Self-publishing is the ideal medium for family histories and other limited markets.  It can work well for those who qualify with all of the following:

1. You have an enormous readership, clientele, audience, or social network to sell more books than any publisher can.
   

2. Therefore, instead of selling books for your publisher, you’d rather sell for yourself.
   

3. You have professional editors on retainer to protect you from embarrassing yourself and you’re good at listening to other viewpoints from everyone around you.
   

4. You have sufficient staff to run your own publishing company.
   

It’s also the place of last resort for those who qualify in one or more of the following ways:

1. You want to experience the entire process, from idea to shipping, all by yourself, whether you make a profit or not.
   

2. You are either too far behind or too far ahead of your times.
   

3. You have been rejected by every agent and editor in the English-speaking world.
   

4. You have nothing universal to say, don’t write that well, and only want to see your name in print before you die.
   

Here are a few of the wrong reasons to choose self-publishing, and my responses to them:

You want to keep all the profits.

You might do that, after you pay all the expenses. Consider also, that while you handle all the marketing, you might be too busy to write your next book.

You’re a one-book wonder anyway.

Well then, by all means, have at it. If it’s only a hobby, go for it.

You think self-publishing will magically impress and attract a major publisher.

A few successful exceptions get remembered forever, and it could happen, but most self-published books are doomed to stay that way. A better way to impress publishers is to publish in magazines. The best way is to write a book proposal as good as the book. There’s still a stigma to self-publishing, with very little cross-over. If you do succeed, publishing on your own can leave you with a rough draft floating around on Amazon, proving that you needed a real publisher to begin with.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t consider self-publishing, only that it shouldn’t be the first and only option you consider.

You don’t know how many people would buy your book.

Uh-oh. Either way, you need to have a clue. And you might be pleasantly surprised to discover a potential readership large enough to attract a major publisher.

Roland Elgey, now of Content Connections, used to publish the For Dummies series. He laughed at the idea of ferrets-- until he learned how many American ferret owners there are. (I think it was about a million.) Yes, there is a Ferrets for Dummies, and it’s available in pet stores. You can even get it for Kindle.

Go to a brick-and-mortar bookstore and find the spot where your book fits. (Or maybe yours belongs in a pet store.) You’ll search online as well, of course, but studying in person will give you a birds’ eye view of those shelves apportioned by category.

Bookstores can depress a writer: with all those shelves of books already competing, who needs another one? But Roland Elgey says when he considered a book, he didn’t want to hear it was unique. He wanted to know that the chain bookstores have a whole shelf on that category and they’re selling.

And lest your subject seem esoteric, consider that Content Connections’ Women and Books 2007 national study learned that the number one category for women readers is Body/Mind/Spirit. (You can download the whole report free at http://www.womenandbooks2007.com/)

Estimating a memoir’s readership is tricky. To sell one, you can be famous, or you can have a fascinating adventure or two, or you can be fairly ordinary but insightful and eloquent. Few memoirists are all three. In the fairly ordinary category, take Frank McCourt. His miserable childhood could have become a whiny family history, selling one copy to his brother, but his Angela’s Ashes has poetry and wit, and became a bestseller and a movie.

A fiction market isn’t so easy to estimate either. Consider whose work might be similar to yours. Keep in mind that the bestseller nonfiction lists usually outsell the bestseller fiction lists about 10:1. If they combined them, the fiction wouldn’t even make the list. (Of course, if that matters to you, you weren’t a novelist in the first place.)

While you’re doing this research, you’re paying attention to who’s publishing what, who edited it whenever you can find out, and which publishing house might be the perfect home for your book. 

You have no idea how to contact a publisher or why they would bother with the likes of you.

You need Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal. 

You want money right now.

This year’s modest book advance might dwarf the profits of selling one book at a time, and writing the proposal isn’t any harder than writing the book. Try the proposal first. It will even show you whether you do believe you can sell this book and why.

You think the Internet has changed everything.

It has. It especially gives self-publishers a way to reach readers who are looking for a certain topic. However, “web marketing is still marketing.” And you’d better know your search engine optimization if you’re relying on strangers searching for you.

On second thought, you don’t want to be bothered with marketing and promotion.

Sorry. All authors, self or traditionally published are expected to take a major role here. Even with a traditional publisher, you’ll be promoting; but the hope is, that if orders for 50,000 books come in, a traditional publisher is prepared.

You did it your way.

If after this discouraging full disclosure, you honestly prefer to self-publish, there couldn’t be a better time. Self-POD (print on demand) publishing has become so convenient and inexpensive, at least you won’t lose much money. First, get Dan Poynter’s advice, as in his Self Publishing Manual.

My advice:

I suggest you study both options. You’ll not only have confidence that you’re making the best choice for your creation and your circumstances, but you’ll learn how to improve your book and how to market it, no matter who publishes it.

Gwyn