So, you've been turned down by all the big publishers and agents and are now thinking of self-publishing. But when is this a smart idea, and when is it throwing good money after bad?

"Self-publishing works best when you already have a built-in market for your books," says Jan King, founder of the eWomen Publishing Network (ewomenpublishingnetwork.com), which advises women on publishing. "For example, if you're a conference speaker and want to do back-of-the-room sales, you can keep a lot more profit this way."

Self-publishing can be done through a company like lulu.com or iuniverse.com, which will edit your manuscript, design artwork and print your books on demand for varying fees. (See the websites for details.)

Lauren Parker, senior communications specialist at lulu.com, says her company can publish just a few copies of your book or thousands. "Traditional publishing houses are only looking for 10 to 15 authors a year who can sell millions of books," she says. "That doesn't mean there's no market for yours."

Lulu.com has more than a million users, with 383,000 titles available to the public. Parker says its best-selling book, about starting an e-commerce business, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars for its author.

King points out that you can "avoid the middleman" and print the book yourself (at lightningsource.com) and commission your own artwork (one option is toolboxcreative.com) for less than going through these self-publishing houses.

However, if you do decide to use a company to take care of everything, she recommends you keep the following points in mind:

Make sure you're not selling any rights. It should be a nonexclusive agreement.
Be sure you can terminate the agreement at any time.
Get the files with the cover art and text in case you want to print elsewhere.
Remember, you still need to do the marketing yourself.