There are many stories about the process of becoming a published author. Some are horror stories and some are fairy tales.
The horror stories tell you that there is no way that you will get published; that you can’t get what you want done with your book. If you want to be self-published, the horror stories include extra shudders: you will never be able to sell any books. It doesn’t matter how well your book is written, it just won’t get anywhere because you are self-published.
Self-publishing used to be called vanity publishing because the thought was that those who self-published were those who weren’t good enough writers to get noticed by traditional publishers. After all, if it was a good book, the publisher would want the book, right? It is still sometimes called vanity publishing, even though many authors are opting to self-publish despite the hardships because it allows them more freedom.
These are the horror stories. Are they true? Well, in part, yes. There are many self-published authors who haven’t gotten much notice. I know a self-published author who doesn’t get much in the way of book sales. They sell the book, and they get money from it, but it is nothing compared to what people think about when they consider making money as an author. It’s no thousands of dollars. Right now, I am currently fighting through the invisibility stage. Is it a place for authors to get lost, not get noticed, and not make any money off of their hard work? It can be.
It can be tempting to get distracted by those flashy covers created by high-priced designers. After all, a book is judged by its cover and if you don’t have an eye-catching cover that holds the potential readers attention and makes them wonder what’s on the inside, how do you expect the potential readers to even pick up your book in the first place, let alone decide to lay down good money to buy your book?
That’s after you have to worry about an editor; someone to read over your work and tell you what works and what doesn’t, what you need to cut out and what can stay. If you don’t have one of them, how can you tell if your book will hold readers on the journey you are trying to take them on, instead of getting bored or distracted and wandering away never to return? Editors aren’t cheap, but surely you must lay down every hard-earned dollar they demand because any writer would be utterly lost without them.
Before that, what about how to write the book in the first place? There are books upon books that claim to teach a person how to write well, holding out the hope that, if you just buy this book and read it, you will have what it takes to write a bestseller. On the flip side, the natural conclusion is, if you don’t read this book and do what it says, you will never succeed.
The same goes for courses. “We will teach you the skills you need to be rocketed to the top of the bestseller list. Just take a look at our customer reviews. Pay us your hard-earned money, so we can make you a success.” The unspoken statement there is that you are not a success. It is easy for people to take the next step and think that there is no way to become a success without taking all these courses and reading all these books.
There is no doubt that the training of authors is a huge money making field. There are those who are willing to prey on the idealistic. There are stories of people who have self-published with companies who have then claimed the exclusive rights to sale that book while withholding payment from the author. There are people who talk of traditional publishers who might put effort into the marketing of a new author for a little while, but once the first push is over, the marketing is all up to the author, who likely knows little to nothing of marketing, since authors are often creatives.
That brings me to marketing. You can’t market unless you know what you are doing, and only trained marketing specialists know… right? It is far too difficult for the individual to learn… right? So, you have to spend your money on a marketer, either individually or through a package from a publisher, traditional or otherwise.
All of this starts to add up to big bucks before you even sale your first copy. This is an extreme version of “You have to spend money to make money.” The problem is, there is no guarantee that you will make any of the money back. There is a possibility that you will simply spend and have nothing.
Are you terrified yet? Are cold shivers running down your spine? I am only scratching the surface of the horror stories that discourage authors and/or persuade them to spend huge amounts of money in an attempt to beat the odds. Just remember the purpose of horror stories; to scare the living daylights out of you. Let me scare you now, so that you can look calmly into the face of the next horror story you come across and say… “Well, I’ve heard as much before, possibly worse, and I’m not so easy to scare anymore.”
Remember, it does take courage to stare into the face of fear and keep going forward. Yet, I figure there are those who have much more courage than they think, and what happens when you face the monster in the closet? You often find that it was shadows and your mind playing tricks on you.
I will cover the Fairy stories in the next post, so in the meantime, remember that more than one horror story ends in some form of victory. Don’t let the boogieman set you running, so that you can continue to enjoy the journey.
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