A Wealth of Opinions - Where Are the Facts?

As I have broadened my research into Self-Publishing I find  more and more debate on the subject. But not enough cold, hard facts. As the saying goes we all have opinions. (G)

I found this the other day on Forward Motion: "Forward Motion's core purpose is to help writers become professionally published. We welcome serious writing hobbyists as well, but our purpose and goals are geared toward professional careers. We do not allow fanfiction posts and we don't promote self-publishing."

I have the greatest respect for Forward Motion ,what I learned there, in a scant year, was tremendously helpful. I'm glad to see that they have taken the effort to put their stand upfront.

What does this tell me? The Self-Publishing debate has gone deep into the writers communities. It is not a new issue. The majority of the bloggings I've seen are a year or more old. If the attitude towards self-publishing has changed in the past year, I can't yet tell. I do know that more people are taking this route all the time, and a few of them appear to be doing well with it.

Bottom line - it is much more work that most people realize.

A few links to give you an idea of what's out there:

Podio Books  you can give away free audio versions of your indie book. Each podcast is a chapter. Some are read by the author, others are dramatized. They had their one millionth download the first year. Think about that for a moment.

Self Publishing - 25 Things You Need to Know. This is where I started looking. I'm still following links off this one. There is some great stuff here.

April L Hamilton wrote a Guide for Independent Authors - I'm currently reading it. The edition I have is from 2008 - and a year is a long time when Technology and Creativity merge.  

In case you are wondering I've posted these links - without much in the way of commentary - because I think that each author has the right to make up their own mind about what's right for them. I'm not coping out, I'm still looking into this. But I know that I'm not the last word on the subject. Just another blogger taking up space.

Hopefully these links will prove as helpful to you as they have to me.