“Why should anyone care?” asks Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow, Canadian SF author and commentator, is always worth reading (even when I strongly disagree with him, for example over his critique of the iPad).

This time he's written a very sensible article on Locus which carefully dampens expectations of authors thinking about self-publishing (and for that matter, the expectations of authors hoping to be published traditionally).

The whole article is well worth reading in full, and I urge you to do so, but for me the takeout quote is this:

I firmly believe that there are writers out there today who have valuable insights and native talent that would make them natural successes at marketing their own work. If you are one of those writers – if you have a firm theory that fits available evidence about how to get people to love your work – then by all means, experiment! Provided, of course, that you are pleased and challenged by doing this commercial stuff that has almost nothing in common with imagining stories and writing them down. Provided that you find it rewarding and satisfying.

It's that last sentence which needs to be emphasized, I think.  Only attempt the self-publishing route on your own  if you are prepared to put in a lot of hard work which has nothing to do with the writing process itself.  Otherwise, you are going to need help from others.