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Unplanned up 'til now, I'll make a major effort to drop in on Saturday...the Octoberfest will just have to start without me.

Accidented upon this Eon book focus. Nice. Just this week decided it was time to gather up the notebooks and note scaps from the last two years and kick this book into written form. I can write just fine with plenty of room for improvement. My strongest reason to connect, Clive, is to build a healthy perspective on the publishing process. Mine will be an motivational book toward thoughtful, intentional fathering into future generations. It has major distribution potential if written with the tone and style I have in mind. BUT, I am clueless as to the road to serious publishing. Do have plenty of clues on self and botique publishing. Need to ratchet up a couple of notches.

So, I'll be listening with my eyes and talking with my fingers on Saturday.

Serious publishing!
It's rather like the music business these days. Thousands and thousands of good books going to waste because the publishing business has consolidated until there are only a few left.
They bribe bookstores to stock their books . . . spend fortunes on celebrities who have rubbish books written by ghostwriters.
If you really want to stand a chance these days, it's best to find a small independent willing to take a chance on you. Or self publish. But if you self publish, please get a proper editor. 99% of self published books are plain awful because it seems anyone with MS Word on their PC thinks they can be the next great author, and most of them can't even spell or put a sentence together.
Don't let me put you off. Start work. The key to producing a book length work is to write a bit as often as possible. And after 6 months or a year or so you find yourself with 80,000 words and it's time to rewrite.

Could you tell us about your publishing experience? Creating the company and handling all of details yourself? I've noticed that several people here have started their own publishing companies and am curious as to the difficulty of doing it all on your own.

What is your advice what to do after you've saturated most of your local market? My local book signings are coming to an end around Christmas. With gas prices as they are, how do you promote your book without book signings close to home?

Isobel, it is do-able. The only professional way to do it is to open an account with Lightning Source. Lulu and so on charge roughly double the actual print cost making the books uncompetitive.
Basically it involves
1) Get an account with LSI. You will need an official publishing address, can be your own.
2) Get a block of ISBNs from Bowker.

You need to be able to:
A) typeset B) do cover design properly C) know about how to market books - this is the hardest part.

I learned Adobe Indesign for the typesetting and Adobe Photoshop for the cover layout. I have an in-house illustrator but I also buy artwork; for Rebody I outrsourced the artwork to David Rabbitte, a well known artist in the SF&F genre. Expensive of course, but while a good cover may not equal success, a poor one will certainly result in failure. I see many, many books with "template" covers and they always scream "amateur".
You can just about typeset a book with Word but it will never be anywhere near as good as a professional program like Indesign.

Marketing these days is very different. It is a waste of time and money hoping to get reviews from the press. They will chuck your book in the bin simply because it is not from a major House. I could write a novella sized book about this . . .

MACNC:
This is pretty tough. You are lucky you can organise book signings. I'm not in the US so doing any is beyond me!
I carefully target possible reviewers. Mainly bloggers. Have to be very discreet and diplomatic, they get overloaded just like everyone else.
I take it you DO have a dedicated Web site for the book, done with SEO in mind?
You need to create lots of content. Join online groups (like this one!) Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, user groups . . . . got the idea? Don't spam but create lots of quality content and give it away - get links going - that's it.

Thank you so much. I'll be checking these out. I have joined a group called author's den as well as posted my book on .45 Caliber Books. I'll see how many more I can find. I do have 2 signings coming up in the Spring in Florida which I'll be doing along with a much needed short vacation. Again, thank you

You're welcome. Authors Den is a good site. Don't know the other but I'll check it out.
Also remember Librarything, Goodreads, Bookshelf.

Hi, I'm enjoying the exchanges above and learning from you.

I am an "author's helper" and someone who would be a good coach/editor for the self-publishing authors you referenced above (who are turning out unpolished stuff). Do you know how I might best promote myself in that field?

Wow! Thanks for sharing all this valuable information. You mentioned Lightning Source. I only know that they are a huge POD printing service, one used by many small press and independent publishers. What type of file is required by them? You mention typesetting, which brings to mind huge machines printing newspapers. Is there a smaller machine that is affordable to individuals for the typesetting?