A couple of years ago, I worked on a project that included building a recommendation engine for books. It seemed like a worthy goal until I looked at my bedside table, which was covered with books I hadn’t read yet. And the floor around the table. And my home office desk. And my desk at […]

Update 2/19/2014: After I posted this, a friend pointed me toward a post that delineated the costs of the various steps toward self-publishing. Developmental editing costs $45-$65 per hour. The minimum cost for 280 typescript pages is $2,520. Maximum could be as much as $18,000 depending how much work the book needs. Copy-editing costs $25-$50 […]

Science fiction writer Charlie Stross recently wrote an interesting post called “Why I Don’t Self-Publish.” It isn’t necessarily designed to discourage writers from self-publishing, but it does show why the process can be daunting — and why the publishers expect the lion’s share of all revenue. Here’s a partial list of what a publisher does: […]