Over the holidays, I was talking to my mother about things going on in publishing. She had asked if I had read any submissions that were simply amazing - I had not. But her is what I told her.
Far too many authors have quit learning how to write stories. CRAFT has gone away. If you go to any conference (and those seem to be rare), most workshops focus on marketing your books and self-publishing. I get it. People were not finding success with their submissions, getting rejection after rejection so they turned to "I'll just publish this on my own." But when sales were not there, they seemed to think that the only problem was how they were marketing their books. Did they consider it might be the story? No. In any case, they now pushed for conferences to offer more workshops on marketing.
Now, here comes the twist to the whole story. The workshops were being taught by people who were also in the same boat. One conference I attended during 2024 said it all. The "bookstore" was full of only self-published authors. The workshops were being taught by these authors. But it was a conversation I had with several of these authors that really spoke volumes. They all said their "beta readers" loved the writing. The spoke of "great reviews" they had received, but could not get their sales going. For nearly all of them, they spoke of finally getting to the point where they had sold more than 1000 books. That was it. When I asked them how long they had been writing, they told me just a few years. For some, they started in the middle of the pandemic.
Let me now say, before going on, that there is nothing wrong with self-publishing. There is a place of self-publishing. However, and this is a big however, your success, or lack there of, when it comes to self-publishing may not be about marketing. You may have stories that are simply not going to sell well, regardless of the format.
Writing about a small event happening in a remote portion of your state is a "regional" issue. People outside of your region, and people not having a clue about the even will not buy the book.
Writing in a genre/sub-genre, that is not selling with the bigger traditional houses will not suddenly do better. If they can't do it with all of the money they can throw behind a campaign, why would it honestly work with you?
Consider also who is "editing" your books and giving you feedback. If these are people who are in your same situation, this will be an issue of the blind leading the blind. Even if you go to some of these companies who will charge you a ton of money, may not be the experts in the field. Again, I am going to refer to another conference I attended. I sat on a panel with freelance editors, who spoke of all the things they could do for these authors. One had just started her freelance work after a great run of providing editorial feedback "in a writing center at her university." Another talked about how she just wanted to "guide authors who share a passion for writing great words." Not exactly the type of person you want if you are planning on selling your product commercially.
When it all comes down to it, being successful in self-publishing comes down to a lot more than simply marketing. You are trying to sell a product to consumers. Your product must be quality and your product must be in demand. Your product is not going to sell because "you put a lot of time into it."
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