Seems like I’ve rambled about this before, but some random guy (link via kottke) was talking about the ability to be your own publisher. He took a public domain book, found a version online, and made his own edition of the book on Cafepress.

There’s all kinds of fun you could have making your own version of books. I can imagine doing a fun library series of stuff — though I suppose finding public domain books might be a little difficult (and if everyone got on the bandwagon it wouldn’t be so cool).

But as a writer the real fun part is the ability to be my own publisher. I could publish a book and only have to put the creation and production time into it. That’s my only investment. The general consumer could order my books one at a time and you avoid the hassle of the publishing industry’s advances and unsold copies and all that. It’s a perfect solution for low-demand books.

It really makes me think about FX-77 Spacefighter.

Another wet blanket for the fire of being a published author: “The Confessions of a Semi-Successful Author” (from Salon.com premium — you need to be a subscriber or watch a short commercial).

Stories like this are always semi-depressing. Though this one seems even more so because the numbers the author is talking about for an adavance seem ridiculously high. At least to me.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the publishing industry is all about business. Recently I read Jason Epstein’s Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future. It’s a poorly written book by a longtime editor and publishing bigshot, but it does give an overview of the publishing industry over the last 50 years and how hard it is to make a profit. It used to be the publishing industry existed to sustain the art of literature. Profits were secondary (sounds a bit too idealistic, I know). But then everything became a conglamerate and now publishers are only interested in best-sellers.

Yet writing still seems like such a glamorous career.

On Thursday I went to a reading of Jesus Sound Explosion by Mark Curtis Anderson. His nervousness was infectious. He couldn’t decide whether to stand or sit (it didn’t help that he had one of those stools that’s high enough that it requires an awkward jump to sit in), to drink coffee or water, to use a microphone or speak loudly, to start by introducing himself or just read. In a different situation his uncomfortableness would have driven me crazy (I get that sort of feeling watching the junior highers in youth group vying for attention), but for some reason I relished it. Call it sadistic, but I think I was envisioning myself giving the reading, and I thought I couldn’t do much worse.

Writing is anything but glamorous, yet that’s what everyone thinks. Last week I landed an average paying article assignment that will require interviewing pop-star Mandy Moore. Everyone’s really excited about this, but it’s really no big deal. I’ll probably be one of 20 interviewers Mandy talks to in the course of a press day, she’ll tell me the same canned line she’s told everyone else. By the time the article’s finished I’ll have spent too many hours and I’ll be making the equivalent of a fast food salary. But I got to speak to Mandy Moore.

(And half of you are asking, “Who’s Mandy Moore?”)

The Salon article ends with this:

I ran into Patty the day her ninth book became her first to hit the Times bestseller list. She grabbed me by the shoulders, looked deep into my eyes. “It doesn’t change anything,” she said grimly. “My mother still doesn’t approve of me. I still don’t have a boyfriend. I still can’t sleep at night. Don’t let this be what you’re waiting for.”

And yet I wait for my agent’s call, telling me there’s another chance that it could happen for me.

Writers are a sick bunch.