I don't disagree with anything said there. lol. But it does seem to make it a win win or lose lose With all the talk of authors waiting ten years to publish while constantly working on one story. I feel kind of small now. My current work in progress I have only been working on since Nov. lol
Don't just write one book...write several. Work back, and forth on all of them. If you sell to a major publisher, nine out of ten times they will want an first option on your second book...if the first one sells good...you are on your way. The reason they will want the first option: If your book sells good, the publisher has money invested in you...they want to keep you as their author...it's just good business.
@BayView, you continue to misstate and misrepresent my posts despite my telling you what you've gotten wrong. I suppose you can't see that you are doing it, but really, you should try a little harder. I see I wasn't clear. I'll try again: WTF was referring to: who you are arguing with here? Because it certainly isn't with me. What I've said and continue to say is, that's all well and good IF you get past the gatekeeper of a large publishing house. I didn't lump all traditional publishers into one basket, I made it clear, but you keep misstating that I did. I believe that is called, arguing against a straw man. So? What's the problem then? You don't think "lottery" applies and I do. I agree to disagree. It tells us the gatekeepers are flawed. While some of them did go the self-pub route and were successful, if known, highly acclaimed authors were turned down by multiple publishers, how do you know there were not thousands more excellent writers who were never recognized? The point is, not all good books get through the gate for various reasons. And now there is another viable option for those that don't get through. No we don't agree for the reason you keep ignoring despite the fact I've posted the reason more than once. That's not the reason for it and you have a logic fail here. That may be your reason, it may be someone else's reason, but I posted examples where it was not the experience or reason everyone chose to self-publish. There's not only evidence self-publishing is one road to success, there is evidence it is an increasingly viable option. I found more interesting articles on trends and self published successes I'll put in a new post.
So, reasons aside, do you agree that the best path for a new author is to try to get an agent, then try to get a smaller publisher, and only THEN self-publish? If you agree to that, I don't think there's much point in us continuing to fuss over the details.
Walk into any large book store. You'll find thousands of traditionally published books that don't sell. Go online and you'll find millions of eBooks that don't sell. Some are self published some are traditionally published. To say that only self-published books have poor sales is not supported by the evidence. Ninety-nine percent of titles printed will never sell enough copies to recover all the costs associated with creating and publishing them. Lee Balantine is lumping self published with traditionally published but he's certainly including traditionally published. The industry is changing. We'd be foolish not to pay attention. Publishers desperately trying to protect print sales and failing Self-publishers have some advantages. Traditional publishing is not the only road to success. Self-published sales are not as shabby as some people think. Look at these numbers from 2011: Four years later, you know the numbers are not going in the opposite direction. Re the revolution in digital publishing: This is what I mean by it's not clear where things will be when the dust settles. But one thing is clear, clinging to old ideas in an industry that is in rapid flux is probably not the best position to be in.
So, do you agree that the best path for a new author is to try to get an agent, then try to get a smaller publisher, and only THEN self-publish?
So would saying that self-published books sell better on the south side of Mars. But since no one said either of those things, that doesn't really matter. The statement: "Self published books generally have poor sales." is not the equivalent of: "The only books that ever have poor sales are self published books." They contain some of the same words. That's where the resemblance stops.
I don't know that one path is considered best for every new author. Writers aren't a monolithic group. The best path for you might be different than the best path for me.
But if one is going to imply that self-published books sell poorly without noting, so do traditionally published books, that's cherry picking the supporting evidence. Define "generally". I think "generally" would apply equally to 99% of print books.
I totally agree with this if we're looking at authors who aren't interested in sales/profits. Are you thinking there are times when someone who IS primarily motivated by sales would be better off self-publishing their first book?
You think that the publishing industry survives based on having very poor sales on 99% of their books?
No. I think a new author with confidence they have a good book should probably query a few select agents or publishers. Beyond that it depends on how much effort they want to invest in marketing their book(s). For someone not interested, then querying smaller and smaller publishers might be the better investment of time. For me, I have a lot of ideas about marketing my book and a little bit of money to invest in print copies to sell at promotions. I think the local library will be receptive. There are local bookstores that might be. We have a strong Indie book store and readership here in the Seattle area.
I think there have been some cases of it, in instances where they tried to get an agent or traditional publisher but weren't able to, and they believed in the work so they self-published. In that case, they're still following the formula of trying the traditional route first. Also, if you're writing in a niche that is hard to get a traditional publisher to want, then maybe that route isn't the best option. If your main goal is to make a lot of money, then the traditional route is probably going to be the better one, though you're still not likely to make a lot of money. If making an income isn't your primary motivator, and you believe strongly in other considerations like control, time, and the like, self-publishing seems like a better way to start, and if your works don't do well you can always try the traditional route with your next book. I think the hybrid route is going to become increasingly attractive, where an author either starts traditionally or starts via self-publishing, and then takes the other route for some of their works as well. Some authors seem to be doing well with that, including some who started by self-publishing and did well enough to get a traditional publishing deal. A recent case, a writer I know who helped me edit a story got a contract last year from HarperCollins, to traditionally publish a work that she'd already self-published. She's going the traditional route with that series now, but is keeping some of her other works self-published. I think Michael Sullivan, who has been successful and started by self-publishing, also takes a hybrid approach now.
And if you want to be a hobby author who has fun playing with all aspects of the publishing process, I think that's great. Seriously, I know some people who are getting a lot of personal satisfaction out of learning all aspects of the industry and being publishers as well as authors. I think it's a lovely way to go. For me, those people would fall into the "not profit motivated" category, in which case, for sure, self-publishing makes sense.
@Steerpike can answer for himself, but I posted links to authors who did exactly this, the turned down contracts to self publish. I don't imagine they didn't consider sales in that decision. According to the publisher panels on CSPAN, yes, their profits are on very few of their published books. When I looked for more sources on that topic I found one that said it was a myth. So at this point, I think, yes, only a few books are profitable for big publishers because I heard it straight from a publisher. But I'm open to evidence it is a myth.
I'm a hybrid author - most of my stuff is with small/medium publishers, but I've self-published some and as my contracts run out I'm only renewing them with my favourite publishers - the other books I'm reclaiming and self-publishing. I think there's lots of room for growth and exploration in self-publishing, for sure. It's just a really hard place to start out.
I agree it's a hard place to start out. But so is the traditional route. Most people who try to get publishers or agents don't get one, and they spend a lot of time trying to do so. If you self-publish and make a couple hundred dollars a year for five years, you're better off financially than if you spent that same five years querying agents and never got a "yes." It's an uncertainty, either way. I think it is true that, on average, a person who pursues a traditional publishing contract and actually gets one is likely to do better financially than a self-published author (just playing the odds here), but what gets left out of the discussion a lot is how many people spend a long time trying to get interest from a traditional publisher and never do.
I think their continued existence is the proof that 99% of their books don't sell poorly. I mean, how incredibly well would that top 1% have to do to make up for the huge losses on the bottom 99%? And why would the companies keep publishing those loser books? I don't have stats, just common sense.
This is as bad as me telling you that writers who turned out high volume books to a commercial market were generally writing crap. I took it back, not because all your books were good, but because I found some good authors like Dan Simmons did just that. To demean an author who is writing a book for the sake of the book, not the profit, by calling them nothing but a hobbyist, is wrong. I'm writing a book for a lot of reasons. I want people to like it. I want lots of people to read it. But my true goal is, I want the book to have an impact on social thought. I am not pumping out commercial books in the romance market to make money. I find that's not much motivation for me to write a book.
Yeah, I don't think anyone should spend five years looking for an agent for a single book, not unless they're also re-writing and improving that book and learning their craft as they go. When I say "try to get an agent", I'd say a reasonable strategy would be to send queries out in batches of 10 or so, split about a month between batches. There are probably less than 120 reputable agents working in most genres, so it would take less than a year to go through all possible agents. Another six months, maybe, looking for a smaller publisher? And then, sure, self-publish.
What about authors of literary fiction? From what I've read, most of them aren't raking in the money. Surely financial gain can't be the primary motivator if you're writing literary fiction. Rather, it seems to be that you feel you have something compelling to say and want to get it out there.
Okay, for the record: I do not now, and will not ever, care about your opinion of my books. So you can stop insulting them and then retracting your insults and then gearing up to insult them again. It's a pointless distraction from the topic of the thread. Let it go. And I'm not demeaning authors who choose to self-publish. I'm not being sarcastic when I say I think it's great for people to want to learn all that stuff. What word would you prefer that I use to describe an author who writes "a book for the sake of the book, not the profit"? You don't like hobbyist, so I suspect you're not going to like amateur... maybe I'll stick with just "not profit motivated".
I think there's a credibility game that literary fiction authors play? I have no first-hand knowledge, but my impression is that a lot of them support themselves as writers-in-residence, or through grant programs, or speaking fees, or something? So possibly for them, they would value the credibility of a prestigious publisher? I'm not really sure. Can you think of examples of literary writers who started off in self-publishing?
