Self Publishing; The Analogy of the Apple Tree

“How is the book doing?” This is one of the most frequent questions I get, and it’s a totally understandable question. I published my book just over three weeks ago and people are excited for me (or at the very least, interested). But as a first time, self-published author, it’s kind of hard to answer that question at this point. To explain why, let me tell you about growing apple trees.

Most people think that you grow an apple tree by planting a seed in good soil, watering it, and waiting. This isn’t wrong. The problem is that it will take about eight to ten years until you have a tree that will produce fruit. This is too long for most people and there is another way, which is what the nursery industry does.

If you were to go to a nursery to buy an apple tree to plant in your yard, you might notice down at the bottom of the tree there’s a big knot. This is where they grafted a cutting from a tree (called a scion) onto the roots (called rootstock) of another tree.

Nurseries use scions, instead of seeds because it ensures that they get the exact variety of fruit that they want. Seeds will usually produce fruit genetically different from the parent tree - the way kids are different from their parents. And since they can take scions from small branches, one tree can produce hundreds of scions.

Nurseries use rootstock grown from a disease resistant variety, which keeps the trees healthier, and the right rootstock can ensure the tree stays a certain size (most homeowners want dwarf variety because it won’t take over your whole yard). By taking cuttings of roots and growing new rootstock, one tree can produce a lot of rootstock.

So by grafting scions to root stock, nurseries ensure they can produce hundreds of trees of the exact variety they want and that tree will produce fruit in two to three years, instead of eight to ten.

If you haven’t figured out my analogy yet, self-publishing is like growing an apple tree from a seed and traditional publishers are the nurseries. Publishers have a system which allows them to take new authors and graft them onto healthy rootstock, which allows them to see the fruits of that work much sooner. When you self publish a book, you are growing a tree from a seed and will wait much longer before you see the fruit of that work.

So, how is the book doing? It’s a nice healthy seedling. But in all seriousness, things are going well. Due to the impact Covid has had on the publishing industry, and the shopping rush of the holidays, I am just now getting the author copies of my book, which is what I was waiting for to start the marketing for the book. Despite that, I’m getting very positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads (which is invaluable for any book). Some of the reviews are even from people I don’t know, which is terribly exciting.

So what’s next? I’ll kick off some marketing in January, but the key thing is I’ve already started writing the second book. This is great advice from Eliot Peper, who has both self-published and worked through a publisher. The best thing I can do to build up my readership is not heavily market my first book, but is to publish my second book. It’s going to take years to see the fruits of my labors, so the best thing I can do is to keep writing and give my readers more books to love, that they then tell their friends about. 

(Now I’m hungry for an apple.)