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Tim Luckhurst seems to miss the distinction between self-publishing and self-financed publishing ("Everyman's library of failure", 26 May).

Both can be good ways of reaching small, specialist audiences (my own self-published book is a sailing travelogue), but while the latter simply means that the writer pays to get into print, in the former the author sets the pages, designs the cover, sets up the publisher and registers the ISBN, controls marketing and sales, and commissions print runs.

It involves minimal cost, it is harder work (at least to produce and sell a professional-quality book), but it is infinitely more fun.

Stan Lester, Taunton