by Melodie Campbell (Bad Girl)
Students often ask me why I don’t self-publish.
I try to slip by the fact that I was a babe when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Meaning, I was writing long before self-publishing on Amazon and Nook etc. had even become an option.
Having a publisher and agent before self-publishing was a 'thing' has certainly made a difference, I'm sure. But now we have a choice.
Why do I still stay with a traditional publisher?
Students often ask me why I don’t self-publish.
I try to slip by the fact that I was a babe when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Meaning, I was writing long before self-publishing on Amazon and Nook etc. had even become an option.
Having a publisher and agent before self-publishing was a 'thing' has certainly made a difference, I'm sure. But now we have a choice.
Why do I still stay with a traditional publisher?
Gateway Endorsement
There’s no getting away from this: a traditional publisher, no matter how small,
is investing THEIR money to produce YOUR book.
They believe in your book so much that they are willing to risk their
own money to see it published.
What’s more, readers know this. They know that if your book has a publisher,
then it has gone through a gateway of sorts.
Someone in the business who knows about the book trade – someone other
than the writer - has determined that this book is worthy of being published.
They believe in your book.
That’s a huge endorsement.
You may believe in your book. I hope you do. And you may decide to self-publish it. That’s your choice. And it may be just as good as any book that is
released from a traditional publisher.
But the reader doesn’t know that. Further, they don’t know if you’ve already
sent the book to a dozen publishers and had it rejected. In many cases, they assume you’ve done just
that. They assume that no publisher wanted it.
Therefore, they figure they are taking a risk if they buy your book. And most readers don’t want to take risks
with their money. (Some will, bless
them. We love those
readers.)
Distribution and Promotion
Traditional publishers – particularly large or mid-size ones
– get your books into national bookstore chains. They will also include your book in their
catalogue to the big buyers, create sales info sheets for your book, and
perhaps buy ads. They arrange for industry reviews. We authors complain
they don’t do enough promotion. But they
certainly do these things that we can’t do.
We, as authors, can’t access the same distribution
networks. We can’t easily (if at all) reach the prominent
industry reviewers like Library Journal and Booklist.
And then there’s the whole problem of bookstores insisting
on publishers accepting returns. So if
your book doesn’t sell, your publisher has to pay the bookstore back the
wholesale price they paid for the book.
Independent authors can’t work that way.
We authors would go broke if we had to return money to every bookstore
that shelved our books but didn’t sell them.
Remember, you don’t get the book back.
The cover is sent back and the book is destroyed. Yes, this antiquated system sucks.
All the other crap
I’m an author. I want
to write. I don’t want to spend my
cherished writing time learning how to navigate Amazon’s self-publishing
program, and Nook’s self-publishing program, and all the others. I don’t want to pay substantive and copy-editors
out of my own pocket. I don’t want to
seek out cover designers (although I admit that part might be fun.) I don’t want to pay a bunch of money upfront
to replace the work that publishers do.
If you self-publish, then you become the publisher as well
as the author. I asked myself: do I want
to be a publisher?
This
was my decision, and you may choose a different one. You may love
being a publisher. But I find it hard enough being an author. Adding all those other necessary factors to
the job just makes it seem overwhelming to me.
I may be a good writer. But I
have no experience as a publishing industry professional. I have no expertise. So I publish with the experts.
You may choose a different route. Just be aware that when you self-publish, you
become a publisher just as much as an author.
It’s all in how you want to spend your time.
Good luck on your publishing adventure, whichever way you choose to go!
That's The B-Team, a humorous heist crime book, on the shelf at Indigo/Chapters, in the photo above. You can get it at B&N, Amazon and all the usual suspects.
ON Amazon
That's The B-Team, a humorous heist crime book, on the shelf at Indigo/Chapters, in the photo above. You can get it at B&N, Amazon and all the usual suspects.
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