"Publish and be Damned?" was the headline for Andy Kessler's interesting piece in Tuesday's Wall St. Journal about how he self-published his most recent book. He decided to pursue this path after being told that his just-completed book would appear in about two years. Uh-uh, said Kessler.

Instead, he did it all himself via the web, and the book appeared in six weeks. Then he ran into the wall all self-published books face: no reviews. None of the major media outlets review self-published books.

Kessler started flogging the book to all his friends and acquaintances (of course, it helped that he's in the media business), and lo and behold, a real publisher bought it.

I self-published my latest book, but faced two handicaps not shared with Kessler: first, I'm a nobody, I know no one in the media business, and have no Rolodex of acquaintances to hit up; second, I'm not willing to spend my days flogging the thing. I have much, much better things to do. I'll get around to it, eventually. Maybe.