Over the weekend I received a royalty statement for one of my books and it was
pitiful! Thousands of copies sold, yet somehow with the bulk discounts, the obscenely low rate paid for ebooks, and miscellaneous nonsense I earned an average of $.60 per book.
Outrageous!
I take a big part of the blame for signing the lousy publishing contract in the first place.
Did I mention that there has been virtually zero marketing support?
This is an example of the many reasons why I left traditional publishing behind. And I’m not alone. Lots of other authors have done the same (Seth Godin, JA Konrath).
There has never been a better time to self-publish!
The lack of marketing support has been the big surprise to me. Future book deals are dependent on current book success, but I’m on my own in marketing the book. My publisher sent me a book on book publicity and sent review copies. That’s pretty much been it. When I asked for the list of reviewers so I could follow up, I was told the list was proprietary and I couldn’t have it. And I don’t think it called to follow up. Book publishing is changing and will be interesting to see where it ends up.
Hi Leslie, I feel your pain! This is often a big shock for authors. The publishers simply don’t have the budgets to promote their authors and then expect authors to do all the work. This is one of the many reasons why there’s less and less value with traditional publishing. Do you even want another book deal with your publisher?! Something to think about… Good luck!
In my latest book I have a chart which compares traditional publishing with independent publishing. There’s one item that’s the same in both columns:
Marketing: You do all the marketing
I’m appalled to discover that aspiring authors still believe that a publisher will help them sell their book. I must not be screaming loud enough . . .
Stephanie, I’ on my third book and I have only self published because I’ve heard the horror stories. I don’t mind doing my own marketing because I have a pretty good following…now. But when I wrote my first book I knew next to nothing. It’s been a trial and error process for me, but I wouldn’t trade it. I’m not beholden to anyone. I tell everyone who asks that self publishing is the way to go provided they are willing to do the leg work. I’m working on my road show to promote my book. While it’s a little time consuming, I’m looking forward to doing it myself. This will be my first book tour. So we’ll see how it goes. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Adrienne, Good for you! And planning your own road show? I love it! Please share details when you get back. Maybe you could write a guest blog post for us? Good luck!
I had heard such rumors but couldn’t figure out how they could be true. They should be promoting like crazy. After all, this is about them getting their share of money as much as it is about you getting yours. I have tossed the idea back and forth on the terms of how to go about publishing. I had it set in my head that I will self publish but have been afraid of marketing myself. It looks as if I really do need to get over that fear because more and more I hear that I’m doing it no matter which way I go. Thanks for the reminder!
I can relate! I decided to selfpublish for this reason, as well as being burned by bad dealings (publishers not following through with contract agreements). So, aside from a small press here and there (i.e. work for hire), I’m sticking to selfpublishing.
I tried the trad route, got to the starting gates with agent etc and then it all came crashing down. At the time, I was gutted but now I am not so sure it was such a bad thing.
For me, the best thing about being published traditionally was the notion that somehow I had been validated. It seems that in a very few short years the stigma of selfpublishing (which was vanity publishing, or so it seemed) has gone.
Yes, I’d like someone else to sing my praises. But the reviews do that.
And any money is mine.
Marketing is by far the hardest part; knowing that I’d have had to do it had everything gone down how I wanted it to is quite comforting. I’ve lost nothing but a form of external validation that perhaps no longer matters.
Thank you for sharing, Viv. I definitely understand that traditional publishing validation thing, but the real validation does come from readers. Best of luck to you!