Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing

I'm a little more relaxed about the issue of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing than I was a few days ago, though I still have a number of questions floating around in my mind. My S.O.'s self-published book hit a record high again on Amazon.com's sales rankings with a rank of 39,000. My only frustration with these rankings is that we never know why the book rises and falls. Was it a result of certain marketing efforts on our part? If so, which ones? Is it word-of-mouth? If so, how do we take advantage of that?

In the meantime, I found some helpful articles on Helium.com about self-publishing vs. traditional publishing. Below is the link, for those interested:

http://www.helium.com/items/1338021-self-publishingself-publishing

Venturing Forth . . .

This is my first blog. Ever. I've read other people's blogs before, thought about the idea of blogging, but never had an inclination to blog in the past. What suddenly motivated me to start was a new experience that proves to be a long, long journey. The newness of the experience, including my lack of complete knowledge about this realm, and my desire to learn from others and connect to others going through similar experiences was the impetus for creating this blog. So here I go.

My Significant Other is a new writer. 'New' in the sense that he has not yet published through traditional publishing houses or literary magazines. He wants to make a career out commercial fiction writing. He has self-published his first novel, is working on his sequel, and I am trying to learn and do everything possible to help him succeed.

So far I have taught myself about query letters, proposals and am learning about self-publishing, POD, and other types of publishing. My S.O. self-published his first novel through AuthorHouse in order to see it in print and keep himself motivated to keep writing. We've been fairly successful with feedback on the book, and, I say this trying my best to put any bias aside, I have been an avid reader all my life (even majored in English), and it is a good book. I know that there are very different opinions about self-publishing, and I still question whether or not doing so with this first novel was the best decision. However, it's done now and I see my job as doing what I can to help promote the novel and help my S.O. to eventually transition into traditional publishing. We've done mailings, set up a blog on Amazon, set up a Facebook Fan Page, and hopefully will have a website soon. Things are going well, but I'm always looking for the next step.

Recently, I was advised to look into switching our distributor from AuthorHouse to Book Masters, Inc., which is not a print-on-demand distributor. If anyone has any advice to offer, please post.

I look forward to learning from others and responding to dialogue of any kind.