhood: A Self-Published Novel

Here is my story about self-publishing:

I had 90% of my book, The 21st Century Guide to Bachelorhood: Lessons Learned Over the Past 20 Years completed in 1999, but had to put it on the shelf when I took a job at a hedge fund. Since I...

Brenda Zofrea

My Publishing Experience

I took a course at Montclair State College on publishing which really helped me understand the traditional publishing process, including how to write a query letter, etc.

After the course, I sent out 30-40 query letters and rec'd. re...

Brian Rouff

My Indie Journey

Although I've written advertising and marketing materials my entire professional life, I didn't start writing fiction until my mid-forties. I joked that it was how I handled my midlife crisis: safer than a Harley and cheaper than a divorce. I found i...

Captain Karen Kahn

Publishing Independently

Having spent the last 30+ years at 30,000 feet with other people's lives in my hands, I like to think I have mastered the art of confidence, determination, communication and professional and personal growth. However, I have recently realized that the...

Cristin Frank

My Self-Publishing Experience

In the same way that college debt lights a fire under your ass to get a job after graduation, self-publishing motivated me to morph from writer to marketer. Networking was taken to a whole new level: one beyond comfort and self-satisfaction. I was u...

Dallas Woodburn

An Indie Journey

When I self-published my first book, There's a Huge Pimple on My Nose, I was in fifth grade and I didn't know much about the publishing industry. Self-publishing was the only option I really considered, and it was definitely the right choice for me a...

Dan Poynter

The Story of Dan Poynter

Dan Poynter fell into publishing. He spent eight years researching a labor of love. Realizing no publisher would be interested in a technical treatise on the parachute, he went directly to a printer and "self- published." The orders poured in and a...

Denny Fried

My Indie Journey

My little dog, Genevieve, started barktating her memoirs to me in 1999, and all I had to do was translate them from Doggerel into English (she also made me type them, since she was afraid of getting carpal paw syndrome). I decided to self-publish the...

Diana S. Zimmerman

The Power of Indy Publishing

That moment when you walk in a book store and see your very first book on the shelf, or get on an airplane and someone sitting in the seat next to you is reading your book-it's an indescribable feeling. So, in a very different way, are the stacks of...

Dr. Nancy B. Irwin

Ich Bin Ein Self-Publisher!

I queried about five publishers, and was fortunate to receive a contract from a fairly prestigious publisher in the psychology self-help field. However, the advance was small, they estimated two years to publication, and wanted major rewrites. They...

Frank Shima

My Indie Journey

In 1987, I submitted my short story, Superfarmer, to the Lake Superior Writers' Competition. It won the best fiction award. Eleven years later, I decided to make it the first chapter of a novel. That's when my book, Vencil, was born. Unable to fin...

Gail Graham

Indie Publishing

My previous six books were all published conventionally, by mainstream publishers. But the week my agent began to pitch Sea Changes, the stock market crashed and the economy disappeared down the toilet. The agent's recommendation was, "Put it aside f...

Gary Mahoney

My Indie Journey

"The Last Cookie Club" is a fictionalized version of my lifelong struggle with food addiction and compulsive overeating. I have gained and lost the same 50-70 pounds seven different times. I have always had multiple sizes and styles of clothes in my ...

Ian Coburn

Selling God is a Woman: Dating Disasters

There is a lot of good advice in these stories for writing your book and why you should do it. I wanted to add something different that's just as important to know. You see, it's not just crucial to write your book; you have to sell it. Truth be know...

Iris Waichler

Riding the Infertility Roller Coaster

Riding the Infertility Roller Coaster was my second book. My previous publisher had gone out of business. I believed that since I had already successfully published it would be easier this time. I was mistaken. My book topic, infertility, was a timel...

James C. Wallace II

My Own Journey Down the Road of Yellow Brick!

I grew up in a loving household where my parents read to me on a daily basis and taught me the joy of reading. Many a night I recall sitting in the front room of our rural West Virginia home as my mother would read from the many books of Oz and my fa...

Jenny Pavlovic

8 State Hurricane Kate: The Journey and Legacy of a Katrina Cattle Dog

I started writing this book because I didn't want Katrina dog Kate to be forgotten. I also wanted to tell the stories of the Katrina survivors, the animals and people that Kate and I met on our journey. Along the way, I was inspired to continue writ...

Jessica Akers

My Publishing Journey

In my short life, I have worn many hats. I have donned a crown and been Princess of the Playroom, ruling over my loyal stuffed subjects. I have been a spy, carefully watching the mysterious man who walks everyday, leaving envelopes in the box on my p...

Julie Murphy Casserly

My Trip into Self-Publishing

Julie Murphy Casserly, CLU, ChFC, CFP®, is a 14-year veteran of the financial services industry who has declared it her mission to "financially heal America" by helping people understand their emotions behind money, and how these attitudes affect how...

Kathi Casey

Self Publishing Journey

Since first deciding to write another book, I have been receiving Dan Poynter's newsletters and have purchased two of his books: "The Self Publishing Manual Vol. 2" and "Book Printing at the Best Price." Many consider Dan the "go to" expert for sel...

Kathy Gruver

My Self-Publishing Experience

For The Alternative Medicine Cabinet, self-publishing was my first choice. I had heard from numerous health writers that their experience with "traditional" publishers was not a good one. I wanted to have the book done quickly and in the way I wanted...

Kelly Lucente

My Publishing Experience

Writing Bye Bye Monster; Joey's Adventure on Monster Street was certainly a labor of love for me. I've always wanted to be an author and took creative writing courses in college, but never followed through or pursued my dream until I had my son who ...

Ken Solin

My Self-Publishing Experience

While there was a certain amount of control involved in self-publishing my book, The Key to The Men's Room: What en Talk About When Women Aren't Around, I would have preferred publishing in a more traditional manner, but only with serious public rela...

Kenn Amdahl

My Publishing Experience

After 28 publishers rejected my first book, I decided maybe they were right. I slid the manuscript into a drawer and wrote another book.

After 89 publishers rejected the second book, ("There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlin...

Kristen Ashley

My Indie Journey

When my father-in-law told me a government backed (that's the British government, mind) programme was publishing 500 manuscripts (for free-ish), my heart leapt and then my fingers flew over the keyboard to submit my book, Rock Chick. I had no idea t...

Lisa Saunders

My Publishing Journey

Was self-publishing your first choice? No, I tried to find a publisher.

What has worked and what hasn't?
The following has been my experience with self-publishing: In the mid 90s, I decided to write a book about our journe...

Michael O'Neal

Publishing Crazy Bett

Like most first-time novelists, I suspect, I fantasized about getting urgent phone calls from an agent (preferably one with the panache of a New York City address), meeting him or her for lunch at the 21 Club or Blue Water Grill, and watching as a ma...

Michael Rosenbaum

My Publishing Experience

"Well," he said, "it would be hard to do worse..."

Let's take the last question first: Would I prefer to have a real publisher instead of taking on the challenge myself? Frankly, my answer is much different today than it was only a f...

Micheal Gyulai

The first thing I did when I completed the manuscript for Midnight in Rome was buy Writer's Market. I spent hours reading their techniques for query letters, digging through the listings to highlight relevant agents and publishers, and compiling a ma...

Michelle May

My top 10 reasons for publishing independently:

My top 10 reasons for publishing independently:

1.I had successfully published several books on my own so I understand the process and appreciate the benefits.
2.I believe that Eat What You Love has the potential for huge co...

Monika Mira

Self Publishing Journey

When I was a child, I loved The Anatomy Coloring Book. It offered me the opportunity to learn by coloring so there was no pressure. I never dreamed that as an adult, I would be the author and illustrator of a coloring textbook. Many years later, as a...

Nicole Mercer

My Publishing Adventure

My journey to The Golden Ring started back in August, 1996, the day I landed at the airport in Moscow. I was arriving to begin a two-year stint as an English teacher in Vladimir and at the time had no idea that my experience would inspire me to write...

Pamela Tsigdinos

My Publishing Journey

Two years ago I had a manuscript and book proposal ready to pitch to literary agents. Both were the culmination of nearly five years work. Market research validated that I had a unique point of view. I had an international blog following, and reporte...

Patricia Mendez

Author Journey

When I wrote my first book, Easy Entertaining for Beginners in 2006-2007, I did a lot of research on the pros and cons of self-publishing versus traditional trade publishing. It took me six months to educate myself to the point I felt I could make an...

Paul Pomerleau

My Indie Journey

Many Americans believe that people who go to college to study the liberal arts or social sciences emerge qualified only for jobs in the fast food industry. If your schooling doesn't involve a specific job skill, the reasoning goes, you have wasted y...

Penelope Thoms

My Publishing Journey

I am an author, poet, playwright, priest, spiritual director and hospice chaplain. In 2000 my husband and I moved to the west of Ireland so I could spend six months writing a book: THIN THE VEIL, Living and Dying Within Celtic Spirituality. I had ...

Peter Bowerman

Becoming a "Well-Fed Writer"

Okay, so I've been a "paying-all-the-bills-and-then-some" writer since 1994 and just released my fourth book. Of course, I do wrestle with a philosophical question akin to the unwitnessed tree falling in the forest: If I've never written a magazine a...

Rebecca Staton-Reinstein

My Self-Publishing Adventure

When I first conceived my new book, Conventional Wisdom: How Today's Leaders Plan, Perform, and Progress Like the Founding Fathers, I considered trying to land a 'New York publisher.' At that time, the Maui Writers Conference had a program where...

Rene van Rems

My Publishing Journey

Self-publishing was not my first choice. I spoke to agents and publishers and in all my discussions and interviews I was always the chicken and they were the egg and if I was the egg they were the chicken. Even after having attended four different p...

Richard Best

Accidental Best Seller

The first book I put together was actually for my wife. The material was to narrowly focused and, given that it was an exercise book, we decided no publisher would be interested. So we self-published and in doing so I learned all I could...

Richard Corn

My Publishing Experience

About five years ago, I began tutoring high school students in math. Initially it was all academic tutoring, helping students improve their grades in school. Later, students began asking for help preparing for the standardized tests for college adm...

Rona Lewis

My Self-Publishing Experience

I'm one of those people who don't give up easily. I've always been an athlete, so I'm very competitive. I guess that's why it didn't scare me to write a cookbook. I knew that I had something new and innovative and the fact that there were a gazill...

Shel Horowitz

See-Sawing Between Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing

My books on frugal marketing keep shuttling between self-published and traditionally published. It started back in 1985, when I got ten ISBN numbers and published a skinny little paperback on marketing. I made every mistake possible. So next time aro...

Susan E. Estes

Why I decided to self-publish my book

My story "Tinycandy's Gift" came to me one day in January. I had removed all my Christmas decorations and had placed the candy canes from our tree on my desk. My mother had passed away three weeks earlier, and I was mourning her passing, and also was...

Thomas Lloyd Qualls

Song of Myself

I spent ten years writing my first novel, Waking Up at Rembrandt's. I say that like I did nothing but sit in a room for ten years and write this novel. That isn't true, of course. I have a day job, a penchant for travel, a drinking habit, an epicu...

Valerie Farber

Self Publishing: The Ten Commandments

I wrote City of Refuge, a biblical historical novel on my daily bus commute and published the book myself. In keeping with the biblical theme of my novel, I've organized the lessons I learned into ten basic suggestions, or commandments, in the chrono...