Please.

Signing up with a self-publishing service doth not make thee a self-publisher.

Actual self-publishers get LCCNs and P-CIPs so their books can be sold to libraries.

Actual self-publishers do, indeed, have imprints and business addresses and business licenses and resale licenses and their own block of ISBNs purchased directly from www.bowker.com.

Actual self-publishers are members of Amazon’s Advantage program and Independent Book Publishers Association and Small Presses of North America  and have book-rep and wholesaler and distributor agreements; they use traditional book manufacturers or industry-connected printers  and go to great lengths to ensure editorial accountability, find credible internal and cover designers, and pay for warehouse and fulfillment facilities.

Actual self-publishers only use POD (Print, not Publish, on Demand–it’s a type of printing, not a type of publishing) to send out advance galleys for reviews, because short-run POD printing tells the book industry you only intend to sell a few dozen copies.

Self-publishing is a full-time business that requires editorial accountability, industry registrations, and multiple-avenue distribution supported by marketing and promotion. Whether you’re releasing your own titles or someone else’s, the enterprise requires business formalities, serious time, and significant financial investment.

I’m sorry–and I know I’m fighting a losing battle along with all the other people in the traditional-publishing world–but “self-publishing” through a “service” is just another euphemism for subsidy publishing, pure and simple.

There are only two absolutes in the book industry: 1) all publishers edit according to Chicago Manual of Style (except those that don’t) and 2) all publishers expect authors to use MS Word (except those that don’t).

The Pirates of the Caribbean movies said it best: all those “rules” are really just guidelines. When it comes to writing, editing, submitting, and publishing,  there are really no absolutes, no hard-and-fast rules, no by-the-book regulations. Instead, the business is very firmly based on what this person wants, what that person remembers has sometimes worked in the past, or what some guy in marketing believes will work next quarter. It’s quite hit-or-miss, very trial-and error, extremely whatever works for a particular individual at a given moment on their one, specific project.

So if it works, you did it right. If it doesn’t, you didn’t. If it worked last time, you did. If it doesn’t work now even though it worked last time, you did then but not this time. If it works again next time, you did. If it works for you but not for him, you did, he didn’t.

Have I made myself fairly clear?