A Few Thoughts About Self Publishing

my-thoughts-afterself-publishing-my-first-book

Now that my book has been published, I have a few thoughts that I wanted to share with you, my beloved readers. I went with a printer called Bookbaby, and things didn’t quite go as planned.

There is a lot more to publishing than just printing out a book. It turns out that distribution is a totally separate beast: plenty of places will print your work whatever it my be; a novel, poems, scrapbook pages, and they might do a perfectly swell job, but when it comes to a having them distribute that content… BEWARE. They might say; “yes we distribute to all the big places like Amazon, Barnes and noble, etc”, but what they say and what they mean are two very different things.

For example: them being ‘willing’ to print for Barnes and Noble does not mean a thing to anyone except you, the ‘desperate to get you work out there’ person. So here’s the skinny as I’ve experienced it; if Barnes and Noble does not have a physical copy of your book to mail out, your book does not exist after your release date. You will not be on the website, you will be unsearchable on their site to any potential buyer searching on their sight. So sure Bookbaby is willing to sell/print for Barnes and Noble but they never will because no one will ever know that you exist if they go on line. Similarly, Amazon will gladly say ‘sure this book exists but we don’t have any copies and it might take months for us to get one but go ahead a buy it and we will ship it out so someday’. Talk about a turn off. If you don’t believe me, check out the link below.  https://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Tudor-Ancestry-Theresa-Pocock/dp/1483579301/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482985456&sr=8-1&keywords=theresa+pocock

I bought a copy of my own book from Target a month ago just to go through the experience my ‘distributors ‘ put my fans through. What do I have…No book and endless emails from Target saying ‘we can’t get this book do you still want us to try?’ Also Bookbaby sucks sucks at keeping my numbers. I personally know  people who have bought my book and gotten it (because amazon bought a few copies at the get go and had them on stock to sell) but Bookbaby says I haven’t sold a single one.

elizabeth

Isn’t the cover beautiful, though? I’m so happy with the way it looks!

 

You see my problem. I don’t know the answers to all these issues but I do know plenty of people self publish everyday. This is just part of my experience. My point is to put these issues out there so that you don’t rush into something that needs some serious vetting.

So, my biggest tip for you is to do your research. Talk to other authors who have used the printer you go with BEFORE you sign any papers. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes!

Speak Your Mind

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.