Do I need a publisher?

Do I need a publisher?

The answer to do I need a publisher is yes you do. On the whole you do. You can try publishing yourself directly onto the internet and I think that on the whole you just won't be read. You can publish yourself and some people have been successful doing that. In fact, there have been two book price short lists who have self published and they were very successful. But on the whole, I think that an author needs all the things that a publisher can offer, and that's not just being able to put it between hardcovers or soft covers. It's the whole editorial process. An enormous amount of work goes into making a book just right, but also it's making the book look good, getting the design right, knowing about the book trade, knowing how to publicize a book, how to market a book, how to get a book into bookshelves, which is increasingly difficult in these days when the chains only want the big books. They're very very much, not against, but hard to bring around to new writers, to new voices. So, really an author needs the might and muscle of a publisher, a publishing company to get their voice heard.