Do you have any tips about self publishing?

I have one very important tip. Stay far far away from Publish America. They are a scam and you will definitely be sorry if you have anything to do with them. Oh and don't go with self publishing until you have exhausted every chance of having your writing actually published.

Well, if you ask me the greatest problem to overcome this is the cost. But if you have the spare money then I urge you to do so. No matter what others may say as long as you are passionate with what you are doing then I doubt it can go wrong, and on the slight chance that it does you'll learn a valuable lesson so there is really no bad site do this now is there? Mind if I ask what book are you trying to publish?

One of the easiest ways is to create it in pdf format and distribute it in an ebook format, of course you charge for it to be downloaded by anyone who is interested, but there is the marketing side of it that you would have to do yourself as part of the deal this way, which can be quite difficult. At least if you get an actual offline publishing deal the publishing company usually handles all the marketing.

I self-publish my own small, poetry zines. I simply lay it out the way I want it and network with a local artist to do my cover. Then my local copy store runs it off for me. I sell them at local, arts events and my favorite local, independent bookstore lets me sell them there, too. I also a lulu.com account. It's free and print on demand. As much a don't like the tone of one responders to your discussion; I hear bad things about Publish America, too.

What genre is your book? You have to be very careful with self-publishing. You need to have an editor. My book, Cat-House Sonnets, 100 poems celebrating cats, was published by Jorlan Publishing. They did an excellent job and were a joy to work with. They had an artist do the cover and a layout expert to design the inside. Check it out at www.jorlanpublishing.com/Cat-HouseSonnets.htm My book won the Muse Medallion Award from Cat Writers Association and the Best Poet from Preditors & Editors. You have to market your book yourself even if you go with a standard publisher. They accept very few books and take years to go through the process. You need to find out where your market is and do plenty of work to sell a book. I wish you lots of luck.