One woman’s self-publishing book biz unearths hidden indie gems
I was always the kind of kid who had one book in her hand and an extra one in her bag. I loved to write as well, but it somehow never occurred to me to be a writer.
Flash forward a decade. I majored in clothing design in college and was trying to gain a foothold in the fashion business in New York City. I noticed that there wasn't a resource book specifically for the industry and decided to create one. After a prodigious amount of research and a smaller investment of money, I self-published The Fashion Resource Directory. Two years later I sold the book to Fairchild and switched my focus to public relations, which twenty years later remains my "day" job.
In the interim, I had two kids, moved to the suburbs and wrote two books, The Little Black Dress and Manless in Montclair, both of which were traditionally published. Although I didn't think much of it at the time, having been both self and traditionally published gave me insight into the pros and cons of both processes.
This past January, I read an article in The New York Times about how—because of improved technology and a bloated publishing industry—self-publishing was beginning to flourish. That was followed by an article in Time magazine stating much the same thing. Self-published books like The Lace Reader, The Shack and Still Alice were storming bestseller lists. Respected writers like Stephen King were testing out self-publishing—and contrary to the belief that it was an option of last resort, there was quite a long list of iconic writers who had chosen to self-publish rather than submit to the "book-by-committee" routine of traditional publishing.
It dawned on me that it might be shortsighted to brand an entire category of books as crap just because they hadn't been embraced by the traditional publishing community. As a voracious reader, I welcomed the idea of discovering a book before the rest of the world. A book that was unique. A book that would surprise me. A book that wasn't on the night table of every other person I knew. As a publicist, I recognized that the problem self-published books had was not one of quality, but of image. People had embraced the idea of indie films and indie music. Why not indie (aka self-published) books?
Flash forward a decade. I majored in clothing design in college and was trying to gain a foothold in the fashion business in New York City. I noticed that there wasn't a resource book specifically for the industry and decided to create one. After a prodigious amount of research and a smaller investment of money, I self-published The Fashion Resource Directory. Two years later I sold the book to Fairchild and switched my focus to public relations, which twenty years later remains my "day" job.
In the interim, I had two kids, moved to the suburbs and wrote two books, The Little Black Dress and Manless in Montclair, both of which were traditionally published. Although I didn't think much of it at the time, having been both self and traditionally published gave me insight into the pros and cons of both processes.
This past January, I read an article in The New York Times about how—because of improved technology and a bloated publishing industry—self-publishing was beginning to flourish. That was followed by an article in Time magazine stating much the same thing. Self-published books like The Lace Reader, The Shack and Still Alice were storming bestseller lists. Respected writers like Stephen King were testing out self-publishing—and contrary to the belief that it was an option of last resort, there was quite a long list of iconic writers who had chosen to self-publish rather than submit to the "book-by-committee" routine of traditional publishing.
It dawned on me that it might be shortsighted to brand an entire category of books as crap just because they hadn't been embraced by the traditional publishing community. As a voracious reader, I welcomed the idea of discovering a book before the rest of the world. A book that was unique. A book that would surprise me. A book that wasn't on the night table of every other person I knew. As a publicist, I recognized that the problem self-published books had was not one of quality, but of image. People had embraced the idea of indie films and indie music. Why not indie (aka self-published) books?
