…self-publishing Authors… which of many hats today?…

…a cluster of recent blogs have discussed the mantle of being a self-publisher and the whole razzamatazz associated with that sum’time scary occupation… there’s a list as long as a Las Vegas Casino stretch limousine of roles the self-publishing scribbler has to adopt… variously, these roles include writer (oh, yes–that too!), proofreader, editor, art work director, Kindle formatter, marketing guru, sales pitch person, SOSYAL MEDYA organiser… and yeez can add the support staff functions of tea maker, biscuit provider, Muse-minder, arbiter-of-squabbling-characters-in-yer-masterpieces, (yes, Mabel, they are real in yer head, believe me, and sum’times they need putting in their places)… but let me switch yeez back to the original hyphenated two-part description… SELF-PUBLISHER… ‘SELF’… yup… solo, lone, singleton, nob’dy-else-but-yerself, on-yer-own’sum, hermit-in-the-virtual-candlelit-attic person… being yer own boss is a two-edged sword… great when it’s going well, but if the wheels fall off there’s only one name on the blame sheet… that proverbial ol’ long distance runner had no idea of what that kinda loneliness really means… however, take a closer look at the second element, ‘PUBLISHER’... a title formerly exclusively held by the good and the great names such as Penguin, Collins, Harlequin, Random House, Oxford University Publishing… now with the Great God Amazon Kindle and its industry siblings, all that has changed… nowadays the main office of thousands of PUBLISHERS is in their own front rooms, writing dens and even Starbuxx forecourts…

…y’see, in my head the idea of having a publishing house looking after my future Nobel Literature Prize-winning babies conjures up visions of the PUBLISHER getting my books into the mitts of every reader on the planet… negotiating front shelf space in Waterstones… and interviews with such as Richard and Judy or Oprah… the reality is that that range of PUBLISHER service impacts about 0.00000374 % of all novelists… ergo, SELF-PUBLISHER has it all over PUBLISHER any day of the week… so, p’raps these days when folks ask me ‘what do you do?’, instead of staying ‘I’m an Author’, I think I’ll try a few ‘I’m a publisher’ throwaways… see yeez later… got to get back to my publishing… LUV YEEZ!…

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