Four Myths About Self-Publishing

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Four Myths About Self-Publishing

Surprisingly, after a decade of gaining popularity, some writers still dream of following the corporate route to publishing rather than self-publishing. That may be because plenty of myths about print on demand �� in large part promulgated by big publishing houses and literary agents who benefit from the old system �� still linger.

Let��s take a look at and debunk the more egregious of those myths.

No book of any value is ever self-published
Oh yeah? How about ��Leave of Grass�� by Walt Whitman, ��Poor Richards Almanac�� by Ben Franklin, or ��Birds of America�� by John Audubon? All were self-published. A conceit of corporate publishers is that only they can be arbiters of what is a quality book. The fact is that corporate publishers primarily are interested in what will sell the most copies (and hence yield the greatest profit), meaning most Big Six books are a race to the lowest common denominator. Simply put, ��sales�� does not equal ��quality.�� Arguably, corporations lower the standard of what is considered ��quality�� writing simply to make sales.

Indie authors do all of the work
While this can be true, without context it turns what in truth is a positive into a negative. Simply put, the price of an indie author having to do all of the editing, formatting, designing a cover, distributing and marketing comes only in time; the payoff is new skills learned, control over one��s product, and higher profits. The reality is all of that is lost with corporate publishers. The editor forces you to revise your book so that it is more marketable, a cover is designed that you have little to no say on, and in the end, you receive a low percentage of the profits, as the publisher needs to pay a editor, a formatter, a cover designer, a printer, and to make some money on top of that. And as for marketing, unless you��re one of the top 100 selling authors, you��ll have to do that all on your own. Of course, you don��t have to solely edit, format, design, distribute or market your book; you can contract out that work to freelancers, who will charge much less than the publisher��s employees earn.

Indie authors don��t make any money
While the advance from a corporate publisher likely will be larger than your first month��s profits from self-publishing, in the long run indie authors win. Authors with corporate publishers earn about 10 percent of the sales cost per book; in contrast, indie authors typically earn at least 35 percent of the sales cost per book. So for every three to four books a corporate author sells, an indie author only needs to sell one book to make the same amount of money. Remember, either way, you��ll have to do all of the marketing for your book on your own. Further, if your first book doesn��t sell well, the corporate publisher likely won��t agree to a contract for a second book. If an indie author��s first book doesn��t catch on, that��s no big deal �� you can keep publishing until one does sell well.

Your work is only valid if a big publishing house prints it
The theory is that if a corporate publisher editor selects your work from the thousands he or she receives every month, then your manuscript has ��validity.�� In truth, that system is restrictive and anti-democratic. ��Validity�� simply is a codeword for ��marketable.�� That almost always means you��re either a celebrity or that your writing is imitative of what��s currently hot. So, if witch books are in, and you wrote one, you stand a greater chance of being published �� even if it��s garbage and you know your Chupacabra book was better.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

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