A Self-Published Author's Guide to Self-Publishing--Part 4
So you’ve self-published your novel, and it’s all downhill from here, right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, for starters there’s the whole legitimacy thing I mentioned. Self-published authors are rarely seen as real writers. Heck, I can’t even get a mention on Wikipedia. (Someone put my page up once and it was marked for speedy deletion—how embarrassing is that?)
Secondly, even traditionally published books get lost in the shuffle. I mean, there’s a least two or three books published every day. How do you expect someone to find your self-published masterpiece in that...what? Almost 800 a day in the U.S. alone! WTF! And I couldn’t get Darkside published, even after I queried that publisher and submitted my manuscript in her favourite coloured crayon—which I only found out about after hours of stalking research—and *cough* But I digress.
Thirdly, with the ease of self-publishing nowadays, both print and ebook—there may be a tendency for new authors to give up too easily. Maybe if you’d just stuck it out—you know, queried more than two agents—or did a little more work on your opus, it might have been picked up by a legitimate publisher. Then you’d be able to sit at that table at Chapters or Barnes and Noble all day with no one asking for your autograph, just like the real writers do.
There’s also the possibility—and I have no evidence to support or refute this theory either way—that it may be harder to publish your next opus through a legitimate publisher because you’ve become known as one of them low-rent self-published authors. I suppose you could always try to write under a pseudonym, but personally I’m rather attached to my name.
The nice thing about self-publishing is that you get to keep the lion’s share of the profits yourself (mostly). Amazon pays 35% royalties on ebooks under $2.00, and 70% on books over that. Obviously it pays to price your book at over $2.99. At roughly $2.00 a book royalties, that’s more than most first time authors will see from a paperback royalty. Of course if you don’t sell any, you don’t make anything. The nice thing about being traditionally published is that they usually pay you an advance, and if you don’t sell anything you get to keep the money. Good luck getting that next book published in that case, though.
Finally, and speaking from personal experience, there’s the very real possibility that someone will steal your book and publish it themselves. The thief who stole Darkside even published it as an ebook on Amazon under my name. Not only that, but Amazon allowed me to publish my book under my name too, which proves that even if you get there first there’s nothing to stop a thief from publishing your book as well—maybe at a lower price.
So that’s it. Whether you self-publish or not is up to you.
At the time, I thought self-publishing was the right answer for me—but then ebook publishing wasn’t a really a viable option. In my case, Darkside reached an audience it probably never would have. Offering it up on the net meant I had readers from all over the world! I received tons of fan mail—even a few from some teachers who said they were using it as classroom reading because it was one of the few books that held their student’s interest, and as an example of first person narrative.
Still, given the option I think I would have preferred the legitimacy of traditionally publishing. Maybe I’m just a snob—but if so I’m in good company. *cough* Amanda Hocking *cough*
Well, for starters there’s the whole legitimacy thing I mentioned. Self-published authors are rarely seen as real writers. Heck, I can’t even get a mention on Wikipedia. (Someone put my page up once and it was marked for speedy deletion—how embarrassing is that?)
Secondly, even traditionally published books get lost in the shuffle. I mean, there’s a least two or three books published every day. How do you expect someone to find your self-published masterpiece in that...what? Almost 800 a day in the U.S. alone! WTF! And I couldn’t get Darkside published, even after I queried that publisher and submitted my manuscript in her favourite coloured crayon—which I only found out about after hours of stalking research—and *cough* But I digress.
Thirdly, with the ease of self-publishing nowadays, both print and ebook—there may be a tendency for new authors to give up too easily. Maybe if you’d just stuck it out—you know, queried more than two agents—or did a little more work on your opus, it might have been picked up by a legitimate publisher. Then you’d be able to sit at that table at Chapters or Barnes and Noble all day with no one asking for your autograph, just like the real writers do.
There’s also the possibility—and I have no evidence to support or refute this theory either way—that it may be harder to publish your next opus through a legitimate publisher because you’ve become known as one of them low-rent self-published authors. I suppose you could always try to write under a pseudonym, but personally I’m rather attached to my name.
The nice thing about self-publishing is that you get to keep the lion’s share of the profits yourself (mostly). Amazon pays 35% royalties on ebooks under $2.00, and 70% on books over that. Obviously it pays to price your book at over $2.99. At roughly $2.00 a book royalties, that’s more than most first time authors will see from a paperback royalty. Of course if you don’t sell any, you don’t make anything. The nice thing about being traditionally published is that they usually pay you an advance, and if you don’t sell anything you get to keep the money. Good luck getting that next book published in that case, though.
Finally, and speaking from personal experience, there’s the very real possibility that someone will steal your book and publish it themselves. The thief who stole Darkside even published it as an ebook on Amazon under my name. Not only that, but Amazon allowed me to publish my book under my name too, which proves that even if you get there first there’s nothing to stop a thief from publishing your book as well—maybe at a lower price.
So that’s it. Whether you self-publish or not is up to you.
At the time, I thought self-publishing was the right answer for me—but then ebook publishing wasn’t a really a viable option. In my case, Darkside reached an audience it probably never would have. Offering it up on the net meant I had readers from all over the world! I received tons of fan mail—even a few from some teachers who said they were using it as classroom reading because it was one of the few books that held their student’s interest, and as an example of first person narrative.
Still, given the option I think I would have preferred the legitimacy of traditionally publishing. Maybe I’m just a snob—but if so I’m in good company. *cough* Amanda Hocking *cough*
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