Five years ago, author ReShonda Tate Billingsley had a story to tell and sent out a flood of query letters trying to interest the big publishers in her book, My Brother's Keeper.

"I tried to go the traditional route and sent out letters to agents," she said. That didn't work. Billingsley, who was living in Oklahoma City at the time, began wondering why she was sitting around waiting for someone to validate her talent, she said.

So she turned to self-publishing, a way of getting a book out to the public by using nontraditional distribution channels. A year later, she had sold 15,000 copies, and Simon & Schuster was knocking at her door for a deal.

Now Billingsley, who will speak at the Miami Book Fair International next Sunday, has a contract with Simon & Schuster to release nine books in the next two years.

With consolidation in the publishing industry, major publishing houses have become tougher to crack and self-publishing has become an increasingly popular alternative.

Technology has fueled the trend toward self-publishing. Not only has the Internet made it easier to market and distribute books but digital technology has also made printing cheaper and given authors more flexibility in the number of copies they want.

And that's encouraged a growing number of new authors to drop the idea of distributing manuscripts and take matters into their own hands.

The concept is simple: Authors act as their own publishers, taking their manuscripts to book printers to be copied. They may design the cover themselves or choose a book designer.

Authors handle the marketing and distribution of their books themselves. Many go to local bookstores and personally pitch their books, hoping to get shelf space.

About 78 percent of books printed in the United States are self-published, said Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print & Sell Your Own Book.

The majority of them never make it to bookstore, but a lucky few do.

The challenge, said Poynter, is making your book stand out from all the other self-published books. "You're in the driver's seat," he said. "Understand that anyone can publish a book."

There are certain perks when you are your own publisher: a much quicker turnaround time to receive printed copies, no fights with your editor, and a greater financial return on each book sold, said Kathi Kamen Goldmark, co-author of Author Enablers, an online and print column for aspiring writers.

But there are drawbacks too. Although the profit on each book may be greater, it's harder to sell a large quantity. And sometimes having an editor can be a good thing. "The benefits of working with a publisher are you really get editorial direction, which most people need more than they think they do," Goldmark said.

APPEALING TO NICHES

The self-publishers who are most successful and make the most profit are those who appeal to niche markets, said Sam Barry, Goldmark's co-author.

For those wanting to reach a broad market, "it's not worth it to go through all the trouble to self-publish to get it into our hands," said Barry, who works in the San Francisco division of HarperCollins. "A manuscript would be a better way.

"If you want to compete with John Updike, you have to do it the old-fashioned way," he added.

Publishing companies and successful authors of self-published books advise up-and-coming authors to have their book checked out by a professional editor. Billingsley, for example, hired a content editor to read over My Brother's Keeper, the story of three children growing up in a dysfunctional family, and make suggestions before it was printed.

"I encourage people to invest the money to come out with a quality product," said Tate Billingsley, now a Houston television reporter.

Selling self-published books to store owners is a competitive game.

Mitchell Kaplan - owner of Books & Books, which has three locations in South Florida - said about 10 hopeful authors call or e-mail each week asking him to carry their books.

With each, he makes a determination whether the book will sell or not.

But the odds aren't great for a novice author. Fewer than one percent of the 75,000 titles on Kaplan's shelves are self-published, he said.

However, after the self-published book Life Without Stress by Arthur Sokoloff - a local dentist, did particularly well, Kaplan recommended it to a publisher, who, in turn, offered the author a deal. Kaplan also shepherded Sokoloff through the self-publishing process.

But that is a rarity.

Kaplan generally looks for authors who have a coherent marketing strategy for their books. He also browses through to try to get a sense of the content.

"There are hundreds of thousands of books printed each year, and it's costly for a book store to put any book on their shelf," Kaplan said. "When they approach a bookstore, (authors) should not approach them with entitlement."

For self-published authors, marketing a book is the toughest part of the equation.

Billingsley remembers that she and her friends had a strategy to create demand for her novel.

"I would actually call the bookstores and ask for the book," Billingsley said. "I would sit on the phone all day long and call store after store after store."

Her friends would put in calls as well, Billingsley said. She managed to get her book into chain stores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders.

Not all self-published authors, however, want to print thousands of books with the hopes of getting them into bookstores. They may opt for the "print on demand" method that is available through websites such as iUniverse, Xlibris and AuthorHouse.

That's the route taken by Peter Tarjan, editor of Children Who Survived the Final Solution - a collection of 26 stories detailing the experiences of the South Florida chapter of Child Survivors of the Holocaust.

He sent an electronic copy of the book to iUniverse in December 2003 and had 350 copies printed the following May. An artist in the group designed the cover.

The Holocaust group doesn't focus much on marketing the book, said Tarjan, a University of Miami professor. Instead, members order copies and either sell or give them to teachers, libraries, synagogues and anyone else who is interested. More than 700 copies have been distributed.

"What we wanted to do was leave some kind of legacy behind for our children, our relatives, and friends," Tarjan said.

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