I’ve been very fortunate in my career that I’ve got to experience both the traditional publishing model and the self publishing model. In addition to my self-published works I’ve also published books with Dorchester Publishing, Harper Collins, and St. Martin’s Press. And today I wanted to use those experiences to dispel some myths I’ve heard lately from authors about what going the traditional publishing route means – either instead of or in conjunction with self publishing.
Myth #1 – A Traditional Publishing Contract means your books get into more venues
In my humble experience, I find this to be mostly false.
Traditionally published books eternally end up in the same exact venues as self-published books. If you go on Amazon.com or BN.com and look at the Top 100 bestselling ebooks, there is a mix of both traditional and self-published – they’re all lumped in there together, being bought by the same readers. And, while there are fewer self-published POD books on the print bestsellers lists, those print books are available in the same online venues traditional works. POD print can also be ordered by libraries and academic institutions. Just about the only place you can’t get your POD book into (or would have a very difficult time getting it into) would be in physical bookstores and chain stores like BN, Target, Walmart, grocery and drug stores.
HOWEVER… having a book come out with a traditional publisher is no guarantee that your books will end up there either. Of the 10 books I’ve published traditionally, only 2 have ever ended up in grocery stores, drug stores or Target. In fact, stores are cutting their buys significantly lately. So much so that my latest release from Harper Collins (April 2012) did not even make it into Barnes & Nobles stores – it was only available online and in the exact same venues as my self-published POD books.
So, while there is a possibility of getting a traditional book into more venues than a self-published book, it’s not a given, and it’s not even always the norm.
Myth #2 – Traditional Publishing will expose your book to more readers
Again, this has not been my experience. The first 5 books of my High Heels Mysteries series was originally published through traditional channels with Dorchester Publishing from 2006-2009. I sold a modest about of books, enough to keep me mid-list, but not enough that my publisher wanted to continue the series after book 5 came out. I’d guesstimate roughly 15-20K copies of each title sold. Once I self published this series, it hit the New York Times bestseller list and the USA Today bestseller list and, to date, has sold over 850,000 copies. I’ve reached FAR more readers with this series on my own.
There could be the argument that I’ve got a bigger readership now than I did when I first started pushing traditionally, hence more sales now. Which, I might agree with. However…
My first two books with Harper Collins and St. Martin’s Press released just this past year – in October 2011 and March 2012. In between those releases, I had a self-published book release, in November 2011. My first week sales for the self published book showed 2 to 3 times as many sales as my traditional releases. That’s 2 to 3 times as many readers that I reached on my own.
Myth #3 – A Traditional Publisher will market you better than you can on your own
Actually, it doesn’t matter how you publish, marketing is up to you. I’ve had widely varying experiences at different publishers with different books about how marketing has been done. I’ve had books come out where I never even knew the name of my in house publicist, let alone talked to her. And I’ve had some release where there were big marketing meetings with lots of ides thrown out. But, by and large, the marketing always falls on you, the author. If you’re very lucky, your publisher might buy front tale placement at a bookstore. They may set up a blog tour for you. It’s possible, if you’re a big fish, that they’ll even fly you around on a book signing tour. But I’ve never seen any of these things translate into big sales. Not to say that every marketing effort doesn’t count, but most of the time the very same marketing that you’re doing as a self-published authors is the same stuff you’d be doing as a traditionally published author. Your publisher won’t do it for you.
The big difference? As a traditionally published author you will have no idea if your marketing is making an impact. Generally, you will not have sales numbers for you book until at least 6 months after it comes out. So there’s no way to tell if what you’re doing is working or if you’re shouting into the wind.
Myth #4 – The only way to hit a bestseller list is with Traditional Publishing
See my answer for Myth #2. For the life of me, I’ve not been able to hit a list with my traditionally published books.
Myth #5 – There is stability in Traditional Publishing
I could go on and on about this myth, but the short answer is, there is no stability in publishing. Period. I hear a lot of authors that are nervous about the contract with Amazon or BN, because terms like royalty rates can be changed at any time by the companies. There is no guarantee that the wonderful bubble we’re working in now won’t pop at some point. A valid concern, and one I share! But traditional publishing doesn’t afford you much more job security.
My first publishing contracts were with Dorchester publishing. While I had some wonderful experiences there early on, when Dorchester hit financial difficulties, they just stopped paying their authors. We had contracts that said they had to pay us… but they didn’t. We had very little recourse when that happened. We could sue, but we’d have to get in line behind a ton of vendors who were also owed money, much more than we were – meaning we were not likely to ever see the money anyway. Some of us got our rights back (some unlucky ones did not), but we still never saw the money owed to us. Obviously this doesn’t happen everyday in publishing, but it does happen.
And what is even more common is editors leaving, lines closing, authors being dropped, the market changing. Print runs fluctuate, advances go down, and your next contract is never guaranteed. You may have four contract at three different publishers today, but tomorrow you may not be able to sell another book to anyone. Bottom line: if you’re looking for job security, find anther profession.
Having dispelled all these myths… I just want to say that I am NOT against traditional publishing. I think there are sometimes valid reason for going that route. Some authors are more suited to that style of publishing, enjoy that style of publishing, and thrive with it. In certain situations, some books may sell better through traditional routes than self publishing ones. And sometimes, the money can be better going the traditional route. But I hate seeing authors jump into any format of publishing for the WRONG reasons, only to find out later that they based this huge career decision on publishing myths.
~Gemma Halliday
www.facebook.com/gemmahallidayauthor
Want to try out Gemmas books? The first book in her High Heels series, SPYING IN HIGH HEELS, is now FREE for download on Kindle and Kindle apps!
It’s Your Turn, WG2E-Land: What are your thoughts after reading this TradiPub Myths List?
Terrific points- I love being able to see numbers any time I want as a indie pub: “As a traditionally published author you will have no idea if your marketing is making an impact. Generally, you will not have sales numbers for you book until at least 6 months after it comes out.”
This is vital information for me and I’m so grateful for you sharing it so generously. My first novel, The Twisted Vine, was published via KDP on Amazon 2 weeks ago and I’m on the steepest learning curve of my life. Really interesting to read your stats and even more the dispelling of the trad myths. If you could share the most important marketing tool you have found, I would be even more grateful! There is so much to learn and it can be overwhelming to start with. I have 5 5* reviews but beyond selling to people I know personally, how does one break thru into being more visible to the general public? I’m learning about categories and about to try Goodreads but would love to know any marketing tips you feel able to share. Thanks for this article based on your successful experience. I found it inspiring. Alexx
So glad this is helpful!
The most useful marketing tools that I’ve found for self-publishing are actually the ability to change price, descriptions, and covers for my books. Changing price is great, because you can put your books on special sale at any time. Or even make them free! And cover and description changes are also vital, IMHO. If my sales aren’t doing well, it means I’ve made a mistake in the way I’m doing the covers or descriptions. Something about my book is not catching readers’ eyes. I’ve often changes things up when books weren’t doing well and seen a huge uptick in sales from it.
I do maintain a website, facebook page, and newsletter mailing list, but other than that, I do very little marketing. And I did NO marketing at all the first year of self-publishing.
Thanks for the fantastic post Gemme. Of course self published authors are still be told they aren’t legit since they aren’t traditionally publlished. I think the readers are smart enough to decide for themselves.
I too like seeing real-time numbers. With traditional publishing even after six months how would you ever know if those numbers are true? The opportunities to reach readers in your target audience is much greater as an indie, in my opinion.
Thanks for your honest breakdown, Gemma! It’s nice to hear an experienced voice of reason who states fact instead of opinion.
Thanks for this fantastic post, Gemma! I really appreciate your insight.
Gemma, terrific! I’ve been published by Random House, Simon & Schuster, St. Martin’s Press etc & can say that you hit the nail on the head—with the sharp point of your stiletto!
Thanks for telling it like it is.
Fantastic post, Gemma, thanks so much for sharing this. Good to know the grass isn’t greener!
This is over the moon terrific scoop, Gemma, and thanks bunches for sharing your experiences here at The WG2E!
What you said right here was the clincher:
“…my latest release from Harper Collins (April 2012) did not even make it into Barnes & Nobles stores – it was only available online and in the exact same venues as my self-published POD books.”
And you’re a NYTimes Bestselling Author!!!
Coming from the Returns Center background (in fact, for this same publisher), I do think this is going to be the new norm. The issue is the “credit” they have with the returns centers. They’re having to return tons more books than they used to in order to try to get enough “credit” for new releases so that they don’t have to pay to stock them. That means, they’ll be stocking fewer and fewer new releases as the returns centers drag their feet in issuing those credits. It’s a vicious cycle!!!
This is gonna be another total game-changer for TradiPub Authors…and not a positive change either!!!
Great to get your perspective from the returns background!
Yeah, I was honestly very shocked to hear the book was not in Barnes & Noble stores at all. As were my readers – who were not too happy about not being able to get it the day it came out. I had a great time working with Harper, and I have no ill feelings toward them whatsoever, but it is a sad sign of the times.
Great post, Gemma! While I agree Trad pub can be a good route in certain situations, aside from the Dorchester failure, your post accurately reflects my own frustrating experiences of being traditionally published and hovering in that 15-20K sales danger zone.
“They just toss us out there like spaghetti against the wall and see who sticks” was what an author friend said at the time. Oh yeah, add in a truly wrong-for-this-book cover that I hated and their refusal to give rights back to another book that is just lingering in the barely there aisles. I just regret having waited so long to Indie-pub.
This is really interesting reading. Sounds as though authors will get a wider readership going epublishing, either self-pub, or with an epublisher or publisher who publishes e first then print. Certainly made me think about what I want to do.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my experience has been that I’ve reached a MUCH larger audience with my self-published books than I have with traditionally published ones. Now, I know this will completely vary from author to author, though. For example, a friend of mine, H.P. Mallory started out self-publishing very successfully, but it was her first traditional release that pushed her onto the USA Today bestseller list. So I think it will really depend on your specific situation. But whether you got traditional or self, ebooks are definitely gaining a huge amount of market share, so I would really pay attention to how those will be released. For example – My St. Martin’s release in March had the ebook priced at $11.99 in an effort not to cannibalize sales form the print book. (not my decision, by the way) I have a sneaking suspicion why that ebook did not sell as well as my self-published ones, right?
This came at a good time for me. I just finished reading author Shannon Hale’s blog post today (http://oinks.squeetus.com/2012/06/the-self-publishing-paradox-or-why-i-love-my-editor.html) about how traditionally published = “professional” and self-published = “amateur”. Besides being a load of tosh, it was disheartening to hear this kind of nah-nah you’ll never be part of the club thing. Assuring people like her that I don’t want in the bloody club just sounds like sour grapes.
It doesn’t matter that I make more money than several traditionally published friends, who can’t afford to quit their day job. I’m no Amanda Hocking, but I pay my mortgage with my “amateur” books.
After reading your post, I really do wonder if she’s on the same planet as the many trad published authors I know who, like yourself, share that not everything is all butterflies and rainbows inside the industry.
I’ve been self-publishing for jut over two years now. At first I saw some traditionally published authors who are so adamant that their way is the right way completely bash self-publishing. Some of those same authors are now seeing their self-published counterparts thriving and are trying to jumping into the pool themselves.
So, a little perspective can be a great thing.
And, having been on both sides of the publishing line, I can safely say that paying my rent is so much more fun than the “prestige” of being with a traditional publishing house.
Wow, this is very interesting! …it really puts things into perspective for me. Thanks for the post – very helpful!
This was very insightful. Me being a new author, posts like this really help out a lot.
This was a very insightful post. New authors like me appreciate the knowledge you bring, thanks.
Wow, thanks for sharing, Gemma. It’s not easy either publishing route. Both take a lot of hard work on the author’s part, and everything that comes with publishing. But what I love is that authors don’t need to take sides. I hope that us or them mentality eventually fades and we all work together.
Thanks for sharing, Gemma! It’s getting harder and harder to get books in bookstores.
Over the last two years especially I’ve seen a big drop in interest from my local stores about signings and events, too. I had one indy bookseller tell me that they are having a hard time getting people to show up…even for the “big name” authors.
This was a great post and educational. Thanks, Marian
Thanks for the wonderfully straight post! I’m still pursuing trad-pub for my middle grade books, as I think it falls under that category of “books that may sell better through traditional publishing,” but I’m very happy with the results of my self-published YA novels, and am starting to dabble in short fiction as well – something that I think has much better success as an ebook/self-pub.
Thanks again for a great post! Off to tweet…
I, too, have had empty-ump books published traditionally and say, AMEN, to your list!
The business model there is in constant flux, has been since the mid-90s and now is in convulsions with the growth of digital. Traditional print is learning a lot about readers wants, as witnessed once more by articles such as the one in USAToday this a.m. about houses seeking more erotica to go with 50 Shades.
I love the digital biz model, both with e-publishers and as self-pubbed. I can use them in a complementary marketing plan. This alone is revolutionary to me.
Bravo, for you that you have done so well in this brave new world. Keep on, girl!
Lots of great info, Gemma. Congratulations on your amazing success. I do like the idea of trying everything. Thanks for sharing.
Great post! I’ve always seen your high heel books on the best seller’s lists! So nice to read your article
Thanks for the info, Gemma. This solidifies my feeling about the topic. It’s nice to hear from someone on both sides of the fence.
This is great info, Gemma. I have a book coming out with a small press in November, but I’ve made the decision to self-publish the next. It’s a scary endeavor and there are always doubts, but this just helped reaffirm I’ve made the right decision!
Great post, Gemma! Thanks for the honest info.
Thanks for an interesting, well written and balanced take on the topic.
Loved the honesty in this post. Thanks for sharing your experience with us. I am enjoying the Indie ride at the moment, and you have reaffirmed I do not need the TP route to enjoy selling my novel, thanks.
Terrific post, loved your unbiased insight!
Thanks for all the comments, everyone! I’m glad the post was helpful!
Brilliant post, and spot on according to my experience as well. Writer’s need to read this, they need to know their options and what they’re really getting into. Only then, with a clear picture, can we hope to be successful.
Thanks for this thorough post. The writers I know who are the most successful self-publishing are still the ones who published traditionally first. Maybe it’s because it means they’re strong writers and they have more savvy about the business. I don’t know. I still want to go the traditional route, if they’ll have me.
Your post is full of excellent information. I’ve found that choosing to self-publish or seeking out a traditional publishing contract really depends on how much work or money you are willing to expend. If you have a some ability in graphic design and can edit and format your own work, self-publishing is quick and easy. If you can’t and have money, you can hire people to do that. If you don’t have either, then a traditional publisher really is what you want as they will do all this. If you want that route, you don’t need to go to the big 6 and their various imprints. You can go to a smaller publisher because the same self-publishing tools I use to self-publish, can be used by small publishers. There is an option out there for everyone. For me, self-publishing is the way to go.
Lovely post Gemma. I believe you covered many major points. However, the work that you’ve don’t to gain this success I’m sure was great. Authors have choices now and shouldn’t be afraid to explore them. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I and a friend took a class offered at my local community college a number of years ago (think early ’90s, pre-Internet revolution). The woman teaching the class was an agent of sorts (as was her husband). Her attitude towards both writers and aspiring writers was fairly supercilious and her basic theme was that no one (except maybe the James Michener’s of the world) could ever make a living as a writer, so don’t quit our day jobs. Additionally, she told us that no editor would ever respond to a submission, unless it came through an agent. Since both my friend and I were looking for help in becoming better writers, not in discussing why we shouldn’t even try, we didn’t bother to continue with the class, since it appeared that it wasn’t going to be relevant to the published syllabus. Reading the link posted by India, I got the same feeling I had then that the blogger was someone who feared other people being successful might diminish her chances for success, rather than realizing that more avenues for authors to publish offer more opportunities for success for all of us. Thanks, Gemma, for letting us know that there are indeed multiple ways to success.
There’s another aspect to traditional publishing that seldom gets mentioned, and that is the fact that when you traditionally publish, you’re selling the book, sometimes forever. You frequently lose all rights to it. You’ve sold it (often to the only bidder) and you no longer own it.
Let’s use the analogy of a car. Say you’ve built a car from the ground up. You’ve constructed the chassis the wheels, the axles and the engine and you’ve customized it until it’s a work of art.
One day you decide to profit from it.
If you sell it like a traditionally published book, it’s gone. You can no longer drive the car or have people admire it, praising your creativity, because it’s no longer in your garage.
What’s worse, now the new owner has the right to ask you to repaint it, possibly in a combination of colors you despise. If the new owner asks for new fenders, you must remove the old ones and install new ones. You have no choice in the matter. You no longer own it and you can’t drive it but you must comply with any whim the new owner demands.
If the car was like a self-published book, it would sit in your driveway and people who came to admire it would have to pay for the privilege. If you wanted to buff out a scratch in the paint you could, and if you wanted to add pin stripping or new wheels no one could stop you.
In fact if you wanted to completely rebuild it, it’s your car and you can do what you want with it.
That’s my perspective.
I love the car analogy!
I will say that most publishers do have an “out of print” clause that allows for rights to revert to authors when the book goes out of print. In the past, with paper books, this occured pretty often, and most authors did eventually see their rights back. However, with ebooks, which are never really out of print, the clause is becoming a grey area. And definitely one to watch for in contracts! Publishers are aware of it, too, and while I’ve seen some publishers updating these clauses to cover ebooks, most are still written so that if your ebook is selling even a very small number of copies, you never get rights back.
Authors can, however, sometime negotiate what rights they sell. For example, the book I have out with St. Martin’s is being sold in North America by them, but in the rest of the world I’ve self-published it because I only sold North American rights. I’ve even seen some authors sell print only rights to traditional publishers, though this is still very rare for the Big 6.
I work for a bookstore in an administrative position (meaning I am not a floor seller any more, I worked my way up from that) and if I was writing a novel – any kind of novel – I would absolutely self-publish before going the traditional publishing route. Nonfiction is a bit of a different animal, but I’ll talk about that in a moment. This is also my perspective as a “store person,” I know there’s lots of e-promotion out there, but I am speaking from my experience.
One thing not covered by this article is that in any given season or year, publishers are looking for books that fit into certain “hot” genres, or they are looking for books that fit a certain imprint. Someone who wrote a Middle Eastern-themed novel would have found great interest in their book after The Kite Runner came out and became a smash hit – but now, you’d probably have trouble getting someone to take one look at the thing. Erotic novels are what everyone’s looking for right now, after Fifty Shades of Grey, along with baseball novels to follow up on The Art of Fielding. If you write a book with a woman as the protagonist, and it’s not heavy literary fiction, most big publishers will immediately try to shoehorn the book into their imprints that do mostly “chick lit,” whether it fits that category or not.
Basically, your novel will become whatever the publishers need it to become, for that season, and you will have very little input into how it is marketed to customers or to bookstores, where it is shelved, what the cover looks like, etc. You don’t think your book belongs next to the Shopaholic books? You don’t think you need to rewrite your novel to include more sex, just because “that’s what’s selling this year”? You believe in the integrity of your story as it is and don’t feel the need to goose it to meet a particular market demographic? Too bad. They own the book; they dictate the terms now. In fact, be prepared for an email telling you they are putting off publishing your book because they “don’t have room in the catalog this season” – read, we snapped up five Fifty Shades knockoffs and need to get them out before the buzz dies.
As for marketing – unless you are a hot property already, your publisher will give your book a half-page in the middle of their catalog and the sales rep (if they have happened to read it and liked it, or more likely, if they’re being offered bonuses for selling a certain number of copies) may mention it in their meeting with the bookstore’s buyer. If you are really lucky, the publisher will press actual galleys to give to stores, and not just make hard-t0-download e-galleys out of a PDF of the book art (which maybe 5% of store employees read e-galleys; most of them are old-school). If you are exceptionally lucky, they may pay for you to visit a couple of regional stores – or at least tell you that if you visit stores on your own dime (and the vast majority of authors who come to our store are touring on their own dime), they will send marketing materials to those stores, which generally consist of of a cheaply-printed blow-up poster on foamcore, and some bookmarks that immediately get lost in the back room. They may make some tepid efforts to get you an interview with a local reporter. Most likely, as a new author, you will have to arrange ALL of this – the book event, the press coverage, the marketing materials, period – because your “publicist” is a 24-year-old Sarah Lawrence graduate working in publishing until she meets an investment banker and gets her MRS degree, and she certainly isn’t going to forgo lunchtime manicures or drinks with her friends at 5 to work on your book marketing.
I am generalizing, but I have worked in this business long enough now that I feel I can generalize with some authority. Let me give you an example: we recently hosted an author event with an exceptional young writer, who has won multiple accolades for her books, including nominations for a National Book Award. Her first book sold over a hundred thousand copies, her second did slightly better, and now she was coming to the store in support of the third. She desperately wanted to do an event in our area because she has friends here.
Her publisher did not even pay for her gas to drive from her home to our store, and did not even put her up overnight after her event. She had to stay with her friends. They sent us no materials, did no press outreach, nothing. She and I did all the marketing for the event, got a great turnout, and she had a great time. But the publisher did nothing, absolutely nothing, for this wonderful young author. That is extremely common.
If you have a great idea for a novel, and you get no or very tepid interest from agents and publishers, just self-publish. It is worth it to TRY to get a deal, but go into it realizing you are going to be doing just as much work as if you self-published, unless someone at the house really falls in love with your book and wants to champion it out of the good of their heart – which does not happen often. If your local bookstore only wants to take the book on consignment, or wants you to pay a reasonable amount (which I think is under $100) to do an event, do it. If they have good marketing – you can tell this by looking at their Facebook, the local newspaper, etc. – they can really help boost your book’s profile. You can do the rest yourself with online marketing, etc.
Here’s my caveat: with nonfiction, I would always try to find a publisher. Arcadia Press and History Press are two publishers that do not do a lot in the way of author support but they do publish a LOT of historical nonfiction, and it is orderable by just about anyone. University presses will almost always look at well-written, well-sourced nonfiction and it’s a great way to get the book out there. Small presses are a good bet also, as there are small presses that specialize in just about every topic area of nonfiction – gardening, history, tech, etc. Plus, unless your nonfiction topic is “buzzy” or you are already a celebrity, the big publishers will barely give it a look, and then if they do buy it, will barely promote it – nonfiction is the stepchild of the big publishers, until something hits and they get excited about it (read: start seeing the dollar signs).
Hope this helps. Keep writing. I keep seeing exciting stuff from self-pubbers that is giving me hope that books are not dead.
Thanks for the peek inside from your perspective. Very helpful!
Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective. Your comments were a valuable addition to the blog post !
Every author should read this. First class advice.
You might want to read up on what exactly a “myth” is. Quoting anecdotal evidence is not considered “dispelling a myth”.
Thanks for the great advice, Gemma. I’ve been a big fan of your High Heels mysteries ever since I discovered them last summer. I’m surprised they didn’t hit the bestseller list through traditional publishing. Go figure! Congrats on their success now!
Gemma: Thanks for posting….so-o helpful and inspiring!
I was able to get the rights back to my 4 traditionally published novels (one from Berkley, one from Dorchester; the other two from a re-sale I’d made on my own to Large Print that had an automatic reversion of rights built into the contract–nice!). So, I’m starting my own indie-pub journey. I shared this post with my online authors loop…I’m very selective about sharing, but I told them this was a “must read.” It is.
And thanks for the freebie!! I really liked the format of the ebook and will use that as a blueprint. I’m working on learning formatting for mobi and epub, and am learning enough of Photoshop so I can do simple, nice covers for 8 novels I hope to put up within the next 6 to 12 months. I know I have my work cut out for me, but it’s very exciting to have the chance to be in control. I love the feeling!
Re: promo….I did extensive promotions for my two time-travels…lots of book signings in my local stores and special events tied to the historical aspects. I found it fun, but definitely time consuming. I guess I assumed it was all my responsibility. I was relieved to read your comment that you are primarily doing promo via website, Facebook, and mailing list. I have lots to learn about that as well…
Questions:
Have you purchased any ads on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Facebook or places like Goodreads?
Do you have opinions about Kindle Select — offering them the exclusive before offering the ebook everywhere?
Again, thanks for truly sharing with us!
Best,
Janet
Wow Gemma,
Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom! I’ve been perched on the side of the pool for a few months, certain I should give up querying agents and put my time into epubbing myself, but scared to make the leap.
Yours is among several opinions I’ve read recently that have me almost ready to take that deep breath and jump…
thanks for sharing
Kathryn Jane
I feel so fortunate to be writing books at a time where we have so many choices. Thanks so much for the reality check.
Intriguing post. Thanks for sharing your experience and insight!
I’ve heard mixed views regarding marketing of traditionally published books. A friend of mine is doing wonderfully with his first book, having done virtually no marketing on his own. But I also have friends who have relied heavily on publishers to do the foot work, only to be disappointed. I personally believe that we authors should do as much as we can, regardless of who represents us—ourselves or others.
Wow, thanks for the info, although I’m sure your traditional publishing background helped you with your self publishing. You wrote that you didn’t even market the first year, that wouldn’t work for most of us self published writers. Just saying. I’d say your readers loved the better price points though. That’s the one thing the traditionalists seem to keep missing.
I can’t even imagine waiting six months for stats, that is just crazy. I watch mine closely and like most indies try to align it with what promos we were or weren’t doing at the time. I haven’t seen any increase when promos were happening and try dang hard not to pay for sites that may have no real exposure that amount to book sales either. Facebook ads were a total waste. There are plenty of sites that have free promos if you go looking for them. I set up my own blog sites to post or interview on, some of which I find because I go looking for them.
When sales are down I keep pressing on. Blogs are great places to get exposure even if you are only commenting. If your face and name keep popping up in enough place eventually people will respond. I spend tons of time on Facebook interacting with my friends. My subscribers are growing, and although my book hasn’t hit big yet, I know I need to keep plugging until it is. For me it’s more a matter of audience, and writing about senior citizens in less than traditional roles is a bit challenging.
Thanks again for a great post that is very helpful.
I got involved in independent publishing in 2007. Since then I started noticing a positive change in how people regard those of us that self-publish. But the advise of not mentioning your self-published books when querying a traditional publisher as it works against you is still given. This really irritates me as I am proud of my work and would never put it out there if I didn’t think it was worthy of purchase. There is a group of agents, editors and publishers, however, who have recognized the work we do. Several years ago they started a non profit book award …Next Generation Indie Book Award for independent publishers. This year my novel was awarded at the Plaza Hotel in NYC as a finalist in the General Fiction Under 80,000 Words. What they did not only for me but all the other category winners and finalists was wonderful. They validated our work. (Freddie Remza…”The Orchid Bracelet”)
If I had an indie book that sold 5 copies, I probably wouldn’t mention it when querying an agent/editor for the same reason that I wouldn’t mention a traditional book with poor sales – it’s a reason not to buy me. But, if I had an indie book that sold 100K copies, or even 20K copies, you bet I’d tell them about it! I’ve got a track record of sales and a reader base. A great reason for them to buy me!
Before I self-published, I spent years trying to sell a book to a traditional publisher. I got TONS of rejections, both as an unpublished author and a multi-published author. Now that I’ve had some success as an indie author, I have publishers coming to me asking to publish the very same books they rejected. So, despite what a lot of editors may say, it isn’t always about having a good book. It’s about knowing they can sell your book.
As a self-publisher, I totally agree with the myths. The invention of the internet has helped indie publishers so much! My book, “Discipline Without Distress” outsells many of my fellow authors who went the traditional route. Everyone can see on the Amazon detail page where it lists the bestseller ranking.
Much of what you say about traditional publishing v. self publishing also holds true for traditional publishing v. ebook publishing. Many people don’t consider ebook publishing as being on par with traditional (print) publishing, but that hasn’t been my experience as an ebook-published author. True, most people still read print book instead of ebooks, but the latter is gaining in popularity and I predict it will overtake the former very soon.