Why?...Why create your own publishing company?
After years and years of submitting my stories to publisher after publisher and receiving enough rejection letters to wallpaper the walls of my office, I grew tired and frustrated. I would hear the same line over and over. We like your work, but you are not known. "We don't have the budget to cover the costs of bringing a "new" (I've been writing for over 20 years) writer to the market. But, as soon as you get something published give us a call."

So I went on with my life, raising my children, working in a job I hated for 20 more years. All the while I would write new stories just to leave them on the hard disk of several reincarnations of my "main" computer. Then one wonderful day I decided I had had enough. I retired from my own company, a commercial real estate appraising firm, and once again dove head and shoulders into my "fun" writing. This time I was going to be smart about my approach to publishers. I would get an agent and he/she would represent me.....Yeah....RIGHT!...43 rejection letters later, it suddenly dawns on me..."It ain't gonna happen this way, genius."

So, being a very proactive kind of guy, I put an ad on Craig's List for an illustrator...I selected my illustrator....I paid him to illustrate my books....Then, I needed some way to show the world all my "wonderful and imaginative" stories...Yeah...okay...So...I'm sitting at my desk staring at all my fabulously, and very expensive, illustrated books and saying to myself...."Great idea, Einstein!...So now what are you going to do?"

A ton of money later, I create a website. But, being who I am...It isn't just a simple website to show off my books in eBook form....NO!....Not me!..."Simple" is not in my nature. No. I create company logos, have t-shirts and other "fun" products printed up (in several colours), hook up shopping carts and sign up with drop shippers. I create a corporation through my state's Secretary of State office, sign up with the Department of Labour for unemployment insurance, the Department of the Treasury for my tax id, my local city government for my sales tax license...Hey!...If you're gonna do something.....Do it like you mean it!....Even if it buries you....So....There I am, staring out from the hole that I have successfully dug for myself, and one issue continues to nag me....I still don't have a way to put my books physically into the marketplace.

So I start researching just how to do this. I find that you have to copyright your books. So, I do that. Then I discover that I need an ISBN number for the different types of books (ebooks, paperback, hardback all have to have different ISBNs.)...So I order my block of ISBNs. Then I discover that I have to have barcodes on the books....So...I order my barcodes....Then I find out that I, as a self-publisher, need to have an SAN number which identifies me to wholesalers, distributors and retailers....Sooooo, okay...I get that. Now I have to print the book.....I research all sorts of printers all over the country before I find one that doesn't require one of my kidneys as down payment.....WOW!....Is that one tough task...THEN....I have to work on distribution. Writing up my ads, driving around to bookstores, contacting Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, and the others.....Can I tell you now....that you REALLY have to want to get your books published if you go through this?..

When it is all said and done, I have learned a great deal, and I have books ready for the marketplace....Hey...I just described the work of a publisher!....So...If I did the work then I MUST BE a publisher!...And there you have it!

Keeping a Smile,

Val