Self publishing good or bad?

Really? why so?

Why what?

Acorn, the reasons are on this very website... and in this forum. Read all the posts in this forum - and use the search function on the website.

I think Linton did a fine job explaining "how so" in his reply... just look back in the history of this forum and you'll get a feel for it.

I self-published a book and had it at a booth at a convention where I gave three presentations. Hehehe... I should have hired TWO assistants for that day. My assistant had to leave the booth while I was speaking and people apparently thought the $15 sign at the stack of books was a suggestion. When we returned to the booth, many books were gone... and no money was there.

Sigh...

The best lessons are always the most painful ones, aren't they?

Just like Linton says, I had my book printed and bound at a print shop. It truly was self-published. I never sought an agent for it - it was intended to supplement the talks I was giving. It sounds like, depending on what kind of book you have written and how strong your marketing is, you need to decide whether to self-publish or try to find an agent.

In my VERY distant past, I was a model. I never, EVER paid an agency one dime. They made money on me being a walking clothes hanger or makeup, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. model. My agency made it VERY clear that those companies that have you pay them to put together a portfolio (fancy word for "photographs") and "market" you are making their money only on THAT. They don't lift a finger to get you work. And if you sign up with them, you've put a stain on your record. You've shown that you are gullible and desperate. That's what Linton is talking about, I think. Your most valuable asset is your name - your reputation. Guard it well and only associate with up-front, honorable agencies. Don't publish through those companies that charge you.

Good luck!

If I didn't have kids, I'd be a much better parent.

How much would you say you pay to actually self-publish when factoring in printing, marketing, cover design, etc?  Are the costs comparable to places like Outskirts, iUniverse, and AuthorHouse? 

I can give you some valuable information, if you want to know. Then, decide what you want to do with your book.

Be REALLY careful of people who want to inform you about publishing in secret.  The waters are full of sharks.

All three companies you mention,tmar, are scams and to be avoided at all costs.  And "all costs" can be extreme.

You don't really need to pay ANYTHING to self-publish.  You can have ebooks out on SmashWords and Kindle for fee, paperbacks from CreateSpace and Lulu for free.  There might be reasons to spend a little more, but no real need.

Anybody who's trying to talk you into spending a lot of money to publish should be regarded as a predator.

My advice to a new writer would be to invest in the editing and creative consulting available out there. Yes, you pay for it, but the end result will be a far superior product. THEN, shop the newly polished story to publishers who may pay you for the rights to it.  Most, if not all, major publishers won't look twice at an new author's story if it has not been through a pretty good editing process first. Publishers just don't seem as interested in investing time to develope work as they used to be.  Now they want to see somthing that they can get onto the shelves in a year or less.

In short, the closer to print-ready your work is when the publisher gets it, the more likely it will be that they will offer you a contract.  But the major publishers are still your best bet for making a decent living. Perhaps that will change as more and more great writers get into self-publishing. Lets hope.

Sequence77.com

That would have been fine (if usual and boringly repeated) advice five years ago (except the part about paying for "creative consulting"--worthless--and spending a bunch of money on editors before showing your book to editors);

The idea that agents (which is who actually look at your work--the idea of direct to publishers is like advice from 20 years ago) are primarily interested in nice editing, rather than the qualities of the book itself is patently absurd.

The idea that major publishers are a writer's best bet is to dated to address.  More great writers are already into self-publishing. And it's possible more people make a living with their own work than on those 10% royalties from the old-timey publishers.

Interesting Mr. Robinson, I give some feedback based upon my personal experience, and you give feedback as if yours is the only opinion that matters.

So, if we are going to take apart responses, lets take a look at yours shall we?

Lets start with "That would have been fine (if usually and boringly repeated) advice five years ago". If you expect me to believe that A) 5 years has so dramatically changed the landscape for writers that nothing from waaaay back then really applies today and B) that stating something that may have been stated before it worthless, then you sir are even more of an egotist than anyone else who would use peripatetic and expatriate to describe their lifestyle. i mean....really?

In addition, no one said that big time publishing houses are "primarily interested in nice reading rather than the qualities of the book". You, being absurd, decided to make that assumption. The experience which I was sharing was that publishers are not going to take a thumb sketch of an idea from a new writer. My experience was rejection after rejection until I sought the assistance from someone who knew what the Big guys look for (since the big publishers were not very forthcoming in their form letters as to why the manuscript was rejected). The creative consultant really helped me identify a few key elements which really made the concept I was striving for pop off the page. This was not from changing words or selling out my original story, but by helping me see where I could add additional depth and not just be satisfied that I got my concept down on paper and that the concept along would be bought up by a publisher who had the foresight to see what "could" come of the story.

Finally, you have obviously been rejected a lot as you seem to have an over zealous disdain for the so called "big publisher". You even fabricated the 10% royalties estimate to further scare would-be authors from even considering that route. The fact is, the lowest offer I received was 52%, while some ranged up to 70% depending on how sales went.

Just to be clear, I'm all for the David VS. Goliath scenario. In fact, i am hoping that there will soon be a day where it is even odds that a writer gets exposure no matter which avenue they decide to take, but the simple fact remains that unless you happen to have a huge personal budget and the time to spend all of your time trying to advertise and otherwise raise awareness about your book, you are still at a disadvantage compared to the established publishing houses. It was true 5 years ago, and it is true now. Being a romantic about it won't change the fact that what you are pedaling is still largely just a work of fiction.

There ya go Mr. Robinson, can you take it as well as you seem to enjoy dishing it out?

Sequence77.com

I can see why you got upset.  Mr. Robinson's response was rather insulting in the way he approached it.

I do think that a good story IS a good story and should get accepted by a major publisher right off, but I wonder if your bargaining position would indeed be better if you sent them somthing that felt more "finished" than if it was just raw writing with a nice concept.

I can see both arguments, but I certainly would have found a different way of stating a disagreement than what Linton chose. Could have avoided getting owned if he had just stated his own case instead of ripping the other guys.

Lesson learned I hope.

 "Owned"? "Lesson"? I hope you're kidding and not totally delusional. I'm not going to work over that reply to mine.

I'll say this, though.  I'm not exactly stumbling around sobbing over rejections.  I've been published at a lot of different levels.  I got used to rejections as a free-lancer...as well as used to selling my work to the top markets in the country.

I've published since like junior high.  I've run and owned magazines, newspapers, catalogs, and book publishing houses.   I currently run publisher whose first book hit #15 on the amazon humor list on Feb 7.

My "day job" that pays the rent is publishing a book that's sold over 100,000 copies since 1985. 
Before anybody else wants to whine and "own" please take a look at my website and amazon page, okay?

I do presentations at writing conferences on how to get published, sell a couple of decently moving ebooks on the subject.

And when I talk about self-publishing, I don't mean going to pay iUniverse or xLibris or any of those ripoffs--I mean SELF published.  It costs NOTHING to do that any more.

And one more thing.  The idea that big publishing houses pay 50 or 70 percent royalty is either a drug dream or flat out lie.  If anybody wants to show any evidence whatsoever to back up those preposterous figures, be my guest.

Publishing yourself is a very valid, do-able option.  It should really be the first approach for a new writer, not a last resort.

If anybody has legitimate questions about this, ask.  If you are talking trash, don't bother.

Is that nice enough?

One more thing.  "Sequence 77" is published by an "author service"    You pay them for editing.  (Anybody see where this going?)

You pay them to publish your book.  This IS self-publishing, but not a very smart way to do it.

They don't show prices for publishing you...this is a bad sign.   If a pay-to-publish outfit is coy about prices or wants your email address or phone (or worse, you address to send you some pamphlet on their wonders), walk off.

There's nothing wrong with this approach.  These days (and yes, the last 5 years, what with "kindle" and "smashwords" and "createspace" and other modern whizzbangs HAVE indeed radically and fundamentally altered publishing.  Anybody talking from the "old world" of publishing isn't really worth paying much attention to, frankly.  The old days of "real publishers" vs "Vanity presses"  (and Lucid would be called that in those days, though I think the term is useless nowdays) are over for good.

But there is something wrong with stumping out advice on "experience" with bad numbers and poor concepts of the current lay of the land when you don't really have any experience either at self-publishing or getting sales to publishing houses.

I don't think this is some weird idea of my own.  I think almost anybody would come to the same conclusion.

Wow Linton.....

Before I was trying to see both sides, but in the end you are really not all that helpful in your approach.  And the EGO!  Just wow.

Learn some humility.  You may see yourself as a big success, but the only place I ever heard of you is right here and frankly, I don't care to encounter you elsewhere.

I've never been published and it is probably not worth it if I being successful means becoming like you. Not that you are really what I'd call sucsessful mind you.

Now THERE is an opinion Ibet people will get behind as fact.

It really stinks to have found such a great website, only to find this kind of "I'm better than you" type of bullying going on. I hope moderators are watching.

Bill

No, Bill, actually you weren't trying to see both sides.  My guess is you got in by a buddy to back him up, but who knows?

Actually,  I consider myself a failure.  I should be a name you know by now.

But I know what I know, and I back it up with experience and things I can actually point to.

And I mention that because there are people who read this stuff trying to figure out what to do with their work and I don't like seeing them getting wrong advice from people with no real understanding of the situation.

I think there are a lot of reasons for a new writer to pay attention to what I'm saying, evaluate it against other sources.  I have already listed many sources in my previous posts here.

I don't think there is any reason for a writer to take negativistic and fallacious advice from somebody who shows nothing to indicate that he knows what he's talking about.

You have posted twice, both personal comments to me.  Is there anything you came here to figure out?

I can't speak for the traditional publishing route, and I've only made one foray into self-publishing, but Createspace, for what my opinion's worth, was pretty amazing.

On their site, they have "packages" for layout and design and cover art and etc, ranging from several hundred dollars up to 4 grand.

I guess you could go that route, but my friend and I used their templates and, despite never having any experience with layout or design, got our text and images uploaded quickly, free of charge, and we were extremely satisfied with the final result.

Unless you want to count the time expenditure for writing and drawing (which would have been the same no matter what publishing option we went with), the total cost to us was about 6 dollars, and that's only because the company requests you to buy a proof copy before placing it up for sale.

So, after the first book sells, we're in the black.

We also have the option, if we choose, of ordering copies ourselves and selling them elsewhere.  But, the unfortunate scenarios of garages full of unsold books don't apply, as we could order 3 copies... 5 copies... for very little out of pocket cost.  I love the Print on Demand concept.

It's too early to tell if there's a stigma against books with "Createspace" listed as publisher, since, as has been mentioned earlier, ANYONE can publish anything through the site, regardless of quality.

But, we were never expecting to be the next "Hunger Games," anyhow.  

So, I vote "yea" on self-publishing, and Createspace in particular.

Taking Care of Lil' Man