The publishing stage has always been an incredibly difficult part of the literary process. In some cases it can actually be harder than writing the literature itself, because it's one thing to create a novel and it's another thing to get someone to print it and for others to read it. Until recently, large-scale publishing has been the realm of big corporate publishers who have the resources and the influence to produce many copies of a book. If an author wanted to be a part of this bigwig publishing industry, they would have to put out a work that satisfied the editors' demands. Today, much talk is going on about self-published authors and the death of print books.
Self-publishing was a dirty word, an alternative that required plenty of money. It involved cost-inefficient small-scale printing runs that had no guarantees of returns. Now, however, with the rise of the Internet, e-books and many opportunities and methods available to writers, self-publishing is a real viable alternative for authors who want to get the most out of their work, without sacrificing creative control.
Self-publishing is now a very good idea because internet marketing has such great potential for reach. Whether you like it or not, literature has historically been all about marketing. The Bible is the best-selling book of all time due to its backing by religion, word of mouth advertising, and the many different editions and translations that have been made over the years. Shakespeare was so popular because his works were attuned towards the masses, making him a "cool dude" among his pretentious, heavy-handed contemporaries. This is one reason why self-publishing used to be so scary – it used to require hundreds of thousands of dollars just to promote a book in its country of origin. But with the Internet, it is possible for a writer to advertise a book all over the world, from the comfort of one's own home.
Another reason why self-publishing is now viable is the lower starting cost. Printing costs are very expensive, and only get cheaper as the orders get larger. A basic run of even a few thousand books is already prohibitive for most writers to afford. On the Internet, though, a writer can choose to release only an e-book and be done with the idea of printing. It might have seemed like a weird idea just a few years ago, but so many people read e-books now, on so many different devices, that it's no longer inconceivable for a book to be exclusively published online.
Even with all these developments, it can be said that print is still not a dying medium. It is altogether possible that online authors of Wattpad and Amazon Kindle will eventually graduate to large-scale print runs that are sold all over the world. What the self-publishing revolution really means is that more authors are encouraged to actually start writing and start making a living out of writing. With this kind of encouragement, it is expected that there will be greater diversity in the literary marketplace and industry.
