I, too, would like to know how they did it.

My experience with traditional publishing is probably of no relevance now. I broke in in the 1970s, and the industry has changed enormously since then.

Now I self-publish. There's no funding involved. I do all the necessary formatting and I create my own covers. I publish through Smashwords, Amazon (kdp.amazon.com), and Createspace. Those are all free.

I have also self published two books, one even miraculously was top 10 for the month in it's category (don't ask me why). Thanks for that information.

I am more interested in traditional publishing as I have one extremely glaring weakness, I am not very good at marketing. This is why; in my own personal circumstance at least, a traditional publisher is the direction that would best suit me

You can approach small publishers on your own, but then the marketing would still be up to you.

Even with major publishers, you still bear a lot of the marketing responsibility, but at least a big publishing house gets the book on the shelves and can get it reviewed in important places. But to get into a big house, you do need a good agent.

Somewhere in this group, a year or two or more ago, I listed some good resources for finding agents.

But I'm interested in doing some self-publishing and thought I'd check out DU's Writing Group for any info on it as I begin to research it.

So you've had a good experience with self-publishing? I was thinking of going through Amazon. What has your experience with it been like (the good, the bad, and the ugly)?

I'd appreciate any advice for a newbie in self-publishing that you'd care to share.

By the way, I have experience in "the old-fashioned way" of publishing.

Other than putting out my stupendously wonderful books and waiting for millions of people buy them and then realizing that that's not happening. But I had that experience with traditional publishing, too.

That's the big drawback to self-publishing: getting your book noticed in the tsunami of self-published books. With traditional publishing, that's also a problem, but not if you're one of the lucky few authors your publisher decided to push hard. That last bit doesn't apply to self-publishing, obviously.

There may be some secret to successful PR for the self-published book, but I don't know what it is, and I don't think anyone else does, either. I'm placing my bets on getting lots of my books out there (new ones and reissues of old ones that were traditionally published) and hoping that one will hit it big on its own and result in sales for the others.

I should mention that I self-pub with Amazon and also with Smashwords to reach all the non-Amazon e-book outlets, such as Barnes and Noble, Apple, and Kobo. I also do print versions through Createspace.

The other thing to consider is the technical side of things. My wife and I proofread/edit each other's books, and we're both very good at that, so that costs us nothing. I do all the formatting and uploading necessary, so that's also free. I also do all the covers. If you need to pay for any of that, then you do have to be prepared to invest some money up front, and it's wise to assume that you won't earn that money back from sales.

We do all of the above for other people: http://dvorkin.com/ebookpubhelp.html
There are a lot of other people doing this, as well.

So it's ok to publish the same book in all those various venues, i.e., I can publish the same book on Amazon as well as Smashwords, etc.?

My first book has done moderately well because there was a built-in audience for it (it's a book for Big Lebowski fans). So word-of-mouth and social media have helped to promote it.

What I may write now is something I enjoy writing, but I've never published in it and I'm not sure how to publicize it.

They're just distributors, really. You own the rights, and you don't sign any kind of exclusivity agreement.

Thanks!

Amazon does have an exclusive option. It's called KDP Select. In return for you making your e-book available only on Amazon, they offer you some benefits. But it's optional, and I don't think most people take advantage of it.

It's possible that Amazon will make KDP Select a requirement in the future. If they do, I bet a lot of authors will simply drop Amazon and focus on the many other outlets. Amazon is the biggest player in the e-book business, but they're not the only one, and new, small ones keep popping up. Amazon dominates the distribution channel, but they don't control it.

Write. Finish what you write. Send it out. Sit back down and write something else. And so on.

I would also advise attending a writer's conference or two. They will inspire you, put you in the same room with other writers as well as with (at the good ones) editors and agents.

I know nothing about self-publishing, but there must be books, blogs, and websites devoted to those things.

I will say that I am one who simply avoids self-published books these days, unless by an already conventionally published writer, because most of the time they just aren't worth reading. The writer either jumps straight into self-publishing without sufficient re-writing and editing, self or otherwise, of the work. If you do decided to self-publish get as much professional assistance as possible.

I got published by following Heinlein's advice, then gave up writing for a long time. I'm back at it, but am a very long way from anything new being published. If ever.

How to get published? Finish the manuscript. Find an agent.

Really, that's what it's all about -- a good agent.

Get agent names by checking the acknowledgment pages of published novels in your genre. Authors thank their agents, and you can get a list of agents that way. Then query them. Some accept email queries, some want queries mailed to them.

That query letter is the most important 1 - 2 pages you'll ever write.

But I haven't written a goddamn thing since I started taking Zoloft for my OCD. Stay away from SSRIs would be ny advice tou you.