I have been lurking and reading much from No Media Kings (terrific) and probably should have done my research a bit more it seems. After one publisher printed the book WRONG - twice - and then a third publisher - did the same (although much of this had to do with my trying to convert Word into .pdf)- I felt the universe was telling me something. Becuase I had worked on this book off and on for over fifteen years, I sold my home and bought a cheaper one and had 10,000 printed (at $1.58 each four color cover 388 pages) and am advertising in SKIRT! and USA TODAY regionally. We shall see - just now starting. Because my market is 15- 18 million in the US alone 85 - 90% female - I hope to recoup my costs (Cross Country Fulfillment in CO has 24/7 phone also. But, like some of you have said, it was the issue of WRITING that was primary. The book savingyourlie.org is about coping skills with depression, I have felt that because I was a fighter and had discovered these tools in the trenches - that if I could HELP someone who did not have the energy to find help for themselves, then I was successful. Time will tell - I may be a complete idiot. Will post again and let you know.

Hey, there is what you need.

GF7cK1 Hey, there is what you need.

I too, have been inspired to write and even given my own web page at heritagemakers.com/155662!
I had no idea how easy it could be to make my own books. My mom who has written poetry for years dreamed of having books published, and now we can do it ourself!

Thank you for this great site, and especially the bannerfree blessing!

Edited by author 05-18-2004 09:25 AM
I'm a Lady Book Publisher, my press is Mama Specific Productions, http://www.MSPpress.com . I think with women the biggest issue is family and love life. Lets' face it: most women of reproductive age have or are going to have at least one kid. And most women are heterosexual or identify with the hetero lifestyle whether they actually are...that means dealing with a man in a relationship. And contrary to popular belief, most mothers are not home with their children on a full-time basis, there's paid outside work to do of some kind, even if it's just part-time.

The time, energy, and emotional investment in bearing and raising children and dealing with a man in a marriage or long-term relationship can be all-consuming. Throw having a job on top of that, and it takes a tremendous anount of will and determination to write, let alone publish your own stuff. I'm not trying to bash men at all nor am I trying to underestimate women, I just think that many men and fathers truly don't understand how unfair and unequal the distribution of house labor and child work is in their relationship. Even if they are fairly conscious and feminist-identifying like my husband.

Anyway. I think the mental effects of sexism are what hinder female writers who aren't mothers from self-publishing...I've been a mom since before I was an adult, so I don't know what it's like to have a grown-up life without children. I always assume women without children to have more time, energy, money, and emotional resources to invest in their projects than mothers but that doesn't seem to be the case. By mental effects I mean low self-esteem, fear of success; of doing something most women don't do, not having the money due to being paid less than men, etc.

that's part of why monica & i decided to self publish Some Words Spoken... we didn't see as many female names on poetry book covers as we'd like, so we thought we should go for it!
http://www.somewordsspoken.com

I'm not a self-publisher (yet), but I'm a "lady book publisher" and damn proud of it. Word Riot Press started up in January as an extension of Word Riot literary magazine.

Can't tell you just how useful NoMediaKings.org is.

hi
i found the nomediakings site through the danforth review site (danforthreview.com) and i am putting in my two cents because i am a woman and i self-published back in '98. reason: no university or publisher or magazine or any other authority impressed me at the time and i had no desire to submit my work to them. i shared my work live in cafés, pubs, festivals (a la gary snyder: "I'd emphasize... the need for the poet to identify with real people, not a faceless audience. There should be less concern with publishing, more with reading. A reading is a kind of communion. I think the poet articulates the semi-known for the tribe.")eventually my friends & acquaintances asked me for more and so i made a book and a cd for my friends, with a help from my friends. simple as that. it was fun and i highly recommend it. however, if ever i were to publish again, like many canadian writers, my dream publisher would be coach house press - a small press located on bpNichol lane in toronto (chbooks.com).
meanwhile, the cheapest ways to express yourself and be heard are open stages in real live reality and online in virtual reality.
[this applies for those interested primarily in expressing themselves and being heard, of course, not to those interested in "careers" as writers.]
best
kris
(krisnorthey.com)

I've been meaning to answer this question for awhile. Despite having done a fair amount of zine and newsletter publishing, I never even thought about self-publishing a book until I ran across the Mofo site. It just never dawned on me. When I did start to think about it, my hang up was sales. I'm probably the world's worse sales person. I determined I was willing to lose the money invested in self publishing if the book didn't sell because people didn't want it BUT I did not want to see the book fail to sell because I didn't have it in me to market it. For me personally, I think it's individual and gender related. I am not very good at nor very interested in "selling" myself. I'm lean more toward waiting on other's unsolicated support for something I've created or accomplished. I think there's some gender socialization in that.

I decided to go ahead, produce this book and self publish it in part as an experiment to see how the whole thing worked and because it seemed very similar to some of the "do it yourself" tacts women have taken on historical. Like, oh, for example in the US, gaining the right to vote. Go figure.

At my house we have something I call "chick tools." In the time it takes for one of the guys to wander off to the "real" tool shed, contemplate the benefits and disadvantages of one particular size gaget over another, make a choice and wander back to whatever needed tinkering with, I can have the dang thing fixed with a butter knife, a stick and a rock that were laying around nearby. Chick tools. I think of self publishing as a "chick tool." I still pretty much suck as a sales person, and the book I've published is a kind of oddity anyway, but I figure I've just gotten started and the jury's still out. Creating the book was very rewarding in itself.

Edited by author 04-18-2002 11:59 PM
Perhaps you just don't hear about us that much cos we are out there busy marketing our books.
I am a self published author of two books and proud of it.

Toya
http://www.whisper.co.nz/subspace

because they're too busy taking over the industry.

I think there aren't very many women who self-publish because fighting your way through a system, facing terrible odds, and people taking advantage of you is nothing new--especially for women. It is not true that we don't have to put up with all that if we self-publish. It will still be there. Self-publishing feels like taking a step back. I'm tired of labouring in obscurity and proving my work belongs on a store's bookshelf. With a publisher, you don't need to prove those things. And it is true that you don't make a lot of money when you publish with a big publisher--based on sales. Most of the money comes from winning those prestigious prizes like the Governor General's Award. There's a percentage of that prize that goes to your publisher. But it's not just the GG, there are countless of them out there. When a writer wins one of these awards, the publishing house gains reputation and find grant money and donations growing larger and coming in more easily. As a writer, you'll say it's not about the prizes--but everyone wants to win, and hopes to win. And if they say they don't want to, they're lying. It's like a musician saying they don't want to be famous. The total of these prizes, if you can win them, can sometimes add up to over millions. In this way, big publishers are looking for the best writers who are saying something well that matters but also will win these prizes. There are many talented and good writers out there, but publishers are not interested in publishing a very talented, good writer--they want to publish the best writer. This is why if you are the best writer your work is going to fight it's way through a system and come out on top when the odds are there. This, however, does not explain why some publishers are still publishing horrible stuff. Sometimes it's simply because the person is famous and so sales will do really well. Money, we have to admit, has a lot of say in getting things done. This is not to say self-publishing is not a good idea. I admire those who self-publish. It's a lot of work and in the end you get very little respect. Having done it yourself, you'll gain a better understanding and an appreciation for those who are working to help you (the publishers). As a self-publisher you do it because you love it--and if you don't then don't get into it. I self-publish my chapbooks. I did this not because I couldn't get published but because I didn't like the quality of chapbooks being published. I wanted quality paper and I wanted the intimacy and closeness that hand-made books gesture. I didn't have a lot of money but it didn't matter. Making one book was all I needed. I showed it to people and got orders. I've given away and sold close to a thousand. If anything good is going to happen, it's the work itself that will get there in it's own time. And remember, James Brown was shining shoes outside of a radio station--years later, he would come to own that radio station.

Despite the growing number of women who rock and women who make zines, there's not too many self-published books (especially novels) by women out there. Whydyathink?