Not so long ago, the word, self-publishing sent collective groans through the publishing world. Self-published writers were looked down upon.

There were two main reasons that self-published writers faced and many times, deserved the stigma. The first reason was quality. Self- published authors paid to publish their own work, most of them on a tight budget. Self- publishing is cheap and quick. The problem with those concepts was that cheap did not always translate into high quality product. The market was flooded with low quality books.

 The second reason was quality control. There was an abundance of books that were poorly edited and written. This, combined with the perception, perpetuated by the large publishing houses, vanity writers were rejected writers. Publishing companies like to believe that they are the arbitrators of quality control.

Much of the stigma surrounding self-published books has fallen to the wayside. Authors now have networks of professionals that they can hire to do the work that the traditional publishers previously did for their authors. Authors are spending the money to hire good editors, reviewers, marketers, and other professionals to get their books sold.

The result of those efforts is that many self-published books are now on bestseller lists. Reviewers, who once shunned Indie books, are changing their policies to include Indie books. The best part of all of this change is that readers play a role in determining what is on the best seller lists. Traditional publishers used to be the gatekeepers, deciding what was worth publishing. They also decided what manuscripts were not worth publishing. This process was more driven by what was considered mainstream and would sell, rather than embracing new ideas. Readers are now choosing authors with new and creative ideas that the traditional publishers rejected.

The stigma of self- publishing has not been erased entirely, but it has certainly come along way.

Juliet Dillon Clark is the author of four novels and CEO of Winsome Entertainment Group, a self-publishing company. If you are interested in publishing your novel, call us at (661)251-6900 or e- mail juliet@julietclark.com.