Pile 'em High, Sell 'em Cheap

So, it's all over bar the shouting... and the production of some back matter. Taliesin is well under way. Three Chicago shadows novels are waiting their debut, nervously shifting in the wings. I'm still waiting for a beta reader to shout up that the introduction of the roller-skating flamingo two thirds of the way through number three is a genre-bending innovation too far. Even though there is no roller-skating flamingo two-thirds of the way into volume three.

Oh no. Maybe a beta reader is going to shout up that there aren't enough roller-skating avians across the trilogy. That's a schoolboy error: the failure to properly consider the inclusion of long-limbed pink birds with a penchant for recreating sequences from Starlight Express.

I'm just blathering, due to the fact that a show-stopper from a beta is about the only thing that will halt the e-publication of the first three shadow books next week.

In other news Galleycat is asking how much self-publishing should cost. The estimates given of circa $0-$500 are about right in my opinion. They describe two very different scenarios.

Your $0 self-publisher, like yours truly, is going to spend, literally, years learning to be not just a writer but also a typographer, web site designer, editor and cover designer. They will make their own style and stick to it, they will find a way of doing things that works for them and, fingers crossed, works for their fans.

The $500 deluxe self-publisher writes books, gets them up to a standard and then farms out the cover design, editing and other refinements to third parties. That's certainly a valid way to go. The basic answer is that the less you want to be responsible for, the more it's going to cost you.

Like I said, I think that's fair.