If you have already decided to self publish but are not yet certain if you should self publish in print or electronically, this article may help you decide. In the last article I focused on the pros and cons of selling e-books. In this article I will focus on the pros and cons of traditional self publishing in print. I will focus on three major factors: Cost, logistics, and your career.

Most self publishing in print costs more than digital self publishing. This is because you are producing an actual physical item, not something that can be downloaded as a file. This is also because some self publishing companies are not very forward about the price involved. So you start out paying one price, then the additional costs add up.

Amazon has some pretty reasonable self publishing options, so does Lulu, but make sure to research before committing to one self publishing company over another. The additional issue is that after publishing your book you sometimes have to spend more money to ensure that it ends up in people’s hands, in terms of publicity as well as shipping.

Logistically a print book is harder to get to your customers, because it is a physical book that requires shipping, or a shelf to sit on at a bookstore. Most chain bookstores will not sell self published books, but a lot of local independent bookstores will. However you often have to pay them a small fee (between 10 and 30 dollars) in order for them to place it on the shelf. It will cost the same amount of money to sell the book through Amazon. Both places also take a cut out of any sales you may make.

It is also harder for people that don’t know you to stumble across a physical book and buy it. You must put a lot of effort into publicizing the book, although that is an issue whenever you self publish, regardless of the format.

A lot of emphasis has been placed in the last year on e-book authors that later become even more successful through a more traditional publishing deal. However authors who self publish in print have also been known to do this successfully. Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, was originally self published before Knopf published it and the rest of the Inheritance Cycle.

In any case, you have a lot to consider when self-publishing a book, but format is one of the most important things. After all it will effect how your readers will interact with your book. Ultimately, if you have never read an e-book, it’s probably not best to start with self-publishing one, so go with print instead.

Fables are all around us. They were told to us as kids and we repeat them as adults. Fables have been modified over time. Hansel and Gretel were transformed from helpless children to witch hunters with weapons and skills in a recent Hollywood movie. Fables are flexible that way.

In this exercise I want you to take at least 15 minutes to write your own fable. It could be a fictionalized version of your life where suddenly your basil plant can talk to you, or your cat is a runway model. It could be a modernized version of a more traditional fable, or it could be something completely new about a talking tree and a talking car that fall in love.

Ultimately the contents are up to you. Your story just has to involve traditional myth elements, including a moral, of some sort.

Happy writing!

Farrago’s well designed website and striking art work, combined with its clean lay out and intuitive design, help make it more appealing than the average online journal. It is always an adventure to submit to a new journal, particularly the first issue, but in my experience it is always a risk worth taking. Editors of new journals, particularly ones that have put a lot of energy into designing a good website, tend to be more committed towards promoting their journal and the writers they publish in it.

Editors of more established journals tend to have less energy, but new editors are eager to prove their worth and the worth of the journal they created. Most of the lasting relationships I have formed with editors were formed with editors of new journals. Many of these journals are now established and respected, but they didn’t start out that way. Yet my work appeared  in the first issue, and often in later ones as well.

Farrago is interested in work that is clean, raw, and modern. They publish once per month. They are interested in poems, short stories, and works of political and social analysis. They accept simultaneous submissions, although they wish to be notified if your work is accepted elsewhere.

They accept submissions by email. Your work must be attached in .odt or .doc format, and must be written in size 12 Arial, Helvetica or Times New Roman font. All submissions should be double spaced. After your work is published by Farrgo, you retain the rights to it.

I encourage submissions to Farrgo because if your work should be accepted you will get the opportunity to be a part of a literary journal right from the beginning. Visit their website at: http://www.farragomagazine.org/

Cold Mountain Review is published by the Appalachian State University. They are well respected and have published many well known authors over the last few decades. They are only available in print, but excerpts of pieces they particularly enjoy are available online, so that you can get a feel for what they like.

They only accept one submission per writer per year, so choose what you are going to submit carefully. They only accept postal submissions, which actually helps your chances as most writers now exclusively submit online. This may account for their relatively high acceptance rate. They accept almost 15% of the work submitted to them. This is very unusual because they are established and respected journal.

Your submission must include an SASE (self addressed stamped envelope), otherwise they will not read it.  They do not accept previously published work but they do accept simultaneous submissions. You can submit up to five poems at a time. Short stories and works of creative non fiction should be no more then 6,000 words in length. Poems should be single spaced and all other work should be double spaced.

When choosing poems the editors really seem to gravitate towards images and an easy to follow narrative. In terms of fiction and non fiction the editors seem to gravitate towards details.

They usually respond to submissions within two months, so if you haven’t heard from them by the third month it might be the right time to send them an email.

In conclusion Cloud Mountain Review is a respected, established journal, that publishes good detail driven story. They are an excellent journal to have on your list of publications, so please submit before the end of May.