Self Publishing - What Not To Do Part 3

The last two weeks, I wrote about the worst way to self publish your books. The problem basically boils down to signing over your publication rights to a so-called "self publishing" publisher, which is technically anything but.

I've spoken to more writers who signed on with "self-publishing" publishers than I can count. These writers - like all writers - are universally smart, earnest, focused, dedicated, skillful writers. They have great ideas and great execution. They reasonably believe that the best focus for their limited time is the books they are writing, not the mechanisms to bring those books to the marketplace.

Unfortunately, this is a big error in judgment. Because they aren't driving their own writing/publishing/marketing vehicle, their books are just one more set of titles in a company that has hundreds or thousands of authors. And at whatever sales level these authors create, their so-called publishing company takes a critical portion of the money off the top, yet they still don't help those writers sell books. How can you tell?

Easy. When you find a compelling "self-publishing" company, go through their catalog and write down the titles and authors of their books. Pick out dozens of them. Or hundreds of them. Now look up those same books on Amazon. What are their sales ranking? (Remember, a sales ranking of #1 means the top-selling book at Amazon. A sales ranking of 100,000 means that 99,999 titles sell better. The lower the number, the better the book sells.) When you look at the sales ranking of all the books you've written down, you'll quickly see that most are over 500,000. Many are over a million. Some way over. That tells you how successful/unsuccessful the publisher is at selling books.

How can authors who signed over publication rights to a company that pays no advance and yet doesn't sell many books ever hope to compete with the real self-published authors? The simple answer is that they can't. Because real self-published authors have a full-time, or even double-time, person working exclusively on the publishing and marketing of their own books. Themselves. Their efforts are rewarded by being able to keep all of the profit. And their efforts aren't diluted by having to focus on other writers.

Self-published authors who have complete control over their work are nimble and faster and more motivated. They don't have to get any permission to make this little change or that adjustment in their story or on their book cover. When they see a promotion opportunity, they can jump on it. When a group, corporate or social or otherwise, asks for their participation in an event and they need to show up with 100 books, they can immediately accept. And every one of these things that they do puts more money in their pocket, not someone else's pocket.

Of course, many writers think that they don't have time to figure all this stuff out. So just pay the money, and the next thing you know, their book is for sale on Amazon. Yay. They're in the big time. Never mind that their books might not make any money.

Further - and this is a big point - these writers look at "real" self-published authors and see that most of them don't make money, either! Same for New York-published authors. So who cares what approach one takes?

I can't argue with that. As I said in my caveat at the beginning of this rant two weeks ago, if you're happy with your choices, great.

But because only a small percentage of writers earn a good living from writing, it's worth it to take a close look at them. Some of them have established long careers with New York publishers. It's a tough gig - the Authors Guild reports that the average New York-published author makes $17,000 a year - but it can be done. And an increasing number of authors earning a good living are self-published. But, as far as I can see, all of those self-published authors are true self-published authors, in control of their own career, with no other people between them and their readers.

The bottom line is this. If you want to have a chance at joining that small percentage - authors who earn a good living - wouldn't you choose one of the approaches that they all use? Yet many writers choose an approach that no successful authors use. Why?

Is figuring out how to be a real self publisher hard work? Absolutely. It takes a lot of research to learn what is necessary to truly self publish. Writing your book was hard work, too. As was studying for and developing your previous work career. You wouldn't have turned over control of your previous career to someone else to make all the decisions. You did it all yourself, going directly to the people who paid you money for your services. And your efforts and focus on every aspect of that career were important to your success.

Like any research project, start by Googling your questions. Then expect to read a hundred blogs on the subject. Plan to purchase several books on the subject. Join writer's groups. Attend their meetings. Ask questions. Get involved. Do the same stuff you did when you got into your first career. Education, apprenticeship, practice/study/practice some more/study some more.

If you're going to self publish, I think you should use as your role model those writers who are successful. Please don't fall for a slick website. The reality is that those companies are good at only one thing: Taking money from writers who have stars in their eyes and an unquenchable desire to see their books in print on a bookshelf right now. Consider the benefits of delayed gratification. You will benefit a thousand times for the moments when you paused to learn more before you jumped into deep water.

You did a great job on all the research to write your book. Put in a relatively small amount of research to learn the most effective way of bringing your books to market. Either get yourself a New York deal with a decent advance or be a REAL self publisher. The first is a very unlikely possibility, and the second is a reasonable, workable approach that has rewarded thousands of writers.

You may be wondering what makes me think I know so much about this stuff. Just that my observations come from 16 years of publishing, the fact that I make a good living from this business, and the clear knowledge that I could not have succeeded had I done any of the things I'm warning about.

P.S.

I know writers who made the mistake of paying money to such companies, eventually realized the folly, reconfigured their approach to take back control, and began to do very well. So if you've gotten your books hitched to other people and given others control over your writing life, it's not too late. Read the fine print on your contract to see what is involved in taking back every right you gave them. Maybe you can republish under new ISBNs that you own. Maybe you can do new, professional covers, and get proper editing. With effort, you can probably take complete control over your new writing career, just as you did with your first career.