This post is my submission to a writing contest on Backword Books about the future of self-publishing. 

Having just self-published an anthology, I have some personal experience about the issue, and also an interest in its future.

Like most authors, I came to self-publishing after failing to garner any interest in my book from mainstream agents/publishers and small presses. Each rejection initially put a damper on my dreams, but (fortunately or not), the rejections did not succeed in making me swear off the process altogether.

In previous years/decades, a person in my predicament might have resorted to vanity or subsidy publishing - essentially, paying a printer to print out a couple hundred to a couple thousand copies of the book, and then trying to sell them to friends/famly or giving them away.   

The advent of print-on-demand technology at a reasonable price has done away with the need to print a minimum couple hundred or couple thousand copies. At the same time changes in the mainstream publishing industry have meant that many many talented writers are being left out and they have started exploring other avenues to get their creative output in front of readers. Even though most such writers can and probably do have their own blogs, there is something to be said for having a tangible, portable and lasting product.  

Finally, there has been an explosion of sites such as Self-Publishing Review and Indie Author that are providing crucial support to self-publishing authors: creating awareness about the model, discussing strengths and weaknesses, success stories, other support services available to authors (book marketing, getting one's book reviewed), best practices and so on. These sites were invaluable to me when I finally decided to take the plunge into self-publishing. Equally, these services have been invaluable in terms of helping me feel less alone in my dream and in my endeavor.

All in all, I think self-publishing has come of age and so it makes sense to discuss its future over the next few decades.

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The current avatar of self-publishing is very closely tied to the maturation of two unrelated technologies. One is print-on-demand technology which makes it affordable to print one copy of a book at a time. The other is the Internet - blogs and blog collectives which make it easy to read and write eclectic content, connect with others interested in the same niche howsoever tiny it might be, and research issues that one is interested in or passionate about. The Internet also makes it possible to expand the reach of one's creative output through social networking sites and tools ranging from digg and redddit to facebook and twitter.

In the same way, I think the future of self-publishing will be tied to the widespread availability of another technological innovation - reasonably priced e-book readers. Yes, I feel this even though this goes counter to the argument I made above for a tangible and portable book product.  Here's how I see it working:

The first change will come when reasonably-priced ($150 and under) e-book readers  become available - somewhat like the initial mass market appeal of ipods and the subsequent success of all kinds of mp3 players.   The second change will come when the Kindle pricing model is replaced by one that is more rational and reasonable. Something like iTunes for the printed (or rather, the written) word.  

I find the Kindle pricing model unappealing for several reasons:

• considering that a physical product is not being manufactured and shipped, the (typical) $10 price tag feels exorbitant
• a Kindle version of a book cannot be shared with friends
• a Kindle version of a book cannot be sold as a used book  
• the recent flap where Amazon was able to actually delete copies of a book that people had purchased suggested that even at the exorbitant price, the book is not "owned" by the owner

Over the longer term, I see a few other exciting possibilities for self-publishing.

One: on sites like Open Salon, I often find compelling blog posts from a variety of authors (link, link, link).  While I am not generally interested in purchasing/saving all the blog posts from a single author, I can very well imagine creating a "custom" book of my most favorite blog posts - to savor later, to save as a snapshot of what I was reading/enjoying during a certain period of my life, and so on. Open Salon (and other sites like it) could create a "shopping cart" model to allow readers to create their own custom anthologies: add individual posts (with or without comments) to the cart and then have the resulting book printed, bound and shipped to the buyer (or downloaded with copy-protection/drm to the customer's e-reader).  (Note to Open Salon: if you do end up creating such a platform, don't forget to send some moolah my way ;-)  ) Thus self-publishing (enabled by the right technologies) offers a way for even occasional authors to receive a level of validation and compensation that is currently simply not possible. 

Two: School and college textbooks are exorbitantly expensive and unwieldy. Self-publishing will  allow teachers and professors to compile their own texts based on selected book chapters, online sources of research/reference, blog posts,  and so on. In addition to being cost-effective, this will allow for constantly updated textbooks, without the associated "new edition" shenanigans that are currently the norm.  

Three: I have come to see self-published books as the creative output of literary artisans. That is, where goods manufactured in factories have one kind of perfection, artisan-produced arts and crafts have their own charm and are infused by the creative energy of the hearts and minds, eyes and fingers of the artist who created the artwork. I feel the same sense of wonder about the self-published books that I have read. I find them free of filtering and reconstruction in the quest for mass appeal and faux exotification. One such book is Afghan Journal by Jeff Courter which I reviewed here.  Over time, I expect (hope) that more people will become as sophisticated about their book purchases as they already are about the art they hang on their walls. 

Four: In the current publishing model, books tend to be bigger in order to justify a higher price. It is akin to restaurants serving larger portions so that diners don't feel too bad about the $11.99 and up menu price. With restaurants and with books, often, I would be happy with half the content for half the price. With kiosk-based self-publishing and the resultant lack of shipping cost, smaller books will be readily accepted. A 150-page e-book for $5.95 will make sense, especially if a return fee of$1.95 is built into that price. This will lead to having more writers, more focused books, more readers.

All this while fewer trees are cut!