The popular tweeter Antihero State1 (don’t worry, I won’t deadname her), says:
Ros Barber lays out the case against self-publishing. I agree with everything she writes but I have two disagreements and an addendum. The addendum actually strengthens her case against self-publishing.
Disagreement #1: Self-promotion.
Notwithstanding the image of the writer as reclusive (which I think may be a pose, but let it pass) the big writers of my childhood and youth were pretty good at it. BC (before cable), New York City had local channels. These channels had talk and variety shows with amazing guests. By today’s standards, the quality and adventurousness were sky-high.
You could see Andy Warhol superstars on local talk shows! Truman Capote, Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, William Buckley, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal were common presences. Anthony Burgess lived in town for a few years in the early 70s. He was on numerous talk shows, and a very entertaining fellow he was, too.
I have to say I never heard of Ros Barber before I came across this article. From what I gather, she herself is no slouch in the self-promotion area, as her website attests.
I am currently too busy to take on any new mentees But here’s the next best thing: my ultra-affordable online mentoring course.
Ros is not exactly the Thomas Pynchon/Don De Lillo type who shuns all publicity.
Disagreement #2: No Booker Prize or Hay Festival.
Sure, but realistically, how many books will ever be considered for the Booker? A tiny minority of so-called “literary fiction.” And I wouldn’t feel at home at the Hay, and not only because I’m American. I just don’t function well in crowds. I don’t think Don De Lillo would either.
What does winning prizes and hobnobbing with crowds have to with literature, with writing well?
My addendum: BOOKSTORES.
I wonder why Ros didn’t mention this, because bookstores are still a crucially important part of selling books.
A few years ago, publishing gurus frauds confidently predicted that e-books would replace print books. Didn’t happen. Won’t happen. People will always want to go to bookstores2 and look at real, physical BOOKS. They want to look at them, pick them up, heft them, apprise and appraise them.
Book stores sales may be down but $9 billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Having your physical books in a brick-and-mortar store is an essential element of authorial legitimacy.
It’s so important that “indie” writers are constantly trying to crack the bookstore code. What a waste of time! All this idling dreaming shows a complete ignorance of the book selling process. The buyers for the big chains have relationships with Ingram (the middleman) and they have their titles locked up in advance. Think they are going to make space on their shelves for your indie book? Why would they? No one knows about your book and after a few months a book that doesn’t sell will be returned to the publisher—in this case, you, the author, are the publisher. You will have to pay for this. I’ve also read that stores now simply physically trash the books. But again—who pays? The publisher/author. Bookstores are not going to order something and allow you to use their space for free.
You would be better off buying your books at author’s cost from Amazon and selling them off a table in the public square.
The exception to this rule is the following scenario. If you live in a small town or small metro area with an indie bookstore, cultivate a relationship with them and provide them with some physical books. Again, you pay for the books. If it doesn’t suck up a lot of your time and you don’t get your hopes up that this will result in huge sales, go for it.
I’ve actually read on websites that cater to the dreams of the self-published that golly gee, customers can now walk into Big Chain Bookstore and request one of your books from Amazon or Kobo! This is the silliest scenario of all. Why would anyone order your book from B&N if they can simply order a copy on the net? Even hardback is an option nowadays.
Bookstores only carry traditionally published books. A trad deal says that someone took a chance on your book.
A few years back (immediately pre-Covid, if memory serves) I heard that publishing houses were clearing their “mid-list” authors and the latter were going into self-publishing with great fanfare. I’m on an e-list of one such. Did they do this of their own volition? If self-publishing was so great, why didn’t they do it before getting cleared out?
To be fair, Antihero’s tweet does refer to people who already have a following on a platform, but even that doesn’t necessarily equate to book sales. I see some big “platform” names desperately hustling on Patreon and their own websites.
Say you have 5,000 followers on Twitter. I doubt that would equate to more than 25 books, if that. It is amazing how much people don’t care about your book. They’ve got a million other things to do.
OK! If it’s such a black hole, why self-publish? There’s only one reason:
Because you think your book is worthy of publication and it didn’t fit in anywhere. It’s better on Amazon and Kobo than in the proverbial drawer.
You will probably sell very few books. One of my many shattered illusions was that I’d sell a couple of thousand books to avid readers who were netsurfing in the wee hours and who desperately NEEDED something outrageous to read at 3 a.m. Aren’t there at least five hundred of those on any given night? One hundred? Fifty? Willing to shell out 99 cents for a 300-page romp in speculative literature?
Apparently not. At least, not for my book.
But who knows? A friend who writes lesbian kink sells thousands of books. He cranks out the product, does the graphics, and puts them on Amazon. Just Amazon, he doesn’t bother with other platforms. His sales were abysmal, and then one day, bam! He began to sell, and now he sells in the thousands. One book led to another. That didn’t happen with me, but it might happen with you.
(Confession: he offered me a place on his website and I turned him down, not wanting to be associated with a kink website, although his kink is quite vanilla, for kink. There is stuff in my book that’s more hard core. Oh well. I had my chances.)
The secret of his success is that he can take it or leave it. He doesn’t take it all that seriously. He has fun with it.
There’s a lesson in that, as well: do what you do as well as you can for the sake of it and accept your fate. The vast majority of literary careers, even top ones, come to naught. People forget about them oh, so quickly.
How many of you have heard of Sinclair Lewis? Mari Sandoz? Thomas Bell?
By the way, here are links to my books:
Vol I, The Brothers of Redemption: Amazon
Vol I, The Brothers of Redemption: Non-Zon
I would also be happy to send free review copies of my books to anyone who emails me at techniumbook at gmail dot com. You can read the first chapter of the book at the Amazon links.
She was later suspended.
And libraries, let’s not forget libraries.
Self-Publishing
I've heard of Mari Sandoz and have read several works by Sinclair Lewis : he was a darling of the Commies in my childhood
Lots of stories from the music world that parallel your depiction of literary woes. Want real success? Get on Tik Tok :)