The Self-Publishing Trap
Self-publishing has come a very long way in the last decade, thanks to digital printing technology and, of course, the ease of creating digital publications.
It is the stuff of dreams. Or so it seems. Often, though, it is a trap.
Even a few decades ago, writing a novel was a much greater challenge than it is today. I’m not talking about story — nothing has changed there. I refer to logistics.
I’m in my early sixties and witnessed the transition from typewriters to computers. Those of you under fifty like as not have never used a typewriter, a merciless machine when it comes to mistakes in spelling or punctuation. Once upon a time, corrections meant backspacing and crossing out the error with the subtraction key — you could not erase anything. Or else you had to re-type the whole page.
When a manuscript needed to be typed — several times in fact, once for each submission to a publishing house — every copy was a heavy stack of unruly pages that needed to be mailed in a box.
My point is that back then, the logistics of book writing was an obstacle in and of itself, requiring far more resolve than composing on a laptop and emailing a .pdf file.
Failing to find a publisher after all that work was enough of a blow to discourage subsequent effort. Almost medieval in its brutality, sure, but it enforced — if I may be blunt — a level of quality impossible to achieve in a digital world.
Today, our technology invites a greater percentage of people to invest their time into writing a novel. And why not? The rewards of wealth and fame enjoyed by successful writers are seductive. Furthermore, writing demands no other skills beyond literacy.
The odds of success get lost, brushed aside by optimism and diligent determination.
And that optimism doesn’t go unnoticed by the omnipresent surveillance algorithms infecting all social media. Mention you’re considering writing a book on Facebook or whatever and almost immediately your advertising stream fills with encouragements (if you buy this book) and offers to ease your journey to publishing success (for this low fee).
Slip ahead eighteen months or so, and the manuscript is done. No longer does your story need to endure rewrites ordered by strict editors or, when that torture is ended, the two year delay before your title hits the shelves.
No. Because a piece of software will format your book into any of the digital formats a reader might want. In minutes. You promise yourself you’ll hire an editor after you sell your first thousand copies on Amazon and hit ‘upload.’
Navigating Amazon’s maze of demands and agreements isn’t all that time-consuming — but you didn’t actually read the terms and conditions because, well, its Amazon, and they couldn’t be the largest, most successful digital marketplace if they weren’t trustworthy, right?
Wrong. But that’s an issue for another article.
Whatever. Your book is out. It’s published! You’re an author. You can see your sales climbing in your head. And you trip the trap.
Your book is but a grain of sand on the beach named Amazon and equally anonymous. Whether your tale is vacuous vanity or your generation’s ‘War and Peace’ is irrelevant.
The sheer amount of competition staggers you, and you see the trap for what it is. What you imagined as opportunity is instead quicksand and the ropes you hoped would save you were frayed or coated in thorns.
But it’s too late to give in, right? There’s still a chance, right? You cling to hope. Perhaps you pray.
A month goes by and not a single copy has sold. Amazon’s thrice-daily emails touting their advertising plans start to look like a rope in quicksand. You write off the cost from the future sales they imply (but don’t promise) and add your credit card number where it says.
I’m not going to say Amazon doesn’t want you to succeed. Of course they do. They can’t strip two-thirds from the proceeds of your labour and then prevent you from succeeding. But your success is not their first priority, theirs is.
If your book is $3.99, Amazon takes $2.00. If you sell 100 copies, they make $200. That’s a pittance next to what they earn from their advertising plans at hundreds to thousands of dollars, boosting your sales just enough to keep you hooked.
Yes, ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ and ‘The Martian’ (I believe) were originally self-published before they were picked up by big publishers, but that’s two in several million self-published releases.
I’m not trying to ruin your dream. If you have a story to tell, tell it. But write it because you really want to, not because you think it’s a ticket to fame and riches. Ultimately, that’s an even more painful trap.
