It's interesting: Everything in Jeffrey Trachtenberg's great WSJ feature on C. Ben Bosah's efforts to publish his wife's self-help book pitches the story as a "cautionary tale" in which "Mr. Bosah's lack of familiarity with the publishing world didn't worry him—but it should have." Every step of the way, people keep telling Bosah that he and his wife, Ngozi Osuagwu, should scale back their plans for Letters to My Sisters, her book of "straightforward advice from a gynecologist." His book designer told him it couldn't work, then told him he should at least limit himself to a 5,000-copy print run. His publisher gave him the same advice, but Bosah plunged ahead with his 15,398-copy order so he could charge less for the book. And, yes, things probably would have gone better for him if he'd had a distributor lined up first, or if he'd sent review copies to the trades ahead of time, or if he'd had a more universal title.

But, despite all that, I like to focus on the last two paragraphs: Bosah's got a distributor, he's recouped his production costs after selling less than half the original printing, and he's looking to publish more books in the future. If this is a "cautionary" tale, it isn't about staying away from self-publishing because you don't understand the big, complicated publishing industry and it will break you like a twig; it's about not starting up a publishing company if you don't have the entrepreneurial spirit to get through what Seth Godin calls "The Dip" while you learn from your mistakes.