Why I Won't Self-Publish Come the Harpies

It's been said that every person has a book in him/her. In the past, however, few people bothered to actually sit at a typewriter and crank out the masterpiece within them. Today, it's so easy to write a book, that everyone seems to be writing, even those who don't have much of anything to say.

In the days when books were written on yellow pads and typewriters (like my first novel), you had to be highly motivated to grind out drafts and then deal with the dense cross-outs, marginal scrawls, Wite Out spillage, and flaking correction tape that comprised the editing process. 

Then came the personal computer and the ease of producing draft after draft with minimal mechanical effort. Now you can even dictate a draft into a computer without your fingers even touching a keyboard. So easy, in fact, everybody got into the book-writing game. 

The rub, however, is most people do not understand the massive effort it takes to write a marketable book and tend to overrate their own efforts. Worst of all, they try to publish before they've produced a polished manuscript. They haven't rewritten enough, enlisted professional editorial assistance, or subjected their drafts to a thorough proofread. They submit their masterpieces to agents and publishers anyway and get rejected and dejected.

Then we come to today, where it's even easier to write and submit books to publishers and agents. Everything is done through email, which means submitting is cheap and easy. Also it means agents who used to deal with a few dozen submissions a week a couple decades ago, are now bombarded with hundreds a week. That's the reality I'm facing with my book, in which I've invested countless hours and many dollars to make as commercially viable as possible. Only to see it rejected by agents who don't have the time to read it.

There's always self-publishing, which is also easier than ever. There are a slew of vendors who can design covers, format ebooks, and, if you choose, print as many copies as you want on demand. But the problem with many self-published books is they're poorly written and, as a result, don't sell very well. Indie writers who have skimped on the editorial process and published books with typos and grammatical errors tend to discourage readers and cast an overall bad light on the indie market.

Of course success can be found in this market. According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos,  almost 1,000 self-published authors earned at least $100,000 on the Amazon platform in 2019. But that kind of success is rare. According to Bowker, the number of self-published books grew to more 1.6 million(!) in 2018 (the most recent year available).  So the odds of making a decent amount of money in self-publishing don't sound very good to me. 

I've dabbled in self-publishing, and the thing you quickly learn is that you end up spending as much energy marketing, networking, and otherwise promoting your books as you do writing them. And marketing books remains a puzzle to me, even after a long career selling investment products. Book promotion is hit or miss and can waste a lot of time and money.

But, look, if you write romance and erotica, crime and mystery, religious, or science fiction books, there's a chance you could find self-published success, since these are the hottest categories for indie authors.

But the main reason I will not self-publish Come the Harpies is because I don't wanna. I'm retired and I just want to write good books. If my novel does get picked up by a publisher, I'll be more than happy to take an active role to promote it. That's the deal.