One of the fiercest debates that has raged in recent times among authors, aspiring authors, and the communities in which they operate concerns the relative advantages and disadvantages of traditional publishing and self-publishing. Where once only a few lucky or gifted (clear based on preference or bias) could make the leap from aspiring mother to best-selling author, now anyone who can follow a few fairly simple instructions can publish and sell their works at a potential market of millions.
The word “potential” is, of course, crucial here, since the downside of releasing one’s own work through the relatively new medium of self-publishing is that the writer is entirely responsible for getting their work known to those who might buy it. . Whereas a traditional publisher, parting with a sometimes hefty advance payment in exchange for the author’s soul, would be driven by his own interest in recouping his losses and then making a profit, there is no such other interest at work when the Solitary author publishes through a DIY platform. From day one, the self-publisher out of necessity becomes a self-seller. With over a million books already on the virtual shelf and counting, the task is no easy one.
It goes without saying that the first thing on which the success or failure of a work will depend is its quality. You can’t make a silk handbag out of the ear of a proverbial pig, and you can’t reasonably promote a tome riddled with typos as a literary masterpiece. In the world of traditional publishing, imperfect manuscripts are professionally retouched and toned until they become perfect manuscripts. The same is not true when they are shipped directly to a retailer via an unmanned formatting program. Get it wrong, and it stays wrong.
On the opposite side of the coin, although the same standard is not met. To use an obvious truism, an invisible work of art will remain invisible as long as no one sees it, and there is no automatic correlation between its quality as a work and the exposure it receives. Once an article is published, no matter how good it is, the imperative shifts from production to distribution.
Therefore, in self-publishing, the onus is on the writer, who is also the publisher, to also become the marketer. Usually, the author’s family and friends will be the first to show their support by purchasing copies. Then, social media needs to be exploited to its full value, before articles and links from niche forums, guest posts on relevant blogs, and reviews achieved by fair or not-so-fair means come into play. If all goes to plan, once these channels have dried up, a secondary wave of word of mouth interest will have been generated, and thus the anticipated process finally, albeit rather slowly, gets under way.
Is self-publishing worth it? For those unlikely to find a traditional publisher, certainly. For those who can, possibly, as the time saved and the more generous royalties should certainly be factored in as well. But it’s no walk in the park, and for some writing the book is actually the easy part.
