There's never been a more difficult time to be a traditional publisher than today. And, because these publishers are having such a hard time of it, a new writer has almost no chance of having his manuscript picked up and published. If you are a writer today who want's to be published, you are probably going to have to make it happen yourself. Fortunately, the self publishing field is a lot more wide open than it was a few years ago.
Now, the nicest aspect of publishing your own book is that you get to publish your book exactly the way you envisioned it. You don't have interfering editors taking out parts of your book that they disapprove of and you don't have corporate officers suggesting changes to make the book more commercial. Instead, you get to publish your book exactly as you have envisioned it with no changes. But, even better, is the fact that you don't have to share your financial proceeds from your book. All the money that comes in from book sales - minus the cost of producing and selling the book - is yours to keep.
But there are also drawbacks and disadvantages. One disadvantage is that you will have nobody to help promote your book. You are all alone and you will live or die based on your ability to self promote yourself and your book. Another is that you have to handle all other functions normally handled by a publishing company itself. This includes things such as taking orders, shipping, returns, and so on. You could easily find yourself doing a whole slew of activities other than the one that you really love - writing.
On the flip side, one really bad thing about self publishing your own material is that you don't have an editor. A lot of times,it is the editor that really determines the quality of a book. Most self-published books are really sup-par. And this is because the writer didn't have an editor to go over the manuscript, correct the obvious and not so obvious errors, and suggest alternative and better ways of stating the writer's thoughts. And,while it is true that you can hire a free lance editor, you have no guarantee that you will find a good one.
A few of these service companies, however, are starting to make the entire process very easy for writers who want to publish their work. After writing your manuscript, you simply establish an account at one of these companies. You will be able to select the size that you want your book to be - large, regular, paper back, etc. You either create your own cover artwork or have a graphic artist create one for you. Finally, you upload your manuscript, usually in Microsoft word format, along with your cover artwork and the service takes care of the rest.
Different services have different expertise and sets of skills. You should try to match the type of writing you do with a service that has experience in that field. For example, if you write poetry, look for a self publishing company that specializes in poetry. Likewise, some companies are experts at putting out cookbooks, others at producing fiction novels, and so on.
With more and more services appearing on the Internet each day, there are many opportunities for a writer who wants to connect with the world. Self publishing can be great for a person with the right mindset. For the person, however, who wants to just write and do nothing else, then self publishing is probably not for them.