Gerry writes, "A general, and unbreakable, rule of thumb is NEVER pay to have your work published.... anyone who pays to have a book printed.... is just as certainly out of their mind.....Getting fiction into print any other way is merely vanity or stupidity."

Well, it really depends on your purpose. If writing is your life and you want a career as an author and are prepared to spend years sending manuscripts away with many rejections, the only way to go is to try to find a publisher. You have to believe in your work and be prepared to for a very long haul. And your dream nay never happen. As well, finding a agent for an unpublished author is extremely difficult.

But if you want to leave something for your family and friends or for posterity or if you have no time in life to play the inevitable rejection game, paying a company to print your book and make it widely available is a viable option, providing you realize the limitations. It does not mean that you are out of your mind, stupid, or vain. You may be, but you could just as easily be all of these things and be a celebrated published author. <8-)

Disclosure: I published a non-fiction scientific writing book for our students via my university department that was seen by a visiting Japanese physician and subsequently published in Japanese:

Letendre P. (with Peter Letendre) Wakariyasui igakueigoronbun. Osaka: Iyaku Journal Company, 1994. (Japanese translation of Fundamentals of Writing for the Biomedical Sciences. Edmonton: Division of Medical Laboratory Science, University of Alberta, 1991.)

My husband has published a book of humorous children's poems, "If I Could Be a Doughnut":
http://www.palwrite.com/

Cheers, Pat
UA: http://www.ualberta.ca/~pletendr/
PLC: http://www.patletendre.com/

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