Cover design Author portrait Page design
10 Steps to Pretty Successful Self-Publishing
Channelling Walt Whitman, July 1855
- Write your book. Take your time: six or seven years to master your groundbreaking style.
- Design your book yourself.
- Get your book printed at more or less any printing shop. They needn’t have printed an actual book like yours before, but they should know about quality.
- Set some of the type yourself. If Virginia Woolf can do it, so can you.
- Don’t reveal your name at first. Rather give us a great author portrait.
- Distribute your book yourself.
- Oblige your friends to distribute your book. They needn’t like your book or know much about books at all.
- Print a cheaper version when you start running low on cash. Compromise on the packaging, not your words.
- Be your own press agent, including publishing without permission any complimentary private letters you may receive from famous people.
- Be your own critic. Write favourable reviews. Don’t hold back!
Derived from Malcolm Cowley‘s 1961 introduction to Highveld’s 1983 Penguin edition
