The horrible hidden truth about self-publishing that nobody wants you to know

UPDATE: I made a video talking about this stuff but it’s down at the bottom of this post. Scroll down to see it. 

I’ve been self-publishing for about a decade, and have sold about 50,000 books. I haven’t made a living (yet), and like most self-publishing gurus and experts, I make my living in services rather than with my own books… (confessions of a six-figure author).

But after attending (and speaking at) dozens of writing conferences and publishing conventions, if there is one secret truth behind both traditional and indie publishing industries, it’s this:

It’s all about the money.

If I were to break that down and make it more personal, I could say it this way:

Nobody cares about you or your book (and you shouldn’t ask them to!)

This is important, as it reveals a bizarre rift between the creative, artistic side of writing and the productive, professional side. On the one hand, most writing experts and classes and books about creative writing will tell you not to consider the market, and not to mimic or copy other bestselling books in your genre to see what’s popular.

Instead, most coaches focus on the romantic side of writing, as a tool for personal exploration and emotional expression. Writers are told to write the book they are passionate about, and only to write what they find enjoyable, because if you don’t enjoy it, then what’s the point?

For many reasons, however, the book you want to write the most is the hardest to finish.

• If you start without any structure it’s hard to know what to write.
• If you’re writing without a purpose it’s hard to know when you’ve finished.
• The more passionate you are about the importance of your book, the less practical you will be (instead of making smart business choices, you’ll do whatever feels right.)
• The first book you write will probably be terrible, because you’re learning how to write… so you’ll end up with hundreds of files and folders and deleted scenes and plot twists. A big, messy pile of Story with no way to force it all together into a cohesive book.

Most authors, in the face of the pressure and magnitude of this passion project, often spend years devoted to this book. Many never finish. Those who do finish, have probably made a thing that isn’t actually that great and needs a lot of polishing.

If you object to this, consider that in every other case, you need to practice something about a thousand hours before you get proficient at using a new skill. If you’ve managed to finish a book, you may now be a perfectly adequate writer. After you write a few more books, you may become a pretty good writer. In most cases, the first completed projects of any author or artist (or learning how to do anything) may be a decent effort but will probably not be considered high quality craftsmanship. You apprentice and practice and develop a skill so that some day you can do it professionally – as in, charge money for it.

But authors skip all this. They finish a book and want to get it published. (Years ago, the practice work would all get hidden in a desk drawer, now it’s quickly put out on Amazon).

GET HELP: Download my FREE book launch checklist and discover the step-by-step publishing roadmap I use to launch bestsellers.

How to publish a book (without messing everything up)

There are basically two ways to publish a book. The old way is now called “traditional” publishing: you pitch an agent, they sell it to a publisher, and the publisher takes care of everything. You get an advance.

The benefits of traditional publishing are that you don’t need to do anything else besides write. And you get the respect of being traditionally published.

But there are many cons:

A typical advance is less than $5000, and publishers and agents are increasingly picky. Even if you get published, most authors don’t earn out their advance. Since authors make less than 10% per book sold, even if they publish a book a year (at $5000) it’s a long way away from making a living as an author. Even very successful authors often need a “real” job on the side.

But also: because someone else is taking care of everything, they never learn how to publish or market a book, which means, if eventually the publisher drops them because their books aren’t selling, they are starting over from zero, with no knowledge and no platform, and have to learn everything from scratch.

If you want to be traditionally published, good luck! There’s nothing wrong with that, it just doesn’t earn very well for the amount of time you put into writing your book.

Some things to watch out for:

• A lot of small presses will say “we want to publish your book” but actually make you pay for some of the services or split the costs.
• A lot of small presses have good intentions but actually know nothing about book design or book marketing, which means you’re giving them the lion’s share of profits but they can’t help you sell the book.
• Nobody is going to give up their own time and money to support your dreams, nor should they. (But there are “book coaches” who will take thousands of dollars and help along the path… they may be helpful for finishing a great book, but you really need to hire the best editor, best cover designer, etc rather than leave it up to one “expert”).

Most authors, because they’ve written a book they believe in, feel entitled to free help because they consider themselves a non-profit. Since they aren’t doing it for money, they think it’s fine to ask people to help them out for free.

But authors do not deserve charity.

In almost every case, if you come from a society where you can work to support yourself and still have enough free time to write a book, you’re in the richest percentage of the world population. You’ve chosen to write a book because you wanted to.

Just because you’ve successfully completed a book, does not entitle you to demand the time, energy and finances of your friends, family and strangers on the internet whose expertise you desperately need.

An agent or publisher, even if they like and believe in your book, even if they want to help and support you, fundamentally need to consider whether your book can be profitable. If not, they’re wasting their money and the company’s money to develop it into a product and market it. If they sign enough books that don’t earn any money, they may go out of business.

How to self-publish a book

Let’s say your book isn’t commercially viable: which means, it won’t earn enough for an agent or publisher to invest in. You can either continue writing and pitching until you have a great enough book that somebody wants to publish, or you can self-publish.

First, a warning: if you self-publish, it may be harder to traditionally publish later.

Publishers, like art galleries, want a clean slate – a biography they can work with. No history is sometimes better than an embarrassing showing. If you self publish and all your books are poorly produced and sell no copies, the next time you try to pitch a book, the agent or publisher is immediately going to Google you and see all these failed projects, with a few reviews and abysmal sales rank. That’s an indication that you don’t know how to market your books. It might have been better to wait until you get traditionally published.

However, publishers will often take on successful self-published authors, if they’ve sold between 5,000 and 10,000 books. A lot of publishers also watch to see what’s selling on Amazon, and make an offer so they can capitalize on your success.

SO, if you are going to self-publish, you should do everything you can to do it well. Set a goal of 5,000 copies, and treat your writing and publishing like a business.

That means, stop asking for help and support. Stop desperate, useless marketing tactics like spamming Facebook or blasting Twitter.

To sell 5,000 copies, you need to reach about 50,000 readers in your target genre or topic, get their attention with amazing content, and then convince them they need to read your book. You can do this with:

• Blurbs or testimonials
• An amazing summary or description
• An amazing book cover or graphics

As for the production of your book, you’re going to need to learn formatting or cover design – which are unique skills that often take years to master – or you can pay someone to do it for you.

You will probably also need an editor to make your book good enough to be that successful. A line editor will fix your writing; a proofreading will correct your errors and typos… but before that you really need a masterful manuscript review to fix your story and organization. Story trumps everything. The little things and the writing are important too, but the difference between a mediocre book and one that sells 5,000+ copies is story (personally I get bored of beautifully written books that don’t go anywhere, whereas I’ll read a badly written book with an amazing, gripping story).

So first: study story and organization and plot. Then edit and rewrite and edit some more, then get as much professional help as you can afford (if you can’t afford any help, find beta readers who will read and give feedback).

If you ask for help, don’t be defensive!

People often ask me to review their book cover or Amazon page. Sometimes when I tell them what’s wrong with it they’ll become defensive and explain why they did everything like that (usually to “stand out” and “be different” – both really bad ideas).

After the book is flawless, get it designed and put it on Amazon and/or everywhere else that sell books. Make it available. Now it’s time to reach your readers.

Some of the ways I’ve reached my readers is:

• doing book giveaways and getting 8500 signups to my email list before launch
• using targeted Facebook advertising to reach fans of particular authors or genres
• creating lists of “best books in X genre” and sharing it with the authors I mention, so they will share my list with their platform
• starting a Facebook group around the subject or genre (groups have way more reach than pages).
• making friends with people who have a large influence in my particular genre
• putting multiple books on permafree (making books free for a long period of time)
• creating content on my blog that is remarkable and gets shares and traffic.
• Doing a 99cent promo and advertising on a dozen book promotion sites.

I reach about a thousand people a day on autopilot, with zero advertising or promotion. Out of that 30,000 a month, I get about a hundred reviews and about a thousand new signups on my email list.

I know that visibility is the biggest challenge for authors, so I used tactics that defeated it quickly (unlike most authors, I don’t have a visibility problem).

For most authors, especially if you only have one book, you’re going to need to leverage other people’s platforms, networks or influence… which means asking for favors or paying for access (two things I hate to do).

And even if you work really hard, and even if you spend lots of money, the vast majority of books fail. That’s why….

Publishing is a racket

Publishing is a racket because most self-publishing authors see their books as an investment, when it’s actually a gamble. It’s a gamble because they don’t know how to reach their readers (or who their readers even are). They don’t know whether anybody will really enjoy their books. They hope to make some money from their books but because they didn’t write it for the money, they are OK with continuously spending more and more time, effort and money into their books even when they get zero results.

Publishing is a racket because the majority of people making money in publishing are the people selling services to authors. People selling services get paid for their time and expertise, but aren’t invested in helping you to make your book successful.

That’s not exactly fair, I should also point out that it’s because, in this business arrangement the author calls the shots and most first time authors make terrible choices, even when the people they hire for help try and get them to make better choices. There’s a built-in tendency towards self-sabotage when the least experienced person gets to make all the decisions.

Part of the reason I’ve built a gargantuan amount of resources, tutorials, tools and training for self-publishing authors is because I want their books to be successful, but I don’t have time to actually do everything for every author myself.

If you get traditionally published, then yes, they will want your book to succeed so they can make more money; but traditional publishers can’t do most of the things indie authors can do to reach readers quickly and cheaply, which means you’re starting from a point of disadvantage in some areas (and advantages in others… if you’re traditionally published with a big publishing company, not one of the small press that suck at book design, then you’ll probably get a beautiful book, which will help with sales).

Most books lose money. Even traditionally published ones: and those are the ones they thought were good enough to bet on. Most self-published books are vanity projects, which means, the author paid for the privilege of having them published, and spent money getting professionals to help them edit, design and produce it, but they earn less than they cost.

*I realize that “vanity” is a strong word that offends people. I don’t mean to be offensive. But if you’re publishing the book you want to, even if you’re doing it for others or because it’s a project you believe in (nobody is paying you to publish, it’s a choice…) you’re still publishing for you. You are doing it for non-financial reasons. Which is totally FINE – if that’s what you want to do. It’s only “vain” in the sense that you’re doing it because it makes you happy, and that’s OK to recognize. But when you publish this way, and then try to sell the book to other people who don’t have your enthusiasm, it’s be so much harder to get any takers, which can lead to desperation. By pointing all this out, I only hope to demonstrate that there is another way. You can still write what you want, and do what you love, but you also need to consider and research your audience so you can aim to make them happy also.*

If your book earns less than it cost to produce, you’re a vanity author: you wrote the book because you felt like it, because you wanted to, but not to make money.

That’s fine – some authors still do tremendously well. I’m not saying don’t publish. I just want you to recognize that, if you aren’t writing for an audience and carefully considering the commercial viability of your project, if you aren’t expecting and planning to make more money than you spend, and learning exactly what it takes to achieve that, then you’re publishing for yourself, and it’s a big risk and gamble.

You hope to make money, and you might make money, but if you think it depends on “getting lucky” you’re publishing for yourself.

Making money is about providing a product or service people will happily pay for. To publish profitably, you need a book that people want; a book they will enjoy reading. Then, you need to produce it into a beautiful product that appeals the target audience and immediately conveys benefits; then you need sales copy and reviews that overcome objections and convince them to buy. Then you need ways of driving traffic to your product.

After all that, you continue tweaking until your conversion rate is high and consistent. Most authors think “writing to market” or considering your audience means writing shitty bulks to fill a need. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I want you to write better books that people actually enjoy, not the book that you enjoy writing. Write for others, not for yourself.

Also: When I say this authors whine and moan about how they would hate to write in a more popular genre and that they’d rather be flipping burgers. That’s a bullshit excuse. Stick with your genre if you want to, but make sure you find your readership and make sure your book is the best damn book in that genre; that it overdelivers on the promise and experience of that genre. You can’t be the best unless you clearly recognize where you fit in with the competition.

If it sounds terrifying and overinvolved, don’t worry about it – I have lots of friends who sell WAY more books than me and all they did was publish. If you have a good book in a popular genre with a nice cover, you can sell a ton of books (the key being “popular genre” – the less popular your topic or genre, the less number of books you should expect to sell).

But I didn’t want to publish and hope for success, I wanted to build a powerful author funnel to make my own success nearly inevitable. It may not be necessary, but everything you can do to build your platform and reach your readers will make it easier.

And the easier and smoother your book marketing becomes, the less maintenance it involves, the more you can relax and focus on your writing.

I’m not saying you aren’t a “real” author if your books don’t sell. I’m not even saying you aren’t a “successful” author (if you redefine success to mean only personal satisfaction). I’m not actually saying anything about you, other than this: if you aren’t as profitable as you would like to be, there’s a reason for it. After working with thousands of authors, I can say with some confidence that the most likely reason (apart from your cover design, book summary and lack of reviews) is that you’re trying to sell a book you made for yourself, to other people who may not want it. If you’ve already written the book, you can still improve your sales dramatically, but rarely as much as you could have if you wrote a book with a certain audience in mind – an audience you understand and respect.

Key takeaway: self-publishing demands long-term commitment and a focus on building your own platform. Most publishing services will take your money but don’t care about whether your book is successful.

VIDEO: 3 Things you can do to double your book sales.

I made this video to share some simple ways you can increase your sales if you’re self-publishing – it’s actually quite long, so be prepared to take notes.

I’ve you don’t have time right now, you can grab the slides.

The 3 secrets to book marketing, and a haunted castle tour. Totally free. Get it here.

Derek Murphy

I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.