I didn’t plan on posting today, but there is a debate going on about whether new authors should spend money on self-publishing their books.
In brief, publishing a book you want others to spend their money on will cost some financial investment if you care about your reader’s experience.
There’s a reason authors who sign with conventional publishing houses don’t pay money for editing and cover art. It is because the publisher has a team of experts to take care of that. In exchange, the author sells the rights to their book and receives royalty payments for sales.
As a self-publisher, you are the publisher, which means you are responsible for outsourcing everything you need to ensure a profitable product.
It doesn’t have to be an arm and a leg, but you want to, at minimum, cover editing, a decent cover design, print and digital formatting, and own your ISBN from Bowker so that you are the publisher of record.
Paying someone to publish your book is also not self-publishing.
If you paid someone to publish your book, including editing it and everything else, you have not self-published it. You have paid a vanity press to publish it for you.
I’ve heard too many horror stories from authors who say they will never self-publish again, only to discover they never actually self-published. They signed with a vanity press who uploaded the book to Ingram, and did little more than the author could have done themselves.
But this isn’t about vanity presses. This is about how too many people self-publish because they think it’s easier than all other routes: vanity, hybrid, and traditional. They have not considered if they have the time and resources to self-publish or if it’s even something they are really interested in.
The truth is that not everyone is equipped to be their own publisher, which is fine! First-time authors are not required to self-publish, but if they do, they must recognize the financial risks involved in providing a quality product worth people’s money.
You cannot throw a book together that you claim you didn’t do to make money and then sell this mediocrity to other people.
Cause technically, you can self-publish for $0, but it will look like it.
I blame the existence of this debate on the whole “art” conversation. Authors don’t think they have to invest financially because too many of us consider publishing a book a passion project instead of a business decision.
This is the first mistake.
Check out more Indie Author Basics articles here.
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