So What's So Difficult about publishing a book?

Erm....everything?

Not far off the truth really. First you have to have an original idea. Then you have to write the blasted thing, then find someone to publish it.
If you can achieve all this then you are on easy street. Its the publisher thats the hard bit. Just to get your foot in the door you either have to be famous already, know someone who is or already have a book published which is selling. That means for most of us, no chance at all.

So the other option is self-publishing. Its hellishly expensive/time-consuming as far as I can tell so far. Vanity publishers will do whatever you want and do a lot for you, but it will cost you a lot. Then there are print-on-demand publishers, but again, the more you pay, basically the more you get. I'm going with Antony Rowe I think. They seem the most reasonably priced, but it looks like the author has to do a lot of the work, like getting an ISBN number, designing the cover, formatting the book, etc.

Then once its printed you have to get it into Retail. Haven't faced that challenge yet, but I'm thinking about it.

At the moment I'm trying to gather Advertisers. Hopefully some advertising money will help cushion the probable financial loss of the whole project...