E-books are of interest to self-publishers because of low production costs and distribution efficiencies, particularly at the global level. Below are April’s opinions on DIY. Others’ welcome! – D.R.

Author April L. Hamilton At WorkYou’ve been honing your craft for years, you’ve placed in some contests, and maybe you’ve even managed to land an agent.

New York editors say they love your work, yet they’re not offering to buy any of it.  Which of these wives’ tales, half-truths or outright lies is keeping you from self-publishing?

#10 – The only author who resorts to self-publication is one whose writing isn’t good enough to get a “real” publisher.

Once upon a time this was probably true, but these days more manuscripts are rejected due to commercial concerns than due to quality concerns. In much the same way movie studios aren’t interested in producing "small" films, publishers aren’t interested in producing ‘small’ books.

A rumor circulating around BookExpo America in Los Angeles last month holds that no large publisher will offer a contract to a new author unless that author can demonstrate a significant online presence and a following of at least 25,000.

The thing is, I have it on good authority that for at least one major publisher it’s not just a rumor at all, it’s unofficial policy.  It used to be perfectly respectable to sell between 10K–20K copies, but these days sales on that scale are deemed a failure by big publishers. Yesterday’s "midlist" author is today’s self-pub candidate.

#9 – Readers are biased against self-published books.

Readers are biased against bad books, no matter how they were brought to market. It’s only publishers and other writers who are biased against self-published books. No reader gets pulled in by jacket copy or an excerpt, only to glance at the spine and hurl the book to the floor in disgust, exclaiming, “Why, this book was published by Joe Bob’s Falafel Hut, Bait Shop and Press, not a real publisher at all!”

Moving primarily in circles of other writers and publishing professionals, writers tend to forget what it’s like to be a “mere” reader and can scarcely remember a time when they didn’t know the names of every major imprint in the free world.

The crossover success of originally self-published books like Eragon, The Celestine Prophecy and Diary Of A Wimpy Kid is proof enough: if you write it well and get the word out, they will read.

#8 – Self-published books are instantly recognizable as inferior because they don’t hew to mainstream publishing standards for layout and typesetting.

This is another example of a viewpoint held by publishing professionals which is totally irrelevant to ordinary readers. So long as your book looks more or less the same to the casual observer as a similar mainstream book, and the text is easy to read, the typical buyer won’t know (or care) if your gutters are 1/16 of an inch wider than standard, or that by using the Garamond font, you’ve broken a cardinal rule of manuscript typesetting.

#7 – Self-publishing is expensive, because you have to order a minimum quantity of books up front.

Some publishers do require their author-clients to order a minimum print run, which can cost thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars. However, true print-on-demand publishers don’t require their author-clients to order any books. I wasn’t required to buy any copies of the books I’ve self-published, beyond a single proof copy of each for my review prior to each book’s release.

#6 – Self-publishing is expensive, because you have to pay for professional services.

I lay out and format my own books in a standard word processing program.  I design all my own book covers, using a consumer-level photo editing program—judge them for yourself, here, here and here. In addition to trade paperback editions, I publish my books in Kindle™ and various other e-book formats, using simple, free, online tools that do the conversions for me. I promote my books, using both old-school and new media techniques, most of which are free. Only one of my books was professionally edited. 

Since I proof and edit my manuscripts using checklists acquired from various books on grammar and usage, the proofing tools provided in my word processing program, and the usual rounds of peer review, by the time the manuscript landed on the editor’s desk it was pretty clean. The draft came back with so few corrections I decided not to pay for professional editing on any of my subsequent books.

People who have more money than time will still choose to pay for professional services, but for an author with basic computer and Internet skills (in other words, anyone reading this), along with the willingness to learn, it’s optional.  If I can do it, how hard could it be?

Based on their specialized knowledge, publishing professionals would probably find any number of ‘amateurish’ imperfections in my books, but none of these things would be noticed by a typical reader.  A local independent bookseller who stocks my books says that to his eye, apart from the lack of a recognized imprint logo on the spine, my books are indistinguishable from mainstream books.  Keep asking yourself, “Who do I need to please, publishers and other writers, or readers?”

#5 – Self-publishing is expensive, because you have to pay large set-up fees.

Some publishers do require their author-clients to pay set-up fees which can run from hundreds to thousands of dollars. However, there are publishers that don’t charge any set-up fees at all, thereby allowing authors to publish for free; Lulu™ and CreateSpace™ are two examples. Publishing to the Kindle™ is free via Amazon’s Digital Text Platform™, and publishing to various other ebook formats is free via Smashwords.  I’ve never paid set-up fees for any of my self-published books.

#4 – It’s hard to succeed as a self-published author, because unlike mainstream authors, self-published authors have to do all their own promotion.

The only authors who get significant promotion budgets and support from their publishers these days are best-selling and prestige clients. Everyone else is on the hook to do their own promotion, regardless of who published them.

#3 – It’s hard to succeed as a self-published author, because you’re an unknown quantity and there’s no quality-control system in place to help buyers ferret out the best self-published books.

While it’s true that as a self-published author you’re an unknown quantity, it doesn’t automatically follow that implementation of a quality-control or rating system is needed.

Self-published authors can overcome the "unknown quantity" barrier exactly the same way mainstream authors do: by allowing potential buyers to pick up their books and start reading before deciding whether or not to purchase. Even if your book isn’t shelved in any brick-and-mortar stores, you can provide lengthy, free, online excerpts easily enough on a blog, author web site, or online service such as 1 Chapter Free or Smashwords.

Why waste time and effort pursuing elaborate self-pub rating or quality control systems, when you can simply reach out directly to readers and let the work speak for itself?

#2 – It’s hard to succeed as a self-published author, because you can’t get your books into major brick-and-mortar bookstore chains, and presence in those stores is crucial for success in authorship.

This is yet another of those areas where publishing industry insiders are calling the tune and self-published authors dutifully step in time, not stopping to think how accurate the publishing insiders’ assertions are or how much their opinions really matter in terms of the authors’ own f
uture success.

When the only place to buy quality books was a bookstore, and the only way to get your book into a bookstore was through mainstream publication, this assumption was definitely true. Today, in the era of e-commerce and discount super stores, it’s a notion that would seem quaint if it weren’t so vociferously defended by publishers and many authors.

Remember Licorice Pizza, Musicland, Tower Records, et al?  As soon as consumers could (reliably) find a wider selection of music at a lower cost online, as well as in discount super stores, those chains were done for.  They’re all long gone, and hardly missed.

Now that we’re down to just two national chain booksellers, and one of them is faltering, retail history is repeating. According to a poll released by Zogby International on May 29 of this year, 43% of respondents most often buy their books online, 32% primarily shop for books in chain bookstores, and 9% buy most of their books from small, independent bookstores.  Preferred book retailers aren’t named for the remaining 16%, but that 16% definitely isn’t buying most of their books in chain bookstores.

In other words, 68% of respondents do not see brick-and-mortar chain bookstores as the best place to go when they want to buy books.

Capturing the attention of a market share that currently stands at 32% and is steadily shrinking can hardly be deemed ‘crucial’ in any marketing endeavor, and even if deemed important, doesn’t justify expending the majority of one’s resources.

In fairness, when asked to list all the different places they’d purchased books in the past year, respondents in the same poll most often named online retailers (77%), chain bookstores (76%) and independent bookstores (49%).  Percentages ranging from 16-39% also named drug stores, supermarkets, warehouse clubs, big box stores and airports.  Even so, these numbers demonstrate that consumers are just as comfortable buying books online as in chain bookstores, and nearly half are also regularly buying from independent booksellers.  Any way you slice it, chain bookstores no longer dominate the bookselling landscape.

#1 – Self-publishing is fine for hobbyists and family keepsakes, but I intend to have a career.

For mainstream authors with major publishers, career longevity is entirely under the publisher’s control. Such an author’s future prospects are only as good as the sales on his last book, and given that only 1-2% of all books published each year go on to become bestsellers, there’s an awful lot of career wreckage piled up at the margins of the industry.

If your book doesn’t earn back its advance, or sells only modestly beyond the advance threshold, your publisher won’t want to publish your next book. You’ll be viewed as damaged goods by every other imprint of that publisher, as well as by every imprint of the five other major publishing houses in the U.S.

Given that only best-selling and prestige clients get any significant promotion help or budget from their publishers, selling enough copies to convince your publisher that buying your next manuscript will be a good investment is no mean feat. And unless you’re a brand-name author like Stephen King, regardless of past successes, one failed book can spell the end of your career. After scaling the mountain to ‘legitimate’ publication, the  majority of authors find themselves more or less blackballed by the mainstream when their books fail to ‘break out’—worse off career-wise than if they’d never published at all.

A self-published author’s career, on the other hand, isn’t over until that author chooses to stop publishing. There’s no sword of Damocles hanging over the self-published author’s head, no hand-wringing over sales figures, no advance to earn back, no editors who stop returning their calls. The self-published author’s career flounders or flourishes on the strength of the author’s work and the author’s willingness to keep writing, publishing and promoting.

People often warn  that it’s rare for a self-published book to become a bestseller, and my response is always the same: it’s  rare for any book to become a bestseller.  Mainstream-published authors have an edge in the numbers when it comes to the likelihood of best-seller level success, if for no other reason than the fact that the mainstream’s publicity machine can be brought to bear for them the moment there’s any sign of a breakout hit.  But self-published authors can take considerable comfort in the fact that their careers don’t hinge on repeatedly hitting the best-seller lottery.

The next time you’re in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, look around and take stock of all the books you’re not buying. Browse the bargain tables and note all the authors and titles you’ve never heard of. Remember: every one of those books represents the outcome of an author, and every one of those authors expected to have a long and satisfying career. Care to join them, still?

April Hamilton is a writer based in Los Angeles.  Her latest book is The IndieAuthor Guide, a how-to reference book on self-publishing.

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26 COMMENTS

  1. April,

    Thanks so much for that article. Despite knowing the odds, I’m still writing a book, and I found your article very encouraging.

    I’m writing because it’s something I enjoy, and while it’d be nice to make a lot of money from it, all I really want is to share it with people. It’s good to hear that it’s possible and feasible no matter what.

  2. Yoda47 –
    It’s absolutely possible and feasible, don’t let anyone tell you different! I think someone like you, to whom the writing and sharing are more important than the money, is an ideal candidate for self-publication because you’re no longer chasing after that 7-figure book deal—something that’s more the stuff of urban legend than reality for previously unknown, debut authors anyway. Typical advances for such authors run anywhere from $0 – $35K, with the average hitting right around $15 – $20K.

    If you self-publish at the same time as another unknown author gets his first mainstream publishing contract, the odds are stacked against either of you hitting the bestseller lists. But if that other writer doesn’t sell enough copies to earn back his advance, his career in mainstream publishing is toast. Your career in publishing, on the other hand, has just begun.

  3. It’s always amazing to read how authors in the past came to make livable incomes off writing. Just two days I watched the classic not-in-the-public-domain 1924 film Girl Shy where Harold Lloyd writes a book and his publisher eventually agrees to publish it and writes him a check for $3000. (The scene at the publishing house (available at youtube is a funny one). As I watched it, I remember thinking, gosh, I know this was supposed to be the movies, but $3000 seems like a lot of money for an author even today. Should today’swriters have any reason to be optimistic about receiving runumeration for their creative works?

  4. Robert –
    I think you’re right, that today’s writers (and musicians, artists, philosophers and filmmakers) have to be in it for the love of it, not to make a living at it. Sadly, it seems to me that in today’s world, the only ‘currency’ of any value is, well…currency. I’m afraid that the only art or thought on which one can earn a living nowadays is art and thought that can be commodified, slickly packaged and sold in large quantities for a profit.

    But I think meaningful, non-mainstream art and thought will always find a way, and thanks to the web and other communication technologies, it’s easier for that work to find an appreciative audience than ever before.

  6. Mike Cane:
    The term I use is “indie”, because authors who produce, promote and sell their own work are no different from indie filmmakers and indie musicians. Any of these three types of artist may be creating work of great quality and meaning, but unless some big corporation thinks there are significant bucks to be had off that work, the artists have no choice but to go it alone. In fact, in the film and music industries the artists who ‘go it alone’ garner much greater respect as a group than their mainstream peers.

  9. Indie filmmakers have to develop the skill of raising finance and managing budgets as well as working with a team of actors etc. Many writers I’ve spoken with are by nature generally more introverted and love the writing part more than the teamwork, raising money part so self-publishing is a huge challenge for many – although it may be their only route to seeing their work in print.

  10. Dang, I wish I could read Spanish so I could read that comment just above Yang-May Ooi’s…

    Yang-May Ooi: you’re right about many, maybe even most, writers being introverted by nature, but thanks to new technologies like POD, easy-to-use yet sophisticated word processing and graphics editing software, and of course, Web 2.0, it’s not only possible for them to economically self-publish but to effectively market their published books without having to become dynamic public speakers in the process. They don’t have to become typesetting, graphics or layout experts, either. In fact, that’s why I wrote The IndieAuthor Guide: to demonstrate first of all that it CAN be done, and secondly HOW TO do it. Some of the book’s content is available for free download at my website if you’d like to check it out; just click my name at the top of this article to get to my site, then follow the ‘IA Guides’ link on the site menu.

  11. Thanks for the good information you are posting about self-publishing. As a professional in the publishing business (copyediting, proofreading, indexing) with almost 30 years of experience, I can say that the world of self-publishing has made great strides in even just the last few years. With the proper vendors (everything from cover design to editing) — or even without, as you point out — there is nothing that keeps a self-publisher from putting out a product that looks even better than those of the biggest publishing houses in the world, for whom quality seems to be lagging more and more each day. Many self-publishers in the realm of nonfiction forget about indexes, when really there’s little more than can add value to (or detract value from) a nonfiction book. I’ve worked on quite a few indexes for indie authors as well as major presses, and if you’d like to know more (or about copyediting or proofreading in the publishing industry), please visit my own blog: boblandedits.blogspot.com.

  13. I just finished off a battle with testicular cancer where the chemotherapy absolutely kicked my butt for a few months. Having worked as a reporter for a smalltown daily newspaper in Central Massachusetts, I provided myself with a little mental therapy throughout the battle by writing a column about the experience. The column was quite popular and a few people told me I should write a book about everything.
    I’ve had family and friends tell me for the last few years that I should write some sort of book and I decided, “Eh, what the hell!”

    I’m about halfway through what I expect to write (although we’ll see where the pen takes me) and just started looking into self-publishing and what it involves. This page was certainly beneficial. Thank you very much for the insight.

  14. April,

    Thank you. I feel like crying. My wife and I have written twenty children’s books. We sent them to an agent four weeks ago. She said that if we don’t here from her for eight weeks, then she’s not interested. We’ve been wringing our hands for a month now. The thing is, not to sound cocky, these stories are fantastic. They’re all done in rhythm, rhyme, and repetition, with an unforgiving vocabulary. We run a preschool and read them to children all day long. Even without the pictures, they are often the preferred stories. They’re not really like anything else in the bookstore. Which we know might be the problem. Today, we thought, why not just contact an artist and get some help with the illustrations. So I went online to research self-publishing. After an hour, I found your site. Thank you so much, your words meant a lot to me today.

  16. Garamond is breaking rules of publishing? It’s a very common typeface used in books. Some printings of the Harry Potter series were set in Adobe Garamond. The best seller Three Cups of Tea uses another version of Garamond.

    I’d also like to point out that the examples of self-publishing success stories you used, did not employ print-on-demand (POD).

    The Celestine Prophecy was printed before POD was even available.

    If you think Mama Paolini didn’t market the heck out of Eragon on behalf of her son, you need to go back and read the numerous writer’s forums (AbsoluteWrite.com, for instance) and publishing sites she posted on before she went to press. Also, the book was not a success until it was picked up by a traditional publisher, which happened in what seems like 15-minutes.

    Diary of a Wimpy Kid was published online as blog entries. It was never POD. Harry N. Abrams made the author a deal to publish a series under the Amulet imprint.

    Self-publishing and POD are great things, for sure. But you need to be realistic. If you want to earn money from your book, it needs to be treated like a business and the first step is to check out how every self-published book became successful.

    1. Professional design??

    2. Offset press runs, with plenty of ARCs sent out?

    3. Previous contacts in the industry?

    No one has ever just stuck a book on Amazon and made much money off of it. It’s a lot of work, a lot of marketing. Very few actually make money off self-published books, quite often they are successful only after being picked up by a bigger publisher.

  17. I’m not sure anyone said that Garamond was breaking the rules of publishing, but a lot of people IN publishing don’t care for Garamond. it’s one of those: “It’s technically okay, but we don’t like it” fonts.

    While the examples she used were not self publishing success stories that used print-on-demand technology, someone should point out that there have been POD success stories.

    Jeremy Robinson has gotten a 3 book deal from a division of St. Martin’s Press, which happened after he published a book with POD, and got James Rollins to blurb it, and got an agent. None of that would have happened had he not put his own book out.

    And he wouldn’t have been able to put his own book out if it weren’t for POD.

    But others have followed that trend.

    And it hasn’t just been POD. It’s been ebooks and podcasts as well. There is a big wide world out there of formats to put your work in and ways to get it into people’s hands.

    There is nothing “magic” about offset printing. Many large publishers use POD through Lightning Source for their backlist. POD is a technology and nothing more.

    Connie Shelton is an author who started her own imprint with the purpose of publishing her own books. Intrigue Press. Later she branched out to publish other authors, but not because she had to, because she kept getting submissions and found worthy books.

    She continues to publish her own books. So obviously it’s a good business model for some people. Though yes, she uses offset printing. But Samhain a major romance epub uses POD for their print books. And they aren’t even self published.

    It also depends on how you define “success.” Since an indie, even using POD technology can end up making 4 times as much per book as a trad published author, then they obviously have to sell 1/4th the same number a trad published author would for the same amount of money.

    I agree that professional design is important.

    I don’t agree that offset print runs are necessary.

    I don’t think you need “contacts” unless you use them instead of glasses.

    No one has just stuck a book anywhere and made much money off it. Marketing is a big part of the picture. But with the internet, it’s not nearly as hard to reach potential readers as it once was.

  18. Oh and I forgot Pamela Aidan. I’m fairly certain she used offset press, though I’m not sure. But I think it’s important to note, she published her Mr. Darcy novels on her own, because she believed it was a better business decision than seeking a publisher.

    It took three offers from Simon and Schuster before she accepted a contract. She wasn’t too quick to jump at a contract, so obviously she was doing just fine on her own. In fact the reason she was offered one is because her sales were impressive. They approached her.

    How can one have impressive sales on their own if it’s impossible to do anything without a NY publisher?

    Clearly if a major publisher offers a really good deal, most authors will take it, but the kind of success most of the self published books that got picked up experienced, are far above and beyond the success level of most traditionally published books.

    Plenty of books published by NY houses make very little money for the authors.

  19. Kate-

    There’s only so much one can fit into a single article, which is why I’ve written an entire, how-to reference book on indie authorship. I will never understand why someone will assume that just because I haven’t explicitly said this or that specific thing in a single, specific article, I must be unaware of that thing or advocating against that thing.

    OF COURSE an indie author must put considerable effort into marketing and promotion; I never proposed that they should just get the book out there and wait for the royalties to roll in.

    OF COURSE an indie author must do everything in his or her power to create a quality product that can stand toe-to-toe against a mainstream-published book.

    OF COURSE there are indie author success stories among both POD and minimum-print-run indie authors. Personally, I feel POD is the better way to go nowadays because it’s far less expensive for the author, it’s far more ‘green’ (less waste from manufacture & shipping, no remaindered cartons of books to be shipped back to manufacturer and destroyed), and doesn’t require the author to either store large quantities of books or hand-sell them. I’m a big advocate of ebooks, as well.

    If you’re truly interested in ALL I have to say on the subject of indie authorship, I suggest you pick up a copy of The IndieAuthor Guide on Amazon — which was published via POD, of course!

  20. Thanks for this blog, I read it with interest and fasination. I have sold 124 copies of my first novel, I am Print-on-demand. Intend to release its sequel next year.
    you begin to relise that you are in a dog eat dog world when it comes to publishing, wether its Mainstream or the like. It is a bit of a shame that PODs get looked down upon, until u start selling loads of copies, my friend took six of my books to a fair and sold them all in 1 hour, he would sold more if it wasnt for the fact that I was running short on copies.
    Everything you have said is true, thanks
    Ros

  24. Junior high, high school, college and other coursework: all have said throughout “you’re a natural.” Well, ” natural UNKNOWN!”
    I am finding nothing but vanity and self-publishers out “there” for a compilation of self-made poetry, prose and essay. Everyone want 1900 – 3500 bucks to put me into print and then wants me to peddle it!
    Hmmmmmm…….any hope for anyone who can’t pull the wool over Oprah’s eyes?

  26. April:

    This was simply the best of the concise articles defending SP I have seen to date. I had many suspicions–some confirmed–about the nonsense I was hearing out there, re: the outright panning of SP without any reasonable, let alone rational arguments that fail many times to take into account just how diverse the world of publishing is.

    It was refreshing to see this positive and encouraging take on it.

    Thank You!

    -Edward Kendall

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