On thinking about self-publishing

I write. A lot.

As well as blogging, I write policy, standards and professional documents as a contractor; I write articles for journals and magazines, and some of them even get published. I've written two complete middle-grade children's novels, for which I will seek a publisher one day, if I ever get up the courage to do it. I am halfway-ish through a future-dystopia-adventure story for young adults, which is coming along nicely.

I also write poetry. Some of it very bad, some of it very derivative - but some of it, just a little of it, ringing true to me, finding the voice I want to find to express the things I can't express in narrative prose.

I have written quite a large body of poetry over the past ten years. A lot of it will deservedly never see the light of day, and some of it, published here, need not be revisited. I have, though, about 50 pages of poems that I would like to collect, for my family mostly, and present as a coherent body of creative work.

So, because the poetry of the unpublished middle-aged housewife is not a massive buying sector for publishing houses, I am toying with the idea of self-publishing my poems rather than trying to shop it as an actual book.

I was thinking of doing a simple b&w layout with a cover from one of my Dad's artworks, standard paperback size, no internal colour, 80gsm stock, saddle stitched and standard paperback covers (plus an ebook version, naturally, these days :-) I have some book layout experience and all the professional tools, and given it's not a design heavy project, I think I could do it myself.

I thought I might get 100 printed, because I have at least 50 family and friends who I can rely on to pity-buy a copy, and I want a few to keep or pass around, or even sell if the interest is there.

Based on quotes I've received, if I sell it at $10 or so, it would be cost-neutral for me once I sell 80 of the 100, and low-cost once I've sold 50. So it's not a big expense to contemplate, and, thanks to lots of work this year, I can take the cash-flow hit of paying for the printing up front.

So what do you think? Am I mad? Or stupid? Or deluded? (You may select any or all of the above!)

This is post 13 in NaBloPoMo. 13 down, 17 to go!