Self-Publishing And POD And The World Wide Web

Your life has been such an interesting one and it's the perfect time to tell the whole world all about it. In fact, for the last dozen months or so, you've been hard at work on an autobiography memoir, a literary masterpiece destined to become a book.

Difficult to believe, but you are not the only author who has been struggling religiously on a daily basis, turning out and condensing the experiences of your life and times onto the written page. You are merely one of hundreds, of authors-to-be, dreaming of being discovered by some major - and extremely eager - book publisher just waiting to turn your efforts into a best selling tome.

Dream on my friend. You know you're more likely to win the British lottery! But don't let that little insight shoot down your dream. Get hold of a list of likely book publishers from Yahoo. Jump to the publisher's webpage telling you how and where and to whom to send your autobiography to.

The majority of publishers will allow you to submit the opening chapter online. Others will require a paper copy, possibly the first two, maybe three chapters or possibly more. And they say, you won't hear anything from them for a number of weeks or months.

Please take note of the bit that says if you haven't heard from the publisher in about three months, assume your autobiography manuscript has been filed away in the bin.

Now it's all about waiting. Days, weeks and months drag slowly by. Doubts begin to creep in. You justify the silence. What do publisher know anyway? Not much judging by how many allowed Harry Potter slip through their fingers. Lots more on the list to submit to.

Months pass by and now turn into yet more months. Time is moving on. The doubts creep slowly in but you're not ready to give up the ghost. Someone mentions book agents. Great idea. Get someone else to do the legwork. Their 10-15% commission seems quite reasonable.

Back to the search engines and before you know it a second list is in your hands. Once again, you can submit via an online form or send a hard copy. The waiting begins all over again. Weeks and months drag by.

That's likely when the real doubts begin to bite in earnest. However, the belief your story is more than good enough for consumption by the general public is still intact. Well, almost.

So you log onto Amazon's website, again (a daily ritual), but this time as you look at the best seller lists, you suddenly notice the number of celebs and other famous people filling up the listings. Just coincidence? Possibly. There are also one or two unknown authors in there, too. Strikes you when you read a bit on their backgrounds, funny how many seemed to get their breaks through knowing someone who knew of someone in the publishing industry.

However the dream is not lost. A new phenomenon is shaking up the printing world and it's called Print On Demand, or POD for short.

And there are dozens of companies out there advertising the service and looking to grab your hard-earned money. Some are first class, real pros with a top-notch service second-to-none, like The Choir Press.

So how good are they? Find out by following the link in the resource box. It'll take you to a page and a book called No Easy Road by Patsy Whyte. Buy the book. Not only will you enjoy this autobiography, but you'll be able to see and hold and touch a quality product.

Admittedly, POD costs, but it's probably a price worth paying just to see your autobiography in print. No need to physically stock the books yourself, either. That's what the POD technology is all about. Print just one book order or 100, whenever the customer requires it.

No wonder increasingly more and more writers-in-waiting are considering Print On Demand and bypassing the traditional route into book publishing. And there's cash to be made, too, if you can hijack the marketing potential of the internet and Print On Demand. But that's another story.

Perhaps you, too, should be looking at the possibilities of POD?