Independant publishing vs. Publshing "Firms"/ "Houses"

[sillyscarecrow]

I would like opinions with some sort of facts and or lessons, that support your opinions. I ask this because I have finished my children's book a whole year ago, and when I was going to save up to do independent publishing...a wealthy person I knew stepped in to hook me up with some of his publishing contacts.  All i know is that Random House publishers have looked at it, but he has not gotten back to me in a while.  I'm still saving up for Independent publishing and redrawing all the pictures in the book a lot better.  Still i ask myself the question.

Thanks

[Xepher]

While both can result in quality books these days, it's still rather necessary to go through a traditional publisher if you want your book to end up on bookstore shelves to be sold. Don't fall for the trap of "vanity publishers" who often promise to get your book into bookstores, yet require YOU to pay them. Any real publisher will pay ALL costs involved in bringing a book to market, as well as pay you for the book. Anyone that requires you to pay is not a publisher, but at best a printer (and at worst, a scam.) If you decide to go the self-publishing route, use a good service, one that doesn't promise much more than getting your book printed (and possibly ISBN registered) for a fair cost. There are print on demand services like lulu.com which are rather good for self-publishing, as you're basically only paying basic fees to get going, and they're not promising to get you onto the shelves at barnes/nobel or anything.

Bottom line is just be cautious and make sure you read up and research whatever company you go with, as well as what rights you're actually selling. There are a LOT of scams and shady companies out there.

[sillyscarecrow]

Thanks a lot. will do

[Munerift]

...I would also chime in with suggesting you google your work sometime. Pop the title, your name, your pen-name, or even some of the actual story in just to make sure some sticky fingers haven't ran off with your work as demonstraited here: http://xepher.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=434

[fesworks]

Top result for "fesworks"

Faculty of Environmental Studies career services.
http://www.yorku.ca/fes/fesworks/index.asp

hahaha!

the rest are all links to my profiles at various sites right after

http://fesworks.xepher.net/ and http://fesandernst.com/ ... though I'm curious why my "fesworks.com" does not show up on the first page :


EDIT:

WOW! not even if I search "Fesworks.com" ....

I plus in my comic's full name and I get a bunch of sites on Depression :p

[griever]

My username is so generic, but my site ends up being listed right under the Wikipedia entry.  

Fesworks, how old is your domain name?  When I bought mine, Google still had the xepher.net version listed before the domain for a while.

[fesworks]

I originally bought it from NameDemo from like 2001... then I have it until mid-2003 and then stopped using it (noone picked it up) then I rebought it a year or two ago i think...

For some readson Archive.org is ignoring the new stuff I did in 2005 and 2006 (no new archives)

At risk of looking like a tool:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://fesworks.com

oh man! what HORRIBLE PAGES!!!!!

I had my own idea to web-publish works on my site.. not just my stuff, but others... I think I got 2 or 3 people to submit stuff for me to post.... I was really wordy in my disclaimers... man, I sucked so bad. Horrible Horrible pages!!!

[griever]

Wow, that's so old school.  But everyone has to start somewhere.  My first websites were on Geocities and they were AWFUL.  I'm so glad archive.org doesn't have them.  I embraced frames.  x.x

[Xepher]

Wow, today was actually the 5 year anniversary of the oldest page Archive.org has for the main site.

Xepher.net, as of Jan. 05, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020105044626/http://xepher.net/

You'll note I already had about a dozen users. The site itself was actually in operation for about a year before that even, but wasn't big enough for archive.org to notice it. And wow... the "stats" link actually works. Looks like we're running about 122 times more traffic now than in 2002. 43,000 pages a month, to 5.7 million now. Blows my frelling mind! :-P

[griever]

That's pretty cool.  How many of those original users are still active though?  I recognize willsan and fort ruddler, but no one else.

[reinder]

Some things you should know. Not as a specific answer to your question, but as a general primer to the world of publishing - most of these links are related to comics, but there are some relating to writing in general.

[fesworks]

Wow, that's so old school.  But everyone has to start somewhere.  My first websites were on Geocities and they were AWFUL.  I'm so glad archive.org doesn't have them.  I embraced frames.  x.x

Mine was on Geocities. Archive.org only archives sites with a register Domain name. (as far as I understand it)

[Xepher]

Just an FYI, Sillyscarecrow left as far as I know. So while you're free to keep answering his post, it might be a waste of time. I'm sure someone might find it useful anyway though. Also, thread-jack all you want. :-)

[tickyhead]

http://web.archive.org/web/20030324093320/http://www.mystikskies.com/

My first website actually had a domain name, and there it is! But most of the images aren't showing up, uncluding the background image. Sadly (not really) I lost the images I used for the links, but oh well. It was a tree just so you know.

All I can say is...ye gods I was hyper back then. Just how much soda was I injesting when I was 14?

Threadjack!

[edit] also, I typed mystic instead of mystik in for fun, and found this:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mysticskies.com

He started in august, I started in april. Coincidence!? It'd be more fun if it wasn't

[Gwyn]

Man looking at that stuff makes me think of the stuff I used to do. I'm so ashamed of it . I'm still ashamed of alot of the stuff I do now anyway :p