I've Written a Novel--Should I Self-Publish?

I recently got an email from an aspiring teenaged novelist who wanted advice about publishing. She sent me a link to a self-publishing site and asked what I thought about it. After reviewing the site, this was my reply to her:

Run away, run away! The majority of self-publishing companies only want your money. The promised "marketing packages" will cost you more money than you'd likely ever make from book sales. The problem with self-published books is that no one reads them unless the book is connected to somebody famous, or the authors are masters at marketing and self-promotion (such as in get-rich quick seminars hosted by people who get rich writing books about how to get rich).

Self-published fiction doesn't have a wide audience, though everybody and their dog is writing it. The majority of these books are poorly written or poorly edited, or both. Most are produced by frustrated and/or naive and/or incompetent authors who turn to self-publishing out of laziness or impatience. Self-publishing is easy when you consider that there are publishers out there that will publish anything, good or not, but only as long as the author pays them a sizeable chunk of money. You don't want this. The harder, but better way, is to be able to endure the long process of submission and rejection and revision; lather, rinse, repeat, until an editor at a reputable publishing house says "yes." When that happens, they pay you; you don't pay them. If the publisher is really excited about the book, they will do the marketing, because they're the ones who are investing in the book and need to earn back the advance money paid to the author.

Next up the food chain from the self-publishers, or "vanity presses," as they were called in the days before the internet, are Print On Demand, or POD publishers. These run the gamut from glorified vanity presses to more selective houses that actually read the books and have the option of accepting or rejecting them, and also provide an editor to work with you. These will most likely still cost you money, and if they don't, they usually pay little to no advances. They are a little better at the marketing game, but the publishers in this category vary so much it's difficult to say what the norm is. I have a friend who runs a POD company; authors still pay him to publish their books, but only after he's determined that the books will eventually sell well enough to make money for him and the authors. Most of his authors have not earned back what they've paid him at this point, and some have been with him for years.

I went with a traditional publisher--I revised and polished my work over and over and submitted it when I knew it was ready. I will admit I felt lucky, but I was also well-prepared. The odds are not great; approximately one out of every 25,000 manuscripts submitted to traditional publishers is accepted. Of those, half of them never earn out their advances (meaning publishers lose money on them after paying the author the contracted amount) and a select few get all of the attention and earn most of the publisher's profits (e.g., Harry Potter, Twilight, etc).

My first book got a modest four-figure advance. This is the norm for first books in most genres. It was in print for three years before it was released in paperback, with barely enough hardcover sales to justify it, and only due to the persistence of a supportive editor and a tenacious literary agent. During the three years after it was published, I did not earn a dime above the advance I had already pocketed. It did moderately well in paperback due to a lucky connection with a book club and school book fairs, and I earned several thousand dollars in royalties. My second book got a slightly larger advance and was published three years ago. The publisher has lost money on it. The book was never released in paperback, even though it's the sequel to my relatively successful first book and has received very good reviews. It has sold approximately four thousand hardcover copies, and needs to sell two thousand more to pay for itself. The publisher has remaindered all the hardcovers and released an e-book version for Nook and Kindle, but has made no effort to market it, and I can count the e-book sales on one hand.

All that said, I have made a respectable amount of money with traditional publishing, with my only costs being in postage, paper, printer ink, and time. As slim as the odds are of even getting published by a major house, the odds of making money from a self-published novel are even slimmer. I know several self-published authors, who, like mathematically-challenged Amway distributors, keep swallowing the company line and continue to throw money away. They call themselves published authors, and brag about the number of copies sold, but in reality they haven't turned a profit, and few people apart from family and friends are interested in reading their work. Most successful self-published books, like I stated earlier, are non-fiction, well-written (often by ghostwriters), and tied to a well-known person, product, or organization. Those authors relentlessly market the books through seminars, direct mail and targeted e-mail campaigns, all of which can be very expensive.

It's not my intention to be a wet blanket here--far from it. I'm excited when young people are excited about writing. I just want you to be aware of the realities surrounding the industry as you get started on your writing career. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing your stories in print and getting paid for it. Writing fiction is probably the toughest gig in the writing business, but it's where my heart is and what gives me the biggest thrill.

If you really just can't wait to publish your book, there is only one self-publishing method I can recommend. Many software programs available (some expensive, some cheap, others free) that will make a pdf file of your book. You can then sell copy-protected downloads of it through your own blog, website, and use Facebook and other social networking sites to promote it. Aggressive networking and self-promotion is the only way to sell a self-published book. The beauty of that is you don't have to pay anyone else and you get all the money. You can sell it for a buck, or 2.99, or five bucks, or whatever you think people would be willing to pay, and all the money goes to you. If you gain enough fans through that, and have earned a little money to invest, then you might consider going through Amazon and having a Kindle edition published. If you get a large enough following, then a "real" publisher might be interested in either picking it up or reading other work from you. The traditional route I have taken to getting published is not the only way--but I strongly urge you to run away from any publisher who wants you to pay them!

Regardless of how you publish, the bottom line is it has to be good stuff, with well-defined, interesting characters, structurally sound writing, and airtight, engaging plots.

It's been said that the cream always rises to the top. If you work hard to develop your writing into something that top publishing industry professionals deem worth reading, it will eventually put money in your pocket with no risk to you. Good luck and keep revising!