This a repost from The New Podler Review of Books, which is back in action. The site has been posting a series of interviews about self-publishing. The full list is below. Here are my answers (the graphic is for a different self-publishing symposium, linked in the image).
How does self-publishing differ from traditional publishing?
Limited distribution. Other than that – nothing. Yes, a publisher offers a design team, marketing team, and editorial guidance, but a writer can do those things alone. The one thing a writer cannot do (unless he or she has a gigantic marketing budget or money to self-distribute) is distribute to brick and mortar bookstores. In this way self-publishing will always lack compared to traditional publishing until distribution changes.
Do self-published book review blogs help to raise the reader awareness
of self-published books?
Vaguely – awareness, yes. Immediate book sales, not so much. The most books I sold with my last novel, North of Sunset, was not from a review on the Poddy Mouth blog, but after that mention was picked up by Entertainment Weekly. People can say that blogs have a lot of marketing power, but it’s still the mainstream, traditional press that can have the biggest impact on book sales.
How do you respond to the following statement?–Self-publishing is not
a serious way to get one’s work into print now and never will be.
You’re a backward-thinking turd. Really, though, the “never will be” is easily discarded because imagine a world in which as many people have ereaders as now have cell phones. It’ll open everything up. This is about being “in print” though, and self-published books can look as good as traditionally published books if you hire the right people. As mentioned, it’s not the best way to distribute, but to have an actual book in your hands? Just fine.
Has the golden age of self-publishing already passed or is it yet to come?
Totally yet to come. Repeating myself here, but this time is coming: ereaders are ubiquitous and the Espresso Book Machine can be found at bookstores and other places (Starbucks et al). Traditional publishers will start looking to print on demand to save on costs – compared to having an up-front print run that may not sell. At that point, there’s very little difference between traditional publishing and putting it out yourself, as everyone will be using a similar distribution system.
What about the challenges posed to the self-published writer by having
to promote and edit his or her own book?
Every writer has to edit his/her own book, so it amounts to hiring an editor you trust. That will cost around $800, give or take, so it’s not for everybody. Writers need to take on their own marketing as well. Personally, I’d like to have the muscle of a traditional publisher’s marketing/distribution team, because I can then combine that with the marketing I’m already doing. That’s better than going it alone. My whole beef with the traditional publishing industry is how books are selected, not how they’re distributed or even marketed. It’s sickening that books are selected based on how they can be marketed, but I can’t deny that having someone else marketing you is effective. It’s just better for my sanity to not try to enter a system that’s gauging your work on something other than the quality of the work. It’s too painful and maddening a process, and getting worse.
Why is it that a self-published author has yet to emerge into national
recognition as a self-published author? (As opposed to being given a
mainstream publishing contract after a self-published book attracts
attention.)
I guess because once you reach a level of success, most writers take the traditional book deal. If a publisher said, we’ll give you $50,000 and better distribution, I wouldn’t turn that down. If I was making $50,000 on my own, that’d be something different. But most writers aren’t and most people need the money. It’s not about the validation, I imagine, it’s about the money. Very hard to turn your back if someone’s offering something generous.
As time goes on and distribution improves, writers will be able to be self-sustaining. As it stands now, some of the people who are successful with self-publishing are those who had success with traditional publishing and have a larger platform because of it. My dream, of course, is to become that self-published poster child and still sell a lot of books on my own while having total creative freedom to release whatever I want. My diabolical plan is inching forward.
Has the experience of self-publishing changed the way you write? (If
you have self-published.)
It’s made me not have to think about the market at all. I still want to be entertaining. I’m not an experimental writer, I still want it to be readable. But I don’t have to write by putting myself in an agent’s head and how he or she would read the book. Honestly, that’s how I should have been writing anyway, but ambition can get in the way of writing.
On the flipside, the obsession about an agent or editor’s acceptance or rejection can get in the way of writing as well. So while I might have to spend a lot more time plugging my work all on my own, I have to spend a lot less time querying agents, looking up independent presses, and caring too much if they like what I write. Instead, I can just find readers who like or dislike it, which is the point of writing in the first place – not to be published, but to be read.
Henry Baum is author of North of Sunset. His latest novel is The American Book of the Dead. He is also the editor of Selfpublishingreview.com
Other symposiums:
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“Limited distribution. Other than that–nothing.” You can’t really believe that limited distribution is the only difference between “traditional”–i.e., corporate– and self publishing, can you?
I mean it’s the only thing you can’t handle yourself. You can hire an editor or a publicist. Much harder to hire a distributor. It’s obviously way more expensive to do this yourself rather than have someone do it for you, which is why traditional publishing is preferable to losing money, but these things can be handled on your own if you have the resources. Distribution can’t.
I have been self-publishing since the late 1980’s, and my parents were self-publishers before that! My 17 books sold over 2 million copies, in 20 languages. Interestingly, I have never been approached by a traditional publisher. I sold all my books “under the radar” – outside traditional retailers. Nonetheless, my book income has changed my life.
There are a lot of reasons not to self-publish. However, there are a lot of reasons not to do most things worthwhile. Today, I work with authors to teach them how to Write, Publish and Sell their books, and it is a fantastic experience. Everyone of them struggles with the same question, and it has nothing to do with economic success (although that question gets a lot of attention later). They are all afraid that no one will read their book!
A book is a very personal expression. Once it is published, your words are out there forever. I found that this is the most difficult thing for my author-clients to handle. They are worried about being perfect, and this is the thing that holds too many great authors back.
You see, when dealing with traditional publishing, it is the agent or editor that tells you “This is publishable”. In self-publishng, it is the author alone who makes the decision.
Interesting, isn’t it?
I was a little surprised to hear you say that editing would cost $800. I was looking to have my novel copy-edited but from a search of standard editing costs figured that I would have to save up to $3500 for copy-editing. What is the going rate for editing a 100,000 word novel? As you can probably imagine, if I could save $3000 that would make the transition to digital publishing that much easier.
My novel was edited by http://www.kallisti.ca – very reasonable rates (and great). $3500 sounds pretty exorbitant. Also check out some of the places in this post: https://www.selfpublishingreview.com/blog/2009/05/20/where-to-find-a-self-published-book-editor/