So I have this book coming out and...

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I'm not sure if I should go with a traditional publisher or publish it myself. I know I can go the lulu route but I'd rather not worry about doing all the tedious stuff. I've printed out my own musical albums started my own record label but for books it's a whole different story. There is a lot of truly boring s**t to do if you want to self publish. It seems like a lot of the underground publishing companies might not have much to offer me though. I've already built a big presence for my name and the book is getting a lot of press.

On the otherhand I'm not sure how I can get a big publisher without a literary marketer. (which may or may not be a waste of money) It would be great to have my book in Borders etc. if this is possible though.

What do you guys think? I know print media is dying but I need to be able to hold my book in my hands... one way or another.

Who are you and what publications?

What is it about?

If it is fiction, I believe the general word is it's best to try get an agent to take it on. Publishers don't accept unsolicited manuscripts much these days. Agents can get the manuscript seen by the publishers and all that biz. Bottom line, though, is there is no quick and easy route to getting a book published.

Agree with Hal_9000, self-publishing is a vanity, good only if you're just printing copies for friends and family, or if you plan to distribute on a small scale, at seminars or through a specialty website. If you want the kind of exposure Amazon, BooksAMillion or Borders can give you, you'll need to go through a major publishing house.

And personally, I believe the rumors of the death of print are still being greatly exaggerated. I remember being told by the media over and over again in the 90s, that the rise of the desktop PC heralded a paperless society in which all documents would be kept on digitized media and nothing would need be printed ever again. What it actually heralded was the desktop printer, copier and fax machine, which created a thousand times more paper documents than had ever been possible before.

I can't imagine not reading every day, but I have no interest in even seeing a Kindle. My poor eyes suffer enough strain from staring at this Hi-Def monitor for hours at a time. As long as I can get corrective lenses or LASIK, I will continue to read paper books. I may be a throwback to an obsolete age, but some of life's simpler pleasures just aren't as pleasant when ensconced in gadgetry. I'll switch to an Electronic cigarette, but by God, there'd better be REAL tobacco in my pipe.

An agent, to my knowledge, doesn't actually charge you until you actually do get your book published. Good agents don't, anyway.

If it's your first publication why not try podcasting it and then going with a small press or self if a bigger publisher won't pick it up. There are quit a few new authors going this route with fairly good results. Scott Sigler got such a big audience together through his podcast that he made the best seller list. I'd say at least do a chapter as a podcast to advertise if you are going to publish through a self and do a promo to send to podcasts that do fiction of a similar genre.

<- Curious now.

It's just dealing with the task of shipping it around to publishers that is so tedious. At least I have a professional copyedit now. Self publishing would help to build my company but I want as many people to read my book as possible.

The book:

Acidexia is an upcoming book of writings by Rachel Haywire that first appeared in her Acidexia online journal between 2001 and 2004.

At the turn of the millennium, an institutionalized "mentally ill" teenage girl is kicked out of her home to live life on the streets. She embarks upon an odyssey through underground subcultures and cyberspace while endlessly crisscrossing the country by bus and hitchhiking. Reinventing herself as Acidexia, a poetic terrorist and radical deconstructionist, she unleashes a torrid maelstrom of rants, diatribes and mindf**k prose in her online journal. Acidexia inspires a devoted cult following online and offline as she intentionally blurs the lines between "virtual reality" and "real life" in her provocative communiqués to the universe.

Acidexia is an authentic, highly personal coming of age autobiography and a cultural artifact documenting the fringes of culture at the dawn of the Information Age. It's an artful literary collage of journal entries, travelogue, revolting manifestos, street poetry, sci-fi riffs, Dadaist experiments and cultural critique that rips apart and reassembles every fragment of culture the author confronts: youth counterculture, music scenes, Discordianism, anarchy, eugenics, transhumanism, insanity, and more.

Myspace page here: http://myspace.com/acidexia
Website coming soon: http://acidexia.com

It's kind of a big deal for me.

Sounds a bit like Fight Club.

It's an erotic version of Fight Club!

Actually it's more like an "On The Road" of the future.