From reporter to the corner office: a self-publisher’s maiden voyage

Self-publishing, once derided as ‘vanity publishing’ reserved for losers who couldn’t find a traditional publisher, has gone mainstream.

Four simple questions recently changed my life, and I hope they’ll change yours, too.

As a journalist, freelance magazine writer and author, I’ve been working for publishers for 50 years. They were shadowy figures in suits, sometimes glimpsed in the elevator, but rarely stepping into the newsroom. Often, they were just a name on my paycheck.

Nevertheless, they controlled my life, and the lives of those in the newsroom, and not just through the wages they paid. While leaving editorial decisions to editors, (usually) they ruled over the business side: printing, marketing, promotion, distribution, and all the other work required for the daily miracle of newspapers, monthly deadlines for magazines, and those for books that may stretch for years.

This fall, dissatisfied with the marketing and promotion of my last three books, I decided that it was time for a change. I wanted to control my own publishing destiny.

To read the full article on poynter.org, click here