After about a year of writing in the wee hours of the morning, and a few months of reviewing, feedback from some wonderful resources, and some editing and corrections, I set about the process of trying to get the book our to the world.  That was almost more difficult than writing it in the first place!

It used to be that you would write a book, struggle through finding an agent, and then letting him or her do all the work of getting it out to a publisher and the market in general.  They might take you to a few cocktail parties where you could meet publishers and convince them how wonderful you were and how wonderful your writing was and absolutely fantastic your book was.  And then you went back in your closet and wrote another book.

You can probably still do that.  There are certainly still literary agents about, but the new Indie publishing opportunity allows anyone to publish a book.  And there are a lot of people and organizations out there who are more than willing to take your money and help you!  There is a line between Vanity Publishing and Self Publishing.  At least I would like to think so.  The Vanity Publishers tell you that you have the best book in the world and you deserve to be on the New York Times bestsellers list and they can get you there.  For a fee!  You pay them to do it all because they appeal to your vanity and make it feel like it is a privilege for them to even consider working with you.

There are also organizations in the middle that seem like publishing houses, that will take your money for editing and promoting or anything else that you want, putting their brand on it if they accept you and you agree to their rules or not if you just choose to use their services.

And then there are the publish and distribution organizations - companies that will convert your document to the right format and distribute it through their connections to the big distribution houses.  They don't give you any input on the content or quality of your work of art.  That's not their job and not what you are paying for.

And then there are all the organizations that provide add-on services from editing to promotion to video trailers to cover design, layout design, and typefaces.  Just about anything you can think of someone has set up an organization that will take your money and assist you with getting your book out into the world.

Wading through all the choices and options is painful and a shot in the dark.  The path I chose from this smorgasbord may or may not work, may or may not be the best route.  But it's out there now and everything and everyone says that you have to spend hours sending out press releases and blog posts and tweets, etc. if anyone is ever going to know that the book exists!  And since everyone says it, it must be right.  Any advice?