How to Be Your Own Publisher

Okay, sunod sa memo n'yo na wag nang pag-usapan ang project dito sa blog. Heto na lang ang contribution ko na halos related din naman sa topic, How to Be Your Own Publisher. Isang excerpt:

Publishing has been an arcane specialist skill under the control of a guild of people that are unique and different from anyone else," the founder and chief executive of Xlibris, John Feldcamp, says. "Those skills have been so complicated they haven't been accessible to normal human beings. What's happening is all the technologies of publishing are becoming increasingly cheap and accessible," as almost every aspect of production, including design and printing, has gone digital.

"Companies like Random House and Simon & Schuster are in the process of investing in highly valuable properties. They want to find Deepak Chopra; they don't want to find a writer necessarily who has an audience of 10,000 people," Feldcamp says. Ultimately, he predicts, "companies like us will support the lion's share of content out there," though probably not of best sellers, he concedes. The majority of books produced by self-publishers sell a few hundred copies at most.

Kung susumahin ang article na ito na galing sa New York Times, ang punto lang ay ang unti-unting amateurization ng book publishing, which isn't really rocket science, pero nagmumukhang ganun dahil kontrolado ito ng kakaunting tao at parang napaka-misteryoso ng proseso.

Ayon sa article, kung desidido ka talagang magkaroon ng sarili mong libro, you can give them something like $590 and they'll convert your manuscript into a book at tutulungan ka nilang i-house ito sa ilang main chain bookstores. Pero mukhang applicable lang ito sa Tate. Pero nakikita kong may puwang pa rin ito sa local scene. We may not be the next Deepak Chopra, pero we can go the way of Bob Ong, who pushes his own books.

Anong tingin n'yo?