Self Publishing: Interested?

[Devor]

The more I've heard people talk about self-publishing over the years, the more I come to the conclusion that it's 90% a scam for the get-rich-quick publishers to sell their marketing advice. You're out the time and labor for writing, you're out the cover, the editing, the marketing, the price of the self-help guides, and more, with very little quality feedback or support. You can pay an editor, and for sure that person will help you, but that editor wants the job and isn't going to tell you when it's a lost cause; there's also only so much they can do. And don't get me started on the writing coaches, the $2,000 courses, and the rest of it.

There are successful self-publishers. It's doable, don't get me wrong. But not enough people talk about it in realistic terms. To be successful you've got to be self-driven to a crazy extent. It's that DIY / Maker mindset, and that's not something that just switches on in you because you don't want a rejection letter. The ones who are successful are the ones who would never consider traditional publishing because for them the DIY-aspect is the whole point of doing it.

Honestly, if you're thinking about that 70-vs-30% royalty number, and not: A publisher isn't going to understand my ideas the way I do.... then I would say that you should think long and hard about whether you're up for it.

 

[Devor]

Well, like I said, I'm in Sweden and I have a contract with a Swedish publisher.

If you would, what's your impression of how the Swedish-language and English-language markets differ? I guess that could be its own thread, depending on how you want to answer.

 

[Mad Swede]

Sorry, I completely misread. I thought you initially said you get 70% of profits.

• So all in all £72k the publisher spent on you
• Out of this you got £5.4k
• Now I assume you get some decent royalties, still?
• If you get 5k a year say from royalties, the publishers get 16.5k a year, so roughly your book would make 20k, which is a salary essentially from a book

And I assume you wouldn't get royalties until costs were met? Or is that wrong to assume that?

Out of that I got an advance (on royalties) of a little over 70 000 SEK. I start earning the rest of my royalties when the advance I got equals the royalties I would have earned on book sales, which in this case was when the publisher had sold 2150 copies - that point is known in English as "earning out". After the book has earnt out I get royalties on every subsequent copy sold. I don't get an advance on the royalties for the e-book, which means I earn royalites on that (at 55%) from the very first sale of the e-books.

All four of my books are in print and all four have earnt out so I get royalties on every copy sold. I don't make enough to live on, the number of sales per year aren't high enough. But I do earn enough to make it worth the effort of writing.

 

[Mad Swede]

If you would, what's your impression of how the Swedish-language and English-language markets differ? I guess that could be its own thread, depending on how you want to answer.

Well, the Swedish language market is a lot smaller, so virtually no Swedish authors make enough to live on from their writing. Most of us have full time jobs doing something else. That limited market means initial print runs (and hence advances) are much smaller - the print run on my first book was 1000 copies, although the book has since been reprinted twice.

We don't have big conventions in the way you do in the US, book fairs are much smaller and more intimate so you really get to meet your readers - and your detractors. It's a big country, so there's quite a bit of travel involved if you're visiting a regional book fair or doing a book signing or giving a talk in some town.

Agents don't exist here in the way they do in the US and the UK. You deal directly with the publisher. But, the publishers will only accept manuscripts in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish or Finnish. Contracts are also different in detail, although I think the basic principles are similar.

The way you structure your prose is also a bit different, partly due to grammatical differences and partly due to cultural differences in story telling styles. Swedish prose is in some ways a little more distant than English prose, which makes translating interesting.

 

[skip.knox]

I hope you make that back. That's not pleasant to hear.

I don't make back my expenses, but I don't mind. Three grand over the course of a year is not bad. Plenty of other activities cost more annually. I always tell people, who wonder why I don't mind "losing" money on this, that it's cheaper than owning a boat.

 

[pmmg]

Well...there is that.

Also cheaper than some of the exams I have to take.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm with Demesnedenoir: it's not about money or even creative control, it's about time.

With money, I'm well aware that writing alternate historical fantasy is so small a genre, it's never going to make much money, regardless of platform. As soon as I understood that, the financial decision point became not how much money can I make but how much am I willing to spend.

With creative control, while it's possible to imagine all sorts of terrible scenarios, the most likely scenario is that a trad publisher might push for faster-moving plots or inclusion of some publishing or editorial preference of the moment. I doubt they'd seriously force unpalatable rewrites, mainly because not enough money would be at stake. Were I writing in more popular genres, and showed signs of being a potential winner, that formula might change. For the most part, though, I'm as likely to be ignored by trad publishers as I am by the Amazon algorithm.

So it comes down to time, and here self-publishing is a huge winner. Even at my snail's pace of writing a book every fourteen months or so, I've got out far more books than I ever would through traditional publishing. I just don't have the time to wait first upon agents, then upon editors, then upon publishers, then upon printers and marketers, all to get to more or less where I am anyway. I'm sure if I were 21 or 31 instead of 71 I would feel differently (but I'd still be wrong). And there's the added benefit of not having to meet anyone else's deadlines. My writing process is too unpredictable for that sort of nonsense.

And this is, to me, the chief benefit of self-publishing as an industry. It has opened a door to folks like me for whom it would otherwise have remained firmly closed. I am quite sure that after three or four years of sending out query letters to indifferent agents, I would have given up writing altogether and gone back to making electronic music. Or playing video games. Or just playing with my dogs.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

There are, no doubt, a whole lot of bullshit artists out there trying and succeeding in making a buck off of authors, but they really aren't that hard to avoid if you're paying attention. One trouble is that even someone legitimately trying to provide a useful service can't help a lost cause, and a lost cause is hard to identify. Eve of Snows has won big indie awards, but it's also been knocked out of the first round of another contest by a book I couldn't read three pages of without gagging... Who the hell could predict 50 Shades by its writing?

That said, there are also editors out there who won't take on any project. Those starting out and who need the work will, but good, established editors won't.

Another weird part is when you get into publicists and such... who, in part, take your money and run ads for you in places you could do yourself. Can they do better than you? Without a doubt, somebody can, but who? Which ones have connections with bloggers? Etc etc etc. It's all kinds of crazy.

There just isn't a single formula for Indie success, and not even a single definition for success.

The more I've heard people talk about self-publishing over the years, the more I come to the conclusion that it's 90% a scam for the get-rich-quick publishers to sell their marketing advice. You're out the time and labor for writing, you're out the cover, the editing, the marketing, the price of the self-help guides, and more, with very little quality feedback or support. You can pay an editor, and for sure that person will help you, but that editor wants the job and isn't going to tell you when it's a lost cause; there's also only so much they can do. And don't get me started on the writing coaches, the $2,000 courses, and the rest of it.

There are successful self-publishers. It's doable, don't get me wrong. But not enough people talk about it in realistic terms. To be successful you've got to be self-driven to a crazy extent. It's that DIY / Maker mindset, and that's not something that just switches on in you because you don't want a rejection letter. The ones who are successful are the ones who would never consider traditional publishing because for them the DIY-aspect is the whole point of doing it.

Honestly, if you're thinking about that 70-vs-30% royalty number, and not: A publisher isn't going to understand my ideas the way I do.... then I would say that you should think long and hard about whether you're up for it.

 

[pmmg]

pmmg, can I ask what royalties you get from your publisher? Do you think it's fair? Do you lose monetary rights to your intellectual rights if its made into a movie?

I think others are already covering this ground more than I can. My book is still available on Amazon, last time I looked, but it got like 10 sales, so...no reason for royalties. I got an advance, which was small, but I was okay, cause I wanted something out there to say I did that. The Publishing company has since folded and it was probably 20 years ago. The story is not my favorite of any I have written. I'd be okay if it vanished. The guy behind the publishing company, I have on my facebook and on very rare occasions talk to the them. They have their own book series now. Not sure their success. My guess is, it was never going to get to a movie deal I would also assume since the company is gone, the rights revert back to me. But....I am not going to pursue it. I am on to better things.

Skip, ThinkerX, and Dems post the best stuff about this, if you are not following their personal threads. (I should add, Lowan, and Mad Swede too...but I'll stop there cause I gotta stop somewhere.)

Also...Mr. Swede, if I wanted to read your stuff, where could it be found?

 

[pmmg]

The more I've heard people talk about self-publishing over the years, the more I come to the conclusion that it's 90% a scam for the get-rich-quick publishers to sell their marketing advice. You're out the time and labor for writing, you're out the cover, the editing, the marketing, the price of the self-help guides, and more, with very little quality feedback or support. You can pay an editor, and for sure that person will help you, but that editor wants the job and isn't going to tell you when it's a lost cause; there's also only so much they can do. And don't get me started on the writing coaches, the $2,000 courses, and the rest of it.

There are successful self-publishers. It's doable, don't get me wrong. But not enough people talk about it in realistic terms. To be successful you've got to be self-driven to a crazy extent. It's that DIY / Maker mindset, and that's not something that just switches on in you because you don't want a rejection letter. The ones who are successful are the ones who would never consider traditional publishing because for them the DIY-aspect is the whole point of doing it.

Honestly, if you're thinking about that 70-vs-30% royalty number, and not: A publisher isn't going to understand my ideas the way I do.... then I would say that you should think long and hard about whether you're up for it.

Every industry has those who hang around the edges offering services to help those in it. Publishing is not an exception. If only we had the confidence to know when our stuff is worth putting out, and not wondering if its good enough.

Given the huge saturation that more accessibility has brought to the market, it should not be surprising that the 90% that would not have made it by the gate keepers are now showing up in the huge amazon slush pile instead. I cant fix the market, just have to work in the playing field before us.

 

[Svrtnsse]

So it comes down to time, and here self-publishing is a huge winner. Even at my snail's pace of writing a book every fourteen months or so, I've got out far more books than I ever would through traditional publishing. I just don't have the time to wait first upon agents, then upon editors, then upon publishers, then upon printers and marketers, all to get to more or less where I am anyway. I'm sure if I were 21 or 31 instead of 71 I would feel differently (but I'd still be wrong). And there's the added benefit of not having to meet anyone else's deadlines. My writing process is too unpredictable for that sort of nonsense.

And this is, to me, the chief benefit of self-publishing as an industry. It has opened a door to folks like me for whom it would otherwise have remained firmly closed. I am quite sure that after three or four years of sending out query letters to indifferent agents, I would have given up writing altogether and gone back to making electronic music. Or playing video games. Or just playing with my dogs.

This is where I'm at now.

Originally, I had a notion I could find financial success with my books through self-publishing, but after wasting tons of money to find out that I have no understanding of marketing (and don't care enough to learn), I gave up on that.

Now, I write and publish the best books I can with the means I have. I've learned to create decent covers, and my books have grown better over time.
I'm fairly confident that if I'd been querying my first book to agents/publishers, it still wouldn't be out there. Instead, I published it five years ago, and while it's by no means a success, it's still getting reads and reviews every now and then. I'm happy with that.

I tried writing full-time for a while, but I didn't have the discipline, and went back to working a day job pretty soon. Writing and publishing books is a hobby I enjoy, and I enjoy doing it myself.

 

[ThinkerX]

The more I've heard people talk about self-publishing over the years, the more I come to the conclusion that it's 90% a scam for the get-rich-quick publishers to sell their marketing advice. You're out the time and labor for writing, you're out the cover, the editing, the marketing, the price of the self-help guides, and more, with very little quality feedback or support. You can pay an editor, and for sure that person will help you, but that editor wants the job and isn't going to tell you when it's a lost cause; there's also only so much they can do. And don't get me started on the writing coaches, the $2,000 courses, and the rest of it.

Well...some of the costs of actually getting the book 'out there' can be dodged or at least mitigated. Go with the cheaper premade book covers, use the ISBN's put out by Amazon and Draft2Digital, use the freebie online editing programs...you could get a book out there in digital and print both for a couple hundred bucks.

Likewise, with marketing...well...probably a quarter of my sales came from ordinary post to book groups on Facebook - not ads or boosted posts, just ordinary posts. Likewise, I've generated some sales from really cheap promo sites. But none of that is reliable.

What I've been doing the past six or eight months is (somewhat) methodically trying out different ads and promo sites in an effort to get a handle on which one's sort of work and which are total money sinks. Hence, the thread I linked to earlier.

I have one multi-site promo package going today through 'Book Goodies,' which is supposed to be a 'good' site with lots of traffic. Not optimistic, but it was discounted to semi-sane levels. Next weekend, I have a trio of really cheap discounted promos going with Fussy Librarian (I literally spent more on a single sandwich at Subway). Fussy Librarian is counted as good across the board...but apparently not for me.

 

[Mad Swede]

IAlso...Mr. Swede, if I wanted to read your stuff, where could it be found?

Are you fluent in Swedish? Because the books aren't out in English yet, although we're a little closer now.

 

[pmmg]

I am not. Still be interested to see them, if just to see the cover designs.

 

[Devor]

A few people responded to my post about self-publishing being 90% a scam, and I wanted to clarify that I've most recently been looking at some of those $2,000 courses and the webinars and that side of the industry. That's what was prominently on my mind with that remark, not so much the comments of other members here.

Everyone has to choose their own path and make their own decisions and priorities. I don't know where the OP is coming from, but if someone's coming from the side of the industry that pushes self-publishing as a grandiose writing dream, then a hard reality check would be warranted. That's where I'm coming from.

Most of the other members here know full well what they've gotten themselves into by choosing to self-publish, and I've seen that DIYer mentality on full display at times in these forums. It wasn't my intention to broadly criticize anyone's chosen path.

 

[Righmath]

Honestly, if you're thinking about that 70-vs-30% royalty number, and not: A publisher isn't going to understand my ideas the way I do.... then I would say that you should think long and hard about whether you're up for it.

So you're saying, if I'm confident a publisher will publish my work, forget about the 70-30 royalty, I should reconsider/go with them?

 

[Righmath]

I do get your point on an editor though, and that did corss my mind. 'I'm paying them, what critique will I get from this?'

 

[Righmath]

Every industry has those who hang around the edges offering services to help those in it. Publishing is not an exception. If only we had the confidence to know when our stuff is worth putting out, and not wondering if its good enough.

Given the huge saturation that more accessibility has brought to the market, it should not be surprising that the 90% that would not have made it by the gate keepers are now showing up in the huge amazon slush pile instead. I cant fix the market, just have to work in the playing field before us.

Surely it's also just a numbers game? If you have a great book, and £70k to drop on advertising (and editing etc etc), your work is going to shine through the saturated mess?

 

[Righmath]

This is where I'm at now.

Originally, I had a notion I could find financial success with my books through self-publishing, but after wasting tons of money to find out that I have no understanding of marketing (and don't care enough to learn), I gave up on that.

Now, I write and publish the best books I can with the means I have. I've learned to create decent covers, and my books have grown better over time.
I'm fairly confident that if I'd been querying my first book to agents/publishers, it still wouldn't be out there. Instead, I published it five years ago, and while it's by no means a success, it's still getting reads and reviews every now and then. I'm happy with that.

I tried writing full-time for a while, but I didn't have the discipline, and went back to working a day job pretty soon. Writing and publishing books is a hobby I enjoy, and I enjoy doing it myself.

Can I ask, how much did you spend on your self publishing? What is 'tons of money'?

 

[Righmath]

A few people responded to my post about self-publishing being 90% a scam, and I wanted to clarify that I've most recently been looking at some of those $2,000 courses and the webinars and that side of the industry. That's what was prominently on my mind with that remark, not so much the comments of other members here.

Everyone has to choose their own path and make their own decisions and priorities. I don't know where the OP is coming from, but if someone's coming from the side of the industry that pushes self-publishing as a grandiose writing dream, then a hard reality check would be warranted. That's where I'm coming from.

Most of the other members here know full well what they've gotten themselves into by choosing to self-publish, and I've seen that DIYer mentality on full display at times in these forums. It wasn't my intention to broadly criticize anyone's chosen path.

I think you raise valid point, Devor, that perhaps those who write a book and click submit on Amazon need a reality check. However, those of us which have done research (and I would only consider myself to have only scratched the surface) understand that a lot of your own money needs to be invested in editing, marketing, professional fees, admin fees and not to mention your own time.

So the angle I'm coming from is trying to understand what experienced authors in these forums have experienced. What they make. What they spend. What mistakes they've made.

From my perspective, it's worth considering whether going through traditional publishers could be seen as a scam. I've read that authors may only receive 10-20% royalties, which seems shockingly low to me. Which is why I want to know both sides a bit better.