Why would any self-publisher go around saying he or she is a self-publisher unless there is no intention to ever do more than publish one book and disappear. (And there is nothing inherently wrong with that!)
“Small publisher” or “independent publisher” includes everything from one book upwards. And surely that single book is just the first book. If you have found out how to do it and done it successfully, is it not likely that you may then do the same for an even more struggling author?
I am not even sure I like the term “small publisher” except that it does distinguish us from the big boys in New York who try to rule the world of books and do it so badly. In that sense small publishers include firms employing hundreds of people, firms I have been proud to be numbered among, firms like the publisher Lonely Planet built in the same city I live in by two people who wrote, edited, laid out and hawked their first travel guide, building from that to what is now a world-wide employer.
I did it differently (and less successfully) — my business was me alone, working from home, but giving employment to others via contract work, and I was proud to be among other home workers such as the magazine publisher couple I know who turn over millions of dollars a year from four titles. When I sold my publishing business I had eight current book titles and five authors.
Step one in publishing is to divorce you the author from you the publisher. I do not mean hiding that you are both, but, with all that effort which has to be put into publishing a first book, some of that effort should be put into building a publishing name that can be used in future.
I have sympathy for the reviewers who will not handle “self-published” books. Even if the quality is reasonable, the description still says “I don’t really know what I’m doing”. There is a world of difference between the self-published book and the first book published by a new publishing firm owned by the author.
It is also unlikely that, even if you use the term self-publisher, that you truly do everything yourself. You can, as I did, do everything from producing the pages on a photocopier to binding them yourself and trimming them with a guillotine.
You can take your own orders and hand over the packages at the post office. But is that as far as you ever intend to go? I think not.
You are a Publisher. It needs no prefix.
