I encounter a whole swirl of opinions about self-publishing in my work and my travels on the internet, from naivete to quiet confidence to militant opposition to strident support.
And I run into a lot of myths. Oh. My. Gosh. So many myths.
It’s much easier to decide whether or not to self-publish if you have a clearer picture of the facts.
So let’s see if we can debunk a few of those myths, shall we? 😉
My perspective
I’ve been working in the publishing industry since the mid-90s, firstly as editor for a specialist publisher in Sydney, Australia and later, freelancing for traditional publishers and startup niche publishers. In 2001, I began adding project management for self-publishers to the mix.
I attend writer’s festivals, seminars and conferences, and I read a lot to TRY to keep up with an industry that’s currently going through a revolution as big as the invention of the printing press. (Note that I said “try”! Keeping up with a meteor would be easier. 😉 )
Am I the World’s Biggest Expert on publishing? Of course not. (Is anyone?) But I pay attention. And I love publishing — both traditional and self-publishing.
As recently as 2009, I would have given three pieces of advice to my friends:
- DO self-publish a non-fiction book (eg self-help, how-to, significant memoir) IF you have the resources to do it to a professional standard, and the platform to sell it from.
- DON’T self-publish fiction (novels).
- There’s no money in books, whichever way you publish. Write for other reasons.
If you’re wondering if I’ve changed my mind since 2009, you might like to check out my article on 4 good reasons for self-publishing a novel, and when it comes to the “money” question, pp14-16 of my free ebook Should I Self-Publish?
For a quick tour of the new technologies that have changed everything, check out this article on the new world of self-publishing.
But let’s get back to our main topic, and challenge 3 common myths that I’m hearing all the time.
Myth 1 busted: Indie books are NOT automatically lower quality
To say that self-published books are all lower quality than traditionally-published books is naive, ignorant or just plain mischievous.
There was a rush of low quality self-pubbed works a few years ago when ebooks burst onto the scene and people were experimenting. That seems to have slowed and a different picture is emerging.
- Some indie books are indeed low quality. There’ll probably always be some of those.
- Some traditionally-published books are low quality. There’ll probably always be some of those.
But there is a growing body of self-publishers who are determined to be professional in every phase of their work.
- They use editors every bit as good as the ones hired by the Big 5 publishing conglomerates (sometimes actually the SAME editors, who are now freelancing due to budget cuts). Their books are tightly-written, the content indistinguishable from trade-published books.
- They are savvy about book covers, hire great designers, and adapt if it isn’t working. (Interesting articles on this theme from HM Ward, Joanna Penn and Russell Blake.)
- They are intelligent and adaptive in their marketing.
- They keep up with technology and new opportunities.
- Often, their ebooks are actually better formatted than the big publishers, who have been curiously slow to get their heads around this technology.
Conversely, I’ve noticed a drop in the quality of some traditionally-published works, with issues ranging from numerous typos to bigger problems like poor structure and plot holes. The industry is under pressure and cutting costs, and editing seems to be one of the areas suffering.
Myth 2 busted: Indie authors DON’T have to do more marketing
People tell me they don’t want to self-publish because they don’t want to do marketing. They want a publisher to do it for them.
There are a number of good reasons for people to choose to publish traditionally, but unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.
Today, many publishers are reluctant to take on a new author who can’t demonstrate an ability to pull their weight with the marketing. The industry is under too much pressure and the risk is too high.
Many won’t even sign you, though they love your book, unless you can demonstrate that you already have a promotional platform or reader community established.
And once you are underway, you will be expected to do a lot of work to help sell your book.
So you will have to do marketing, whichever way you go.
Myth 3 busted: Indie authors DON’T make less money
Remember how my 2009 advice was “there’s no money in books”? Well, that opinion was formed in the TRADITIONAL publishing space.
In case I’m not being clear enough about the importance of that, let me say it another way.
Most authors who go with a traditional publisher will never make much money from their books. (If anything, this seems to have become even more true since 2009.)
- Yes, there are the outliers who make lots of money. However, the stories about huge advances being paid to authors are in the paper because they are News. They don’t happen often.
- Lots of new authors today don’t get ANY advance.
- If they do get an advance it may only be a few thousand dollars, or even less. And they may never earn another cent from that book — a book they may have spent years writing. And a lot of their own money researching and marketing. (If you do the maths, it’s not a good hourly rate.)
So now that we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding about traditional author earnings… what about self-publishers?
- Many self-publishers will never make much money from their books.
- Some outliers will make extraordinary amounts.
- And the mid-listers? This is where it gets interesting. My instinct these days is that a mid-lister stands to actually make MORE money as a self-pubber, if they go about it the right way.
There have been reports stating that traditionally-published authors earn much better than indies, which caused a bit of a kerfuffle in the blogosphere.
This article from Hugh Howey goes into great detail to identify flawed assumptions behind the way those reporters gathered their stats, and to present some alternative stats that surprised even him. He contends that indies are doing much better than anybody thought. (Hugh Howey is a self-publishing outlier, author of the colossally successful Wool sci-fi trilogy, but he also seems to be an all-round nice guy who takes an interest in the fortunes of average indies.)
His article is complex, and I’m not enough of a statistician to tell you how solid his conclusions are, but it gels with some of my observations.
There’s a novelist living near me who self-pubbed as an experiment, a “what the heck” adventure, and has surprised herself by building a nice little side income for her family. Her experience is apparently not that unusual.
And at the more deliberate end of the scale, I know two non-fiction authors who’ve sold around 10,000 copies of their respective books.
Author 1 went the traditional route. He is still trying to break even, because the small royalty he receives will take a long time to make up for all he had to spend to make the book happen, now that publishers expect so much more from the author.
Author 2 self-pubbed. He has paid all his expenses of publishing and is now making money, because he pockets a much larger slice of the selling price of his book.
Yes, that’s what we call “anecdotal evidence”, and it doesn’t prove anything statistically. But combined with a lot of the other reports I’m hearing and reading, it’s enough to challenge the old assumptions for me.
*check out Russell Blake’s comment below, as he has some interesting thoughts to add to the money question*
What do you think? Are you intrigued / challenged / inspired / disillusioned?? Tell us your thoughts and experiences.
Featured image via Bigstock/Ivelin Radkov
I always enjoy reading your blog posts!
I went the traditional route for years, but succeeded only with nonfiction–succeeded in the sense I made “some” money. But when the beautiful freedom of Kindle and CreateSpace and Smashwords and Draft2Digital showed up, I was able to combine my love of writing fiction with my 23 years in the computer industry–finding in self-publishing the freedom to create and publish at will. My computer background helped me navigate the how-to and my thousands of pages of fiction at last could be to be edited and converted into books. Getting a dynamite cover artist in Australia was a coup, having a doctorate in English Lit helped me understand what it means to present a story, and having the dream of my books actually sent out into the world made real–all these have been part of the self-publishing experience. I now have over 20 books out there. I consider self-publishing a joy, a gift.
It’s wonderful that you’ve had such a positive experience, Regina. Self-publishing can be very satisfying, and authors have the chance to find their own readers, rather than waiting till (or if) they can find a publisher who thinks they can sell the book, within their particular constraints.
Hello Belinda,
Your site was most informative and I loved it.
I am a self-published author. I came into publishing after many years of having articles published in dozens of newspapers and magazines. So my journey here was decorated with a few bronze medals. But I am also a businessman.and this is the interesting part.
Before releasing my first novel I pulled apart the publishing models. The two available were traditional and self-publishing. The objective of both sides was to access the readership market. The ‘traditionals’ had a bit of clout but the selfies were struggling to get this clout. That made me look at this market and why it was not so accessible to the selfies.
What I found was the readership in this traditional market was mostly English. Although the English market was big the other combined markets were bigger. ie, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Tamil, Filipino and Russian etc. The access to these combined markets was wide open. Selfies had never looked at accessing this market in a better informed way. So I set out to get my five novels translated into these languages!
The results are just coming through. It took a whole year to find the right translators, editors, cover designers, printers and publishers in these languages and contract them to do a thorough job. In some cases the translated books turned out better than the English version! One novel has seven versions.
This new market is explosive and accessible. It needs a bit of effort to get into but once you establish yourself you are there to stay. Sooner or later the floodgates will open and hordes of selfies will be able to capitalize on this lucrative market. Think about it.
It is a bit tricky getting in on this translation game but worth all the effort.
Thanks.
Marshall, that is wonderful that you are having such success with translation. It is definitely a lot of work to get books translated, and I know other authors who are having success with it too. My novel Poison Bay is currently being translated into German, because Germany is a big market for Australian mystery/thrillers.
Are you paying for your translations, or doing a royalty share?
Thank you Belinda,
I’m paying for the translation services. Through advertising on Upwork I selected freelancers to work on each book. This was a 3 stage process for each novel.
1. Interview/Select translator/s with specific language capabilities
2. Interview/Select editor/s with publishing skills
3.Interview/Select Senior Publishing consultant with access to language special publishers
In the next stage the ‘ rights’ will be negotiated with publishers/distributors. The advantage of this process is to reduce agency cost and retain control.
This model works better
At each stage of .translating/publishing/marketing the novel I have specific flows and processes to follow and all within a basic legal framework.
Finally the book/s will hit the market with complete control gained by my own effort.
I’m happy to share information and processes with any of your readers interested in this route.
Thank you Ma’am
Great article, but I would disagree with point 2 at the beginning and say DO self-publish fiction. I have had great success with fiction and I really enjoyed the process and outsourced some of it to some great people. I wouldn’t have changed it for for anything. It was a such a great sense of achievement and I won a book award!
I probably didn’t make it clear enough, FC, but that was my 2009 advice. It’s changed now, and I think there are often good reasons to self-publish fiction. 🙂
Yes, I realised just after I’d written the post. Sorry, I must have missed the part about your change of ideas. It’s constantly shifting industry and really interesting to follow. Thanks for a great post.
So true, and congratulations on all your success… may you have a lot more to come. 🙂
Myth 2 here is extremely important to understand. It’s like when a record label signs a band, they want to see that the band already has a following. The publisher doesn’t want to sign on an author that is starting at “0”.
So true, Kristen. I talk to authors all the time who refuse to believe this one (or don’t WANT to believe it). Literary fiction is possibly still exempt, but for every other genre, alas, authors must market! Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
This was an eye-opener for me! I confess I’ve been in the camp of “if the book is good, it should be traditionally published” but I’m quickly coming around. From what little I’ve experienced and learned as I finish my memoir, I would struggle so much more and with fewer benefits by publishing traditionally–if I could even get it to happen. And that might not happen, given my lack of a large, established platform. But still, I believe my writing is good, and I believe that there’s an audience for it, and I can succeed on my own. And thanks to this post, I’ve got some facts to back that up. Thank you!
Bonny, lots of people still assume that people only self-publish because they’ve been rejected by publishers (which isn’t true) and that publishers only reject books because they aren’t any good (which also isn’t true).
That said, there are still some good reasons to go for traditional publishing. But for many people, the good reasons to self-publish are even stronger. Wishing you the best of success, whichever path you end up taking! 🙂
Wow Belinda, great job with the post and great comments! I also know lots of authors who are making a fair living on their self-published novels, and I am currently writing like a madwoman in a determined attempt to join their ranks. And I only have one question – how can I get Russell Blake to visit MY blog? 😉
Haha, Molly, did you notice I was trying not to be gauche and say “Wow!!! Russell Blake visited my blog!!!!!” (but I did call my mother…) 😀
But hey, Molly Greene visits my blog at times too, and that’s pretty cool as well. 😉 I look forward to seeing you in the successful mid-list soon, and joining you there in a year or two.
LOL! I was excited for you, trust me. And thanks for your kind words, but I have no where near the same name recognition as Mr. Blake – in my dreams, maybe! Good on you.
Midlisters can make seriously good money self-pubbing. As in multiple six figure good money, year after year. I talk to a lot of authors, and I know dozens of authors making that kind of money, year in and year out. And I’m not talking about the Hollys, Bellas or Hughs of the world. I’m talking midlist authors with decent followings.
The math breaks out pretty obviously. If you’re a midlister who can shift, say, 10K copies of a title the first year it’s out, and you release 4 novels a year, and if you’re selling them at $4-$5 a copy, you’re pulling around, call it, $3 per book. That’s a midlister who is making a comfortable $150K a year. Like I said, I know lots of em. 10K a year in trad pub would be a yawn. 10K a year self-pubbed is a nice living, assuming you can produce sufficiently quickly to keep your readership consuming your wares.
It’s a great time to be an author. Yes, the likelihood of being one of the 1% is awful. But the likelihood of being one of the, say, other 9%, the midlisters earning great money, is far better than being a trad pubbed author making anywhere near the same money.
Self-publishing has created an emerging middle class of authors, and that’s exciting. A middle class that didn’t exist 5 years ago. Talk about a paradigm shift. Trad pubs will always have the stories of the marquis name that earns $15 million a year. None of us will likely ever be Lee Child or Nora Roberts. But we might well be authors with 10-20K readers who love our work and will buy 3-5 of our novels a year.
Which is amazingly awesome news for all the rest of us.
Thank you, Belinda and Russell. Spot on. Let’s please not forget that the self-pub journey is about more than money, although money’s pretty good too. Self-empowerment and creative control are factors for many of us. I’m self-publishing my three funny books in August on my Laugh Riot Press imprint. I’d love to make some money, and if Russell is right, and I feel sure he is, then maybe I will. But even if I don’t, even if readers don’t buy my books, my journey is spectacular. I simply refuse to let the traditional publishing empire decide the fate of my books. They’re my books, and I have the power. I decide if they are published or not. Cover, editing, proofing, formatting, distribution, marketing…I decide. What’s that worth in dollars and cents?
Keep going, Belinda. You’re awesome. And thank you again, Russell. You’re an inspiration to a lot of us.
You are so right, Rich. There is so much more to it than money, as I’ve said elsewhere and will continue to believe! It’s a great adventure, for one. And there is much satisfaction in making basic choices like Title and Cover, which are denied to those who go trad. (I had a book published a few years back under a title and cover that I didn’t agree with, so I know personally how that feels.)
Best wishes for your upcoming books, and I love the name of your imprint! 🙂
Thanks, Belinda. Come visit us at laughriotpress.com. We’re looking for self-pubbed writers of funny books who want to be part of a social media marketing movement. It seems to me that the traditional publishing empire has lost its sense of humor, and that’s a shame because the more funny books in the world, the better. Your blog is terrific. Indie authors everywhere, I’m sure, are deeply grateful to you for your time, effort, and insight. Keep going…
Thanks for taking time to give us so many details, Russell. I’ll edit the post to point people to your comment. The maths is indeed clear, when people can see it. So many are distracted by the siren song of the Delightful Thought of Being Published.
For those still unsure how it works, to compare those 10K copies at $4 a copy:
–the indie, making the $3 gets $30,000
–the traditionally-published author might be on a royalty of 30% of cover price for an ebook (it’s often “net” for mid-listers, but we’ll call it cover price to be kind) gets $12,000.
What it seems to boil down to is that the middle class authors (the not-Lee-Child-or-Nora-Roberts) who’ve gone trad are running day jobs and teaching seminars to try to pay the power bill, and cranking out the next book at 3am.
The middle class indies are free to do jobs and seminars if they want, or to go full-time on writing and publishing.
Thanks again Russell, and best wishes for a brilliant career! 🙂
Self publishing gives me freedom. Honestly, I don’t care if I ever make a dime as long as I can do whatever I want whenever.
Go for it, Will!
Hi Belinda, you’ve made such relevant comments and I agree with all of them. I’ve been thinking the same thing and can add to your information. I self published my first fantasy novel in April 2012. I am now writing the third and last book in that trilogy. I’ve sold around 5000 books so far, and with the royalties I’ve received, I’ve paid all my expenses for both books (and I didn’t skimp on editing or cover art). It did take two years to get to this point, but I can only see more book sales on the horizon as I’ve built a good base of readers, and my books are selling every day. I also work as a freelance editor, and all my clients are indie authors who are putting out the best book they can. If I had waited for a publisher or agent to take me on, I’d still be waiting. As long as an author is willing to put in the hard work, time and some money, they can do well.
Dionne, thanks so much for sharing about your experience. 5000 books in two years is great, and paying all your expenses is even better.
Perhaps the best part is those loyal readers. Take good care of them and they will be your ambassadors. Wishing you wonderful success for many years into the future! 🙂
Another helpful article, Belinda. Thanks. I’ve been coming to the same conclusions, based on my own somewhat disappointing experience of being traditionally published, but it’s good to have those confirmed by someone in the ‘know. At the moment I am doing a final edit of my second novel, and will self-publish.
Jane Riddell
Thanks Jane, and yes, I’ve known many people disappointed with the experience of being traditionally published. It’s good to go in with our eyes open. And I wish you well with your second novel! 🙂
Belinda I had my first two books published by Xlibris but found after a few thousand dollars that my hopes and money were dashed. They took my money and abandoned me, never once helped to promote either book.. Instead they kept asking for more money to promote the books despite taking 70% of any royalty. Never again. My next two books ready now will be self published.
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience, Don. I wish you well with your new adventure.