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With publishing landing in an unknown’s lap like myself, I began to wonder how is everyone doing with it. I hear stories of great success mixed in with those not doing so well. I plan to self publish as I stand to make more and I think I will find better luck with it. Still is self publishing only a trend for the moment or fade of the week? Is it worth the struggles and doing my own promotions? It’s a better deal but is it? And will time prove this was the reality of things to come and traditional published books will be no more?
Questions I currently can not answer. With the tons of writers out there, I thought I would google this and see what is online.
I found one article that stated only half of all self published books make a little more than $500 a year. This did not talk about if promotion was done and what kinds. It also did not state if this was the only book they wrote and how often other authors making closer to $10,000 a year published a book. Again no talk about promotion or how much spent on marketing.
Another site talked about an author who got to live his dream by avoiding the companies and self publishing his book. This did include his price of $0.99 and talked a bit more about how many books he has written over his lifetime. Did not take into account it might have been a fluke moment.
One guy had a great piece about how easy it is to self publish but overall seemed to think it was not worth it. I was confused by the end of his page about self publishing. He talked about how most books don’t sell and sit there. He did not include how to get past this or what works other than telling everyone only certain books like religion and non fiction do best.
and last was a guy who was so down on self publishing I didn’t even finish reading his piece. Made me wonder if the publishing companies are paying for people to blog, write and slam self publishing. Would not surprise me as it cuts into their profits and it has been done before online. Fake reviews, fake posts and bots to boot. You wonder if you can trust the glory stories or the horrible tales of self publishing.
So my post… is asking you the writer who is self published already or thinking of doing it this way. What have you come across? Is it worth doing? How well are you doing with it? Do you agree or disagree with any of these sites? Give us your real thoughts and your real ideas about it. I think it is to our benefit to come together as a group and talk about self publishing.
And promotion too. It is the one thing most of these sites don’t talk about. They don’t tell you if Fifty Shades of Grey was promoted other than word of mouth or how much she spent on promotion. Marketing is huge and if you don’t try to get your name out or market yourself in any way.. yeah you might not do well as no one will know your book is out for sale. I would rather hear from us than people just writing a review or thoughts on the subject. The real writers know if something works or doesn’t.
Update… Rewrites are going really well today and no complaints.
Terra