A Note on Self-Publishing ‘I like what you have written but it is not sensational enough for a commercial publisher.’ So said the literary agent. so I publish it myself. Half the titles published in Britain now are self-published. The great advantage of publishing oneself is having control over the work: you, the author, decide – with the advice of printers, designers, typesetters etc. – how the book is to be made. This is interesting and enjoyable as well as a refreshing change from being published where the author’s preferences are secondary to the publisher’s. The only real drawbacks are the cost and the challenge of distribution; the production of a small print run of even a paperback is expensive and selling more than a handful of books takes a lot of time and leg-work.