Why Self-Pub Isn't As Easy As People Claim

 Let me first start with statements that will immediately come flooding in on this from people who were successful with a Self-Publishing approach. Can it work? Yes. I am not saying that. What I am going to argue is that many of the claims you hear people make are potentially leaving out key pieces of the puzzle. 

I started thinking about this idea, this morning as I was scrolling through Facebook. I came across one of those "Sponsored Posts." We all know what these are. Someone selling something. You click on the link, get to their page and now you are looking to purchase something. In this case, it started out talking about the struggles of someone self-publishing. 

The list was exactly what we all know. You write your story. You try taking the traditional approach and fail. Then you try the self-publishing route. Endless months and a lot of money spent getting copy editors, cover artists, trying to make connections with the large book stores and never selling anything. The list then went on talking about you going out to buy someone's book on 800+ ways to be successful and those failed. I did have to laugh because at the very end, this author then said that her steps that you can purchase... see what just happened? You're back to buying something.

I have to give this author some credit. The she slammed buying someone else's book, showed you all of the things that you would struggle with and then got you to buy her book. 

But the reality is this. Self-publishing IS hard and IT WILL take up a lot of time and money on your part. 

Consider:

• The time you were spending writing each day will now be cut easily in half as you do the marketing and the business side of things
• Yes, you will do this with traditional publishing but you will have the help of a publisher. They will do a lot of it for you.
• You will pay for the cover art
• You will pay for the copy editor
• You will pay for the company to do the layout work
• You will pay for the initial stack of books or even the first copy run
• Now if you are selling as an ebook this probably won't be the case
• If you are selling Print on Demand, this probably won't be the case
• It is up to you now to get into bookstores. Small stores might take on about 5 copies but those larger stores might be a challenge.

And then you have to consider what you know about all of this as well as the legal side of things.

I have a friend of mine who is self-publishing a book. He spent a lot of time just writing but not really looking at what happened AFTER the book was done. He has now spent close to the last 6 months just trying to work through those pieces. I see posts from him every now and then and you can hear the frustration. It is tough.

Financially too, I hear a lot  of self-published authors declaring these huge cash intakes for their sales. It is interesting though, when you really get them talking, this is GROSS sales and not NET sales. The amount of money they spent for all of those other things I listed above were not factored in.  

I would also add that many of the successful self-publishing people out there were already established authors and some of these books they are selling are potentially backlists. They know that when their book hits the Amazon pages, authors will see it and immediately buy it based on name recognition. New authors DO NOT have that. 

I want to simply say, before diving into this. THINK. Be cautious of buying into the claims that many will proclaim. Publishing, in general, is not easy. Writing is not easy. When it comes to self-publishing, EVERY ounce of it is now on your shoulders. Are you ready for it?