Reddit mentions of The Artful Dodger: The 20-Year Pursuit of World War I Draft Dodger Grover Cleveland Bergdoll

I definitely ran into this trying to publish my non-fiction history book on a little-known World War I incident. Some agencies loved to showcase their biggest clients on their website, while their page on submission guidelines just said they had stopped accepting new or unsolicited queries. Others said they considered the story fascinating but weren't sure if it would have enough of a breakout in the market. I finally ended up publishing through Amazon's CreateSpace, which does a great job helping you format the book, choose a cover, etc.

The biggest benefit of self-publishing is that it gets your work out there and you have the satisfaction of seeing your book in print. The stigma of self-publishing as an arena for kooks and crappy writers who can't find a publisher has pretty much faded, especially since some authors (especially in the sci-fi/fantasy area) started out on their own before their work found popularity and gained the attention of a major publisher.

I'm not sure how the royalties compare to other publishers, but I get a decent share per book or e-book that I sell. I have a friend who went through a small traditional publisher and he says he gets about $1 for every $20 book he sells. That said, the overall money you can expect to make in self-publishing is often pretty modest; as others have mentioned, it might not even offset what you put into advertising or other work to get the book together.

And while you'll have to market the book on your own, you can find quite a few places who are receptive to showcasing you or your title in some way. I've been able to publish articles on the subject that reference the book. I've also appeared on a history podcast, and I've been booked for a history symposium next year.

Probably the biggest disadvantage I ran into was distribution. I got in touch with every bookstore I could, and some agreed to stock it, but most were either a) completely hostile to Amazon, b) not happy with Amazon's expanded distribution option because it doesn't offer enough of a discount and won't take back unsold copies, or c) would only stock self-published titles through a consignment program, which was often limited to local authors.