Novel Marketing BIG Advice
February 7, 2012The Lone Self-Publisher
February 21, 2012
There are so many questions pertaining to Self Publishing.
Is Self Publishing Worth It?
Is Self Publishing Profitable?
Is Self Publishing Easy?
Is Self Publishing A Good Idea?
Is Self Publishing Bad?
Is Self Publishing Really Easy?
I have asked these questions at one time or another, and repeat them even today though I’m going on three (3) years of having self-published books. I’ve had to remind myself of my priorities and what led me to actually take the steps to self-publish.
Is it profitable? For some it has been, but not for me. So, I’m not receiving as much money as I’ve put out, but the reason I decided to try my hand at self-publishing was because of the $25,000.00 I put into my wedding and honeymoon. Yes. $25,000.00!! A wedding put things in perspective. That was a lot of money put into my wedding for just a few days. My self-publishing efforts? Not even CLOSE to that much money, and my self-publishing is ongoing. I didn’t make a cent in 2009 and 2010, but 2011 was filled with readers and $$ that can pay for a few dinners. The main point was not the money, but to find a few readers, strangers, who would say that they enjoyed the story that I wanted to share. And I am so ever pleased to hear a few voices that continue to say just that.
Is it worth it? I must say that I am quite happy every time someone finds me and buys one of my books. It makes my day. The money I’ve put into it has been well worth it for just reaching one more person with my stories.
Has it been easy? For me. No. I would suspect it wouldn’t be easy for anyone who cares for the product of their work. The story must be scrutinized so that the writer doesn’t stay ignorant that their writing is “different” and “extraordinary”. In order to know what kind of story you have, strangers must become the audience, not friends and family. It is strangers who you want to enjoy and share with your creativity. I’ve also had to learn almost a dozen knew software to operate for my website, blogsites and even for writing (i.e. yWriter, Adobe, other features in MSWord). So my technical skill took a huge S T R E T C H.
Is it expensive? It doesn’t have to be if you do most of it yourself and take the many, many months to learn the software and craft of photo editing and writing and html or epub format. It could be completely free if you just upload and create only an ebook, but you must follow the programming and specifications of the distribution company (i.e. KDP Amazon, Smaswords, PubIT).
Is it bad? No. Many authors are self-publishing. It is only bad if you don’t learn from others on what a good product is. If you don’t seek help, then the product won’t be it’s best. When your art receives positive comments, it is then that you know that you have done well, and it is then that you will have your validation. You won’t need to have that need anymore to be validated by a publishing house, because you have received it on your own. And that’s how it’s been for me.
And my path has been an fun, self-fulfilling, and an extraordinary one :).
Until Next Time.
2 Comments
Self-publishing is a lonely, at times frustrating, and often thankless path. The internet is filled with the next-best this or that, and all the promising start-up publishing companies who’ll nickel and dime you to produce an unreadable book, that’s bound for glory…if you pay them to edit, and format your sparkling talent. Lately it seems like every third unemployed literary agent, cowardly con artist, work-from-home dreamer, and penny stock hustler has joined the ranks of hucksters as some sort of publishing service. You may be the next superstar novelist of the decade~Yeah, right. I think we’re in a state of flux with respect to the publishing industry. The older agents-I’ve seen a few give speeches-seem out of it. The old paradigm of query an agent, send in three chapters, sell to the brick and mortar world is gone, and suddenly, the super agents of the 90s are clueless-as if they’ve just discovered the ubiquity of the internet. Or maybe they sit back and see what floats to to the top the day’s slush pile, self-published books that sell millions. You write for yourself-either out of some bent passion, twisted sense of story, or a mindset that doesn’t play into the notion that some grand hand will pat you on the back. No, there will be no letter form big time brick and mortar publisher taking a shot at an unknown voice. There are hundreds of thousands of new voices who’ve bypassed the slush pile for a direct route to a sales rank at an online seller. It’s a crapshoot, the odds are against you, and the smarmy blogging publishers, and acquisitions editors will do the same thing they’ve always done-Wait until something that’s filtered through the dross lands on their desk, only nowadays the slush pile is much bigger, and it has a lot more readers eyes.
It’s definitely looking like a “dot-com” era of the 1990s where there was a boom of Internet-based companies and everyone shouting how much money they were making…. Until a few years later, everything went under.
All the hustlers are out on the prowl, trying, and sometimes getting, that quick buck. Unfortunately, if authors aren’t researching and fall prey to being “catered-to,” they can loose hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars, just to be disappointed when their name is not lit up in stars like the snakes, I mean, business people told them they would be. They find out that they won’t be in the immediately sucess bracket, and that their book is one-in-millions.
So, yes, it’s a bit of luck for a reader to find an unknown author’s book; and no matter how many four-leaf clovers, falling stars, coins-in-wishing-wells, breaking wishbones, and/or birthday candles, unknown authors still has their work cut out for them. It’s sort of like your novel is in the “internet/virtual slush pile.”
However, on the positive side of things, people still tend to find what they like and what they want to read. I mean, there’s a lot of websites being created every.single.day, and people still find the information that they want.
One may just get that wish 😉