POD, NaNovel, and other Wonders

[ztgandy]

Being new, I am really liking ChristianWriters.com. Everything and everyone associated is top-notch - a wonderful Christian community.

I have a couple questions that mostly pertain to this forum. First, I now nkow what POD (Publish on Demand) is, but am confused by NaNovel. At first, I thought it was science fiction about very small creatures (NaNo) or Sodium monsters (Na). I still don't know what it means. Is there a glossary of terms on the page?

Second, I'm curious about self publishing. Is this a realistic strategy? I suspect I'm like everyone else, eager to have my work published. But for me the publishing "success" is to have a third party willing to put it into print. As I walk through Barnes and Noble I wonder if I'm being realistic as I estimate that for every mss on the shelf there are likely one hundred or more that haven't been published, not to mention those that have been published but lose the competiotion for valuable B&N space.

Thanks,
TG

[dulcigal]

I suppose NaNo could be the eight wonder of the world. In any case, as creative as the sodium monsters and scifi novel ideas were...it's nothing so wacky as that. Well, it is wacky but not in a science way.

NaNovels are the byproduct of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where the goal is to write 50,000 words of a new novel between the first and last days of November. Lulu.com then offers to publish and give the author a free copy of the book if they have the manuscript cleaned up and uploaded to their site by a certain date--in January, I think (which, if you think how far away it isn't from November, is quite a feat in itself!)

As far as self publishing...I wouldn't mind finding out more about that myself.

[Tommie Lyn]

As far as self publishing...I wouldn't mind finding out more about that myself.
You took the words right out of my mouth...or, off my computer screen, at least.

I'm rethinking the "self" aspect of publishing, myself. I've read from various sources that going the traditional publishing route takes about three years from query to printed-book-in-hand. Three years. And I'm 62. I don't have three years to spare. AND, I'm not a top-notch writer, have only been at it a year now, SOOO, the only way I see to get my stories before the reading public is to publish them myself and promote them.

Unless I see any convincing argument to the contrary, I've just about decided that's what I want to do.

Now. How does one go about getting a publishing imprint registered/licensed or otherwise legally declare ownership of it? Any ideas/notions/concrete information?