During my career I’ve worked with and for all sorts of publishers, from the giants like HarperCollins to mid-sized operations like Paladin Press to small presses and self publishers. I even have my own “press” that puts out a title now and then.

I’ve enjoyed all the work and worked with a lot of enjoyable people.

One thing I’ve noticed recently is the explosion of self-publishing that’s going on, in part due to the advent of both the ebook as well as POD (print on demand) services like Lulu, CreateSpace, and Lightning Press.

Self-published authors sometimes suffer put-downs from those who think all self-published books are inferior to those produced by publishing houses. Of course some titles are poorly done, and those give other self-publishers a bad reputation.

But many self-published books are every bit as good (or better) than many of the books being produced by publishing houses. This occurs when the author has talent and also spends some extra time and money to hire an editor to help with his writing, a proof reader to catch errors, and a professional graphics artist to lay things out. Self-publishers may even hire someone like me to create a professional cover illustration for them.

When these extra steps are taken, high quality books are the result.

At that point the author can join the ranks of some other famous writers. Because self-publishing is nothing new and not that long ago, almost everything was self-published (Benjamin Franklin comes to mind as an example of someone who bought a printing press mainly so he could publish and make a name for himself).

Among the ranks of those who first became known to the public through self-publishing are Henry David Thoreau (Walden); Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass); Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn); and more recently a whole slew of authors including Richard Bolles (What Color Is Your Parachute?) and James Redfield (The Celestine Prophecy).

Now don’t get me wrong. A book produced by an established press will be consistently well done while self-published books tend to be all over the map, from shoddy to outstanding. But in the end, it’s always wrong to dismiss an author simply because they self publish.

So perhaps we need a new cliche: “Never judge a book by its publisher.”

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Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator for self-publishing authors as well as established presses including HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many others. See his cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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