Self-Publishing Challenges

Hi Busha777

Can't help you I'm afraid because I am in the same boat, but hopefully you won't mind if I come along for the ride to see what happens.

I have been umming and ah-ing as to whether to query/self-pub but I have one very unusual factor pushing me along now, and that is that my dear old mum would like to see something of mine in print, and she's 95 in Jan so a long publishing journey may not cut it...

It's a little hard to answer that question because we have no idea of what skills you possess (are you computer savvy enough to do your own formatting?), what amount of money you're willing to spend on good editing and cover art, etc. etc. What you find challenging might be less so to someone else.

Have you read any of the threads here on AW and elsewhere about how the self-publishing process works?

I second Marissa. Do a thread search or Google. This question has been asked tons of times. In fact someone just posted this question last week where I posted to it. Do as much research you can on this subject.

Good luck!

Busha777 said:

I am deeply considering self-publishing my first novel. What would be the most challenging aspect of this course of action?

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Selling it.

Curtz has the right of it. Self-publishing these days isn't too tricky.

Getting eyes on your book? Well... that's a different story. And there's no easy answer, I'm afraid. There is no single "best" approach to marketing, and the only tricks we could recommend will vary depending on the genre and categories of your book. Even then, nothing's certain.

The question I would ask is why you want to self-publish. I often hear people ask something along the lines of "when should I give up on trade publishing and self-publish?" and when I hear that question my answer is never. Because, at a very simplified level mind you, successfully trade publishing requires that you write a good novel and sell it to a handful of people. An agent to represent you, an editor, and maybe the sales team at the publisher. Compare that to self-publishing successfully which requires that you write that good novel, learn how to choose a good cover, learn how to identify a good editor, learn how to write a good blurb, learn how to market your book, learn how to list that book on at least one vendor, etc. You then have to find a way to sell that book to each individual customer, at least initially.

So the argument I always make when someone wants to give up on trade publishing to self-publish is why would you try something that requires ten times the number of skills when you have "failed" at something that requires one skill. Better to write a few more novels and stay on the path you really wanted in the first place.

Self-publishing has far, far more moving parts that you have to master than going the trade publishing route. But, like I said, that's a very simplified version of a very complex argument.

There are reasons to self-publish, though. Control. Speed of getting a book to market. Lack of desire to build a platform that satisfies a trade publisher. (That last one more for non-fiction than fiction.)

In general, I would argue that the "I can make more money" argument really should only be made by authors who have an established fan base, because I really don't think it holds true for your average first-time self-publisher. They just don't know enough for the outcome of their first publication to be better than the outcome of a first-time trade publication. (In general. There are always outliers and who you publish with matters.)

I self-publish because I like the autonomy and challenge of having to learn so much. I've been at this five years and put out over a hundred different titles (some short stories, so that number is less impressive than it sounds at first), and there are still things I'm learning about this business every day. And, just when you think you've learned something, the ground shifts. I had published a book on how to use CreateSpace and now CS is going away. That happens all the time in the self-publishing world. The only thing that's certain is that something will change on you on a regular basis. It is not a healthy path for those who cannot handle disruptive change and adjust accordingly. That to me is the biggest challenge most self-publishers face. Being unable to stomach the constant change and to know what needs reacting to and what can be safely ignored.

M. H. Lee said:

The question I would ask is why you want to self-publish. I often hear people ask something along the lines of "when should I give up on trade publishing and self-publish?" and when I hear that question my answer is never. Because, at a very simplified level mind you, successfully trade publishing requires that you write a good novel and sell it to a handful of people. An agent to represent you, an editor, and maybe the sales team at the publisher. Compare that to self-publishing successfully which requires that you write that good novel, learn how to choose a good cover, learn how to identify a good editor, learn how to write a good blurb, learn how to market your book, learn how to list that book on at least one vendor, etc. You then have to find a way to sell that book to each individual customer, at least initially.

So the argument I always make when someone wants to give up on trade publishing to self-publish is why would you try something that requires ten times the number of skills when you have "failed" at something that requires one skill. Better to write a few more novels and stay on the path you really wanted in the first place.

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This assumes that everyone is writing stuff that trade publishers want to publish, so it's only a matter of time until something gets someone interested. I had doubts about whether trade publishing would want my work when I queried my novel, and the lack of interest in the novel confirmed it (along with the various things agents were saying in interviews and the like, where it's clear I was writing something they didn't ever want). I could have kept writing things to query, and kept getting rejected, but this would be avoiding the central issue of not writing the right sort of stuff in the first place.

I also wasn't in a position where I could write for twenty years hoping for that one sale. Self-publishing didn't turn out to be the thing that made the most money, but I didn't know what would earn money until trying various things. I wouldn't have ended up with the art and review affiliate sides if I hadn't started out by trying to self-publish something.

If I ever write something that's more the sort of thing trade publishing wants, or trade publishing changes to want what I write, there's nothing to stop me querying another book. It's not like self-publishing cuts that off forever. But I'm glad I didn't feel that once I'd queried something, I was stuck on that route and couldn't change direction.

I just self published my book on Create space and I'm very happy with it. The biggest challenge in my opinion is to find buyers for it. I'm trying social media and every other option I can think of, but marketing the book will be up to you. Create Space did a fine job printing it up and making it available everywhere, but you still have to find a way to make people know its out there. I would say that's the hard part.

It depends on your goals. I think many long-term career self-publishers would say that keeping up the momentum is the hardest, because making a good income self-publishing is so correlated with frequent (as in, on the order of every few months) book releases. Some authors can get away with wider gaps, but the common wisdom is to release frequently.

When I talk to self-publishers who have been making their primary living off it for some time, the biggest challenge most people talk about is how tiring that is. The treadmill of it, where if you stop your sales and income drop. In trade publishing, you can publish a book a year and that's considered reasonable, even fast (in genre, at least) -- and you're not also doing all the other work self-publishers have to do.

Of course, that's assuming you're looking to self-publish with staying power to build a self-publishing career. It's totally legitimate if that's not your goal. I've known other people who only wanted to publish the one book for myriad reasons, and not everyone's primary goal in publishing is sales/money. If your goals are different and the endpoint for you is holding the book in your hands, the most challenging part may be something in pre-production.

For me, the most challenging part was that I found many non-writing aspects of self-publishing enjoyable and educational at first, but upon repetition, I found that I quickly tired of many of the non-writing aspects once I knew how to do them, and the only thing I really enjoyed doing repeatedly was the writing. I also wasn't very naturally good at the non-writing aspects and they would take large chunks of time for me. And I simply wasn't fast enough to compete well in self-publishing (I released every 9 months or so). I still would've been proud and happy to keep that series self-published forever -- I started out with that intent -- but I'd started looking to go with a publisher for my next book because I'd learned from working in short fiction that worked best for my personal process. As Polenth and M.H. said though, there are lots of good reasons to choose self-publishing.

My series ended up getting picked up by a publisher and it's a better fit for me all around, even if the self-publishing history complicates things (DO NOT self-publish because you want to get picked up; it usually makes it less likely, not more likely. I got picked up despite self-publishing, not because of). I'm still glad I self-published first, because I never would have learned all this about myself, or learned as much as I did about the process of bringing a book to market, if I hadn't started off self-publishing, and it was an important part of my growth as a writer. But if you do a lot of research and read a lot of threads as others have said, you might be able to get an idea of whether it's for you. Take a deep, honest look at (1) yourself, your goals, your process, and (2) the project you're thinking about self-publishing, and read a bunch of what people have to say about it what it takes to do it. We can't give you a yes or no answer, unfortunately, because the right answer is not going to be the same for everybody.

Busha777 said:

I am deeply considering self-publishing my first novel. What would be the most challenging aspect of this course of action?

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Hmm, there's a question never heard here before.

Kidding, of course. It's been argued over endlessly--just search AW's archives. Or, for a definitive answer, read this and related pieces on my blog.

The main problem with self-publishing is still, despite Amazon, distribution and marketing. Other services you can purchase, like editing, formatting, and cover art, although of course this will eat into your bottom line; but not distribution and marketing. (And please, whatever you do, don't pay for marketing or promotion services. S-p writers are bombarded with offers for thoroughly useless services.) Self-published books won't make it into brick-and-mortar bookstores, let alone valuable outlets like Costco and Target. Libraries account for most of the sales of hardcover books that aren't bestsellers; they won't take s-p books. Mainstream reviewers won't review them, so there goes your visibility. It's not that publishing houses are that great for midlist books, but a publisher is still a powerful ally; at least a published book has a chance of being reviewed, placed in stores, and finding buyers. S-p books, not so much.

Have you tried going the traditional route, which starts with finding an agent?

Busha777 said:

I have been pondering for a cover art concept that best reflects the theme of my book. I am still looking for an editor

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A few things to consider when choosing an editor:

Anyone can call himself an editor. He may as well call himself a “professional editor” too, while he’s at it; it sounds even better and means just as little. Anyone who’s ever corrected a child’s school essay is an editor, but not necessarily one who would be useful to an aspiring novelist.

Get someone with real publishing experience. There are plenty of freelance editors who used to work for major publishing houses. Those jobs are highly competitive and you have to be good to get them. Be careful, though. I’ve seen editors who claim to have publishing experience… but when you check out the companies they worked for, you discover that they are merely fronts for the writer’s own self-published work.

A lot of writers moonlight as editors, myself included. The advantage of having a writer for an editor is hands-on experience: they’ve wrestled their own novels into shape, and they know the tricks of the trade. The disadvantage is that these editors can be tempted to impose their own taste and style on the work to a greater extent than editors who are not writers: one reason that a sample edit is essential. (More on that below.) Writers who offer editing services should have solid achievements in their own fields; otherwise, you have to wonder how can they help you succeed if they couldn’t help themselves. For the same reason, I would never hire a writer to edit a novel if I didn’t know and admire his own fiction.

A solid track record. Everyone has to start somewhere, but you don’t want anyone cutting their teeth on your book. Editors should be happy to provide you with a client list. I would want to see that some of those clients at least had been published commercially.

Assuming you've found an editor or two who fit the a/m criteria, you still need to get a sample edit. Good editors know it's all about the fit. I'd be highly suspicious of any editor who takes on all comers. The serious ones will gladly do a sample edit like this one, to ensure that both parties know what they're getting into and that you're on the same page about what needs doing.

If you don't self-publish, though, there's no need to hire an editor at this stage. If you sell your work, you'll get editing help for free, as part of the deal. If you keep getting "good rejections," though, then it might be wise to bring in a professional who can help figure out what's wrong and how to fix it.

For me, it's been the overwhelming list of tasks that need to get done. Together they make a dark, impenetrable forest, and most of the time I can't see the trees for the forest. However, I don't think I would find it much different if I returned to pursuit of trade-publishing, a pursuit I found overwhelming when I was taking that path.

I would argue, however, that trade publishing "requires one skill" is not correct. The writing is the same in trade and self-publishing. In trade, as was said, you're selling to a small audience. But your book has to appeal to the same wide audience. So you have to learn skills needed to sell to that small audience: how to write a good query, which is totally different than writing a book; how to prepare a book proposal; how to pitch to an acquisitions editor or an agent; how to muddle through agent agreements to make sure you are getting what you want from that relationship.

Some of those skills translate easily to self-publishing. Writing a query letter isn't a whole lot different from writing back cover copy. Pitching to agent/editors is probably akin to holding author events.

The self-publisher's efforts can be focused on the audience they need to make a little money: the reader. Yes, you either need to learn formatting and covers or hire them done. I suspect marketing efforts are about the same for trade publishing and self-publishing. I know people on this site will disagree with me. Never having been trade published, I can't speak from experience. But several authors I know, who have been published for three or four decades, say the trade publisher nowadays does much less than they used to in marketing, their main focus being getting it into bookstores. They expect the author to do the work of getting notice for the book.

So I think the skills difference between trade publishing and self-publishing, while a true thing, isn't as great as some say.

Best Regards,
NDG

I'll add another advantage to self publishing (I've done neither but am having no luck with querying as yet)--

You can write exactly the book you want to write.

I've been redrafting and modifying and pruning and adding and embellishing and changing and shifting and so on and so on ... in order to try to find the magic formula to get an agent. It's become obvious to me that as soon as I decide to self publish all those constraints (the ones that we glean that people in the trade industry want) -- will go out the window.

I can get back to writing what I want, and I guess that's the freedom of it.

Patty said:

I'll add another advantage to self publishing (I've done neither but am having no luck with querying as yet)--

You can write exactly the book you want to write.

I've been redrafting and modifying and pruning and adding and embellishing and changing and shifting and so on and so on ... in order to try to find the magic formula to get an agent. It's become obvious to me that as soon as I decide to self publish all those constraints (the ones that we glean that people in the trade industry want) -- will go out the window.

I can get back to writing what I want, and I guess that's the freedom of it.

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FWIW and IMO and etc., I think you're looking at this from not quite the right perspective. Agents are readers first; you need to grab their reader-selves first...and if you do that, then the agent part will likely be grabbed enough to at least ask for the manuscript. Who, in your mind, is your ideal audience? Write for them, not for some unicorn-agent that requires a magic formula to entice, because there is no magic formula.

Not saying that guarantees an eventual book deal--I've been getting far too many "OMG I love this book but I don't think there's a big enough audience for it" rejections on my (agented) submissions lately--but it's the best place to start.

Maybe, but this assumes that we are writing toward the same goal--readership, and that gets to the above post somewhere that some people aren't in it for that.

Imagine I'm dying. (I'm not. Well, I am, but then we all are and now I'm going off on a tangent.) Imagine I simply want my family to have a record of my life, from my perspective. Imagine I want it in a format that they can hold in a certain way, maybe keep on a bookshelf.

Trying to entice agents into the story would be beside the point. Writing the story for a 'reader out there' (embellishing, pruning, and so on) is exactly 180 degrees opposite what I should be doing.

It's not the hypothetical genre (memoir) in this scenario, but the hypothetical motivation (what I want to leave my family.)

There's a freedom and a niche for self-publishing, and as someone said higher up, the assumptions in trade publishing include that we're in it all for the same reasons. We aren't.

So now I'm confused; if hypothetical you just wants a perfect-bound copy of a hypothetical memoir to go on a hypothetical family bookshelf, why go to the trouble of self-publishing (which implies, you know, making the book publicly available for sale)? Lulu will print you up as many copies as you want--edited, un-edited, with alternating words printed in Cyrillic, whatever.

I kind of feel like the goalposts have been moved...but this isn't relevant to the OP.

Patty said:

I've been redrafting and modifying and pruning and adding and embellishing and changing and shifting and so on and so on ... in order to try to find the magic formula to get an agent. It's become obvious to me that as soon as I decide to self publish all those constraints (the ones that we glean that people in the trade industry want) -- will go out the window.

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Don't do that; write the best book you can, write the book you'd want to read. Then send it out to beta readers and for crit.

Writing to target an agent is a disservice to your book. Write YOUR book, not a book that you think some agent might like.

What I found hardest was working out what my budget would be, before I had any idea how well my books would sell. If you plan to run at a profit... as I do.

Norman D Gutter said:

For me, it's been the overwhelming list of tasks that need to get done. Together they make a dark, impenetrable forest, and most of the time I can't see the trees for the forest. However, I don't think I would find it much different if I returned to pursuit of trade-publishing, a pursuit I found overwhelming when I was taking that path.

I would argue, however, that trade publishing "requires one skill" is not correct. The writing is the same in trade and self-publishing. In trade, as was said, you're selling to a small audience. But your book has to appeal to the same wide audience. So you have to learn skills needed to sell to that small audience: how to write a good query, which is totally different than writing a book; how to prepare a book proposal; how to pitch to an acquisitions editor or an agent; how to muddle through agent agreements to make sure you are getting what you want from that relationship.

Some of those skills translate easily to self-publishing. Writing a query letter isn't a whole lot different from writing back cover copy. Pitching to agent/editors is probably akin to holding author events.

The self-publisher's efforts can be focused on the audience they need to make a little money: the reader. Yes, you either need to learn formatting and covers or hire them done. I suspect marketing efforts are about the same for trade publishing and self-publishing. I know people on this site will disagree with me. Never having been trade published, I can't speak from experience. But several authors I know, who have been published for three or four decades, say the trade publisher nowadays does much less than they used to in marketing, their main focus being getting it into bookstores. They expect the author to do the work of getting notice for the book.

So I think the skills difference between trade publishing and self-publishing, while a true thing, isn't as great as some say.

Best Regards,
NDG

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Not quite sure where to start here, so, at random:

There's no "pitching" of books to agents or editors, unless you happen to corner one in an elevator at a conference or something like that. Books aren't oatmeal. From an agent's POV, it's nice to have a personable client who can eventually charm booksellers and interviewers and in general be useful for publicity. But most books are accepted or rejected without the agent ever meeting the writer. Unless the writer is a bona fide celebrity, it's all about the book: whether or not the agent loves it, and then, separately, whether or not they think they can sell it.

Marketing. While it's true that writers are expected to do more to help themselves these days, primarily through the use of social media, marketing is still very much the responsibility of the trade publisher. That includes the following tasks, which s-p writers, even the most diligent, are either unable or unlikely to succeed in doing: 1. Getting the books into brick and mortar books stores and other retail venues. 2. Selling to libraries and institutions (the source of most hardcover sales for non-bestselling writers). 3.Getting reviews in mainstream national publications. 4. Selling to book clubs, foreign publishers, and serialization outlets like magazines. 5. Making the work available in all formats, including audio, hardcover, ppbk and ebooks. Note that marketing is not the same as PR; although there too, the publisher has a great advantage over the self-publisher. One publicist I know, who works for a famous publisher, told me that the thing he was most ashamed of in his career was taking on self-published novelists as freelance clients, because he knew perfectly well that there was little to nothing he could do for them that would impact sales in a meaningful way.

Finally, the writing isn't the same. I was a literary agent for 14 years, and like most agents, 95% of the submissions I saw were unpublishable. Everyone wants to write a book, and maybe, as the saying goes, there's a book in everyone. But that doesn't mean that others will want to read it. The ability to write well requires innate talent as well as a sh*tload of practice and the ability to tolerate, in most cases, a good deal of rejection along the way--not only to tolerate it, but to use it as a challenge to make the work better. You can't edit a cow's ear into a silk purse. Agents cherry-pick the best material they see, and not even that will not necessarily sell, because editors are even more demanding than agents. The stuff agents reject, much of which ends up self-published...well, until you've read through an agent's slush pile, you have no idea how bad some of it can be.

I'm glad writers now have the option of self-publishing without breaking the bank. There are plenty of applications for self-published work. But it's a whole different industry from publishing.

Patty said:

I'll add another advantage to self publishing (I've done neither but am having no luck with querying as yet)--

You can write exactly the book you want to write.

I've been redrafting and modifying and pruning and adding and embellishing and changing and shifting and so on and so on ... in order to try to find the magic formula to get an agent. It's become obvious to me that as soon as I decide to self publish all those constraints (the ones that we glean that people in the trade industry want) -- will go out the window.

I can get back to writing what I want, and I guess that's the freedom of it.

Click to expand...

Someone on this forum--sorry I can't remember who it was--- once said something really smart that stuck with me: Don't edit your book for anyone who's not paying you. I would add "or at least representing you," because agents often do edits. If an agent is willing to commit to handling your book, it's worth taking her suggestions seriously. But even then, you should only implement the ones that feel right to you, that lead you closer to the book you wanted all along to write. I tell my editing clients the same thing. I'm a pretty savvy reader, having worked in publishing my whole career. Nevertheless, while I can share my reactions to a particular work and make all the suggestions I want, the author is the ultimate authority on what their book is meant to be. All books need editing, and smart writers are grateful for good editing. But if you take every random suggestion that comes your way in order to snare an agent, your book will be distorted out of all recognition. You want an agent who wants your book, not some other hypothetical book.

If your goal is to be commercially published and to see it on the shelves of bookstores and libraries, you should stick with writing what you want.

For me, I take the approach that AW Admin recommended - I write the stuff I like to read. It works for me. But I have viewed self publishing as a fall back position. The very first full length novel I wrote, I sent to agents in hope of trade publishing, and got nowhere so I self published it. It became a series, and frankly, I got better and writing. Some of my later works sold pretty well, in self publishing terms.

I revisited trade publishing again, at the end of last year, and again got nowhere. It had been brought up to me that although the main character was different than my previous self published series, it really was a continuation of the previous series. So, I self published it.

The advantages of self publishing? Anyone can do it. The disadvantages of self publishing? Anyone can do it. There is so much stuff out there that yours gets lost, and it's becoming more and more difficult to promote your works. Two years ago I had decent sales, in self publishing terms, and in my best month I sold 70 ebooks, all action/adventure genre. Now I'm lucky to get three sales a month, despite introducing new titles. I don't want to discourage new people from self publishing, but realistically the average independent author sells a copy to their mother and that's about it.

My budget for production is roughly $250 including editing and cover art. I do not expect to break even on my last two books, although, with ten works, overall I made a profit since I started in 2015.