Doing it yourself is a very real option for writers today, thanks to changes in the publishing industry as well as the miracle of modern computers.

From our vantage point at Sensible Solutions, we've noticed that more and more writers are choosing it -- including writers who've had lots of books published the conventional way. The technical stuff is relatively easy, but you'll need to invest noticeable amounts of time and/or energy and/or money to persuade people to get your book, read it and recommend it.

Do you fit the self-publisher profile? Take this test.

If a major publishing house that has produced many related bestsellers wants to give your book its bigbook treatment, then you will probably do better under its auspices than you would on your own. In other circumstances, it's not so easy to decide whether conventional publishing or self-publishing will be the better bet.

One consideration is whether your personality fits the profile of the successful self-publisher.

When the self-publishing boom began in the '60s, self-publishers were often a bit quirky -- people, perhaps, who wanted a physically beautiful product above all else or who insisted on writing about a subject most readers found repulsive or ridiculous; people, in other words, who probably had no choice because established publishers weren't interested in what interested them.

Today, with established publishers and self-publishers producing the same sorts of products, the typical self-publisher is far harder to describe. But three attributes are crucial.

Successful self-publishers love to be in control.

It's the first reason they're likely to mention if you ask why they decided to go it alone.

You're in charge and you can even adjust the degree of your commitment. Suppose, for example, that you've written The Complete Small-Engine Repair Manual. With a modest cash outlay, you can get copies printed up to offer local hardware stores, department stores and bookstores on consignment, and to sell personally at programs you give for nearby vocational schools and continuing-education centers. Then, if those markets work well, you can go back to press, begin to experiment with mail orders and wholesale distribution over a wide geographical area and perhaps wind up selling hundreds of times as many copies as there were in your original print order.

In the self-publishing arena as in others, however, control is far from absolute and it can't mean bossing other people around. Getting anything done will involve motivating them.

Though you may not have a staff, you undertake to run a small business when you become a self-publisher. You'll have to supervise an editor, a designer, a printer; wholesalers, retailers, reviewers and more. Recognizing that your concerns will be low priority for them and that their operations are not 100% efficient, will you get steamed or sympathetic? Or, to put it another way, can your definition of control include understanding their problems so you can help solve them?

Successful self-publishers like fast starts but have staying power.

Impatience is high on just about everybody's list of Reasons I Self- Published.

Why wait ten months or a year or two years for some conventional publisher to get your work into print when you can get it out so much faster? This argument, which is most obviously appealing with timely topics, has force even for material that doesn't date.

Launching a product takes time, however. In fact, as business school teaches and businesses know, it usually takes years. Yes, you can get your book out there quickly, but getting it to pay off is another matter, and more often than not, where self-publishers are concerned, this comes as a big -- sometimes panic-inducing -- surprise.

"Stick with it," "don't get discouraged," "build on whatever happens" -- keep on keeping on is the message veterans send first-timers. Large, established, book-publishing firms, which must make room in their catalogs for hundreds of new titles at least twice a year, can't afford to keep a book in circulation for more than a few months unless its initial rate of sale is impressive. But a self-published work can be -- and must be -- granted the gift of time.

With time, it may well attract a following. Many books that make no splash when they're released become profitable over the years as appreciative readers begin to wield the single most powerful selling tool any publishing company ever has: word of mouth. And once word of mouth begins to operate, it's relatively simple for self-publishers to capitalize on it.

Successful self-publishers are either idealistic realists or realistic idealists.

Unlike a writer whose book circulates in the hands of a publishing company's sales force, self-publishing authors must often navigate serpentine, swampy marketing terrain themselves, dealing face to face with distracted people enmeshed in complicated systems.

Much of this real-world activity is no fun in and of itself. But most writers who self-publish take it in stride because it gets them what they want -- a shot at enriching the world with their words.

So ask yourself one last question: Is what I have to offer important enough to be worth the effort (which will be considerable), the time (remember, that's long) and the money (count on investing several thousand dollars at least)?

If the answer is Yes, if you believe that the analyses and aesthetic experiences and entertainment and insights and information and ideas captured through your work will make substantial contributions to personal lives and/or to the culture we live in, you're a likely prospect for self-publishing, an option more writers choose with every passing day.

To explore ways Sensible Solutions might help you be your own best publisher, contact us at:

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Dan Poynter's The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print and Sell Your Own Book has launched thousands of self-publishing ventures. Read it just as soon as you decide to go ahead with yours, and visit his Web site, ParaPublishing.com, for an ever-expanding collection of clever, practical products, services and resources for self-publishers.