Is Self-Publishing On The Decline?

[image error]As a self-published author myself, I keep an eye on what is going on in the self-pub community. A lot of people are talking about the fact that sales for self-published authors, was down in 2011. The Naysayers keep speculating that e-book self-publishing is just a fad. They think it's something that came on quick and will leave just as fast. They cite the down turn in e-book sales as the start of it. To some extent, they are right.

However, it's not what they think. There is an aspect to self-publishing that has made people feel like it is a "get rich quick" scheme. People started to get the idea that if they just wrote a book about vampire love triangles, and pumped it out in a weekend, they would be rich. Everyone thinks they are an author these days and with the invention of self-publishing on an e-reader, they can be. Whenever something new comes out, there are always the people who jump on board at the beginning and ruin it for everyone else. I know that sounds very depressing for those of us who write because we have a passion for it and make it our career.

Here is the good news; those people are going by the wayside. That's why sales are down, the "get rich quick" people are learning that it is more like "spend a year pouring your heart out into a novel, then promote the heck out of it while you're writing the next book and then hurry up and wait". We don't mind jumping through all those hoops. Those of us, who have made it our career, know it goes with the territory.

That's the key, if writing is your life, then just work at your craft and wait for all the "get rich quick" people to sink to the bottom so the cream can rise to the top, and it will, I promise. If you have a passion for writing, and you have the patients to wait, and the work ethic to keep going, you will succeed. Don't let the Naysayers get you down.