Why Your Dream Shouldn't be Traditional Publishing

If you write, you have discussed whether you self-publish or query for an agent and a traditional publishing contract.

On the one hand, you have self-publishing, where you control everything. The rise of Indie authors making vast amounts of money and selling many books leads some to consider this is the best route.

With the popularity of TikTok, you can advertise your books easily and cheaply. Books that go viral on BookTok make sales higher than many best sellers. 

On the other side is traditional publishing, which offers help with cover design, editing, and most importantly, marketing, at least that is the conception.

A traditional publisher can offer more in the way of marketing and distribution than I can afford on my own - Author Edward Anderson

This is undoubtedly true, but what if I told you that the pot they spend on marketing is not as much as you think? Would you then choose self-publishing? 

Celebrity Authors

The sad truth is that book advances don't go to the likes of us; they go to big celebrities like Brittany Spears and franchise authors such as James Patterson. 

Celebrity authors earn advances of over $250,000 because the publishing houses feel they can make their money back. That is a considerable chunk of the revenue we are trying to get. 

Companies will also concentrate on encouraging celebrities to write books, leaving them less time to read our manuscripts. 

75 percent of our acquisitions come from approaching celebrities, politicians, athletes, the celebrity adjacent, - Jennifer Bergstrom, SVP, Gallery Books Group 

The draw to these celebrity authors is that they already have a built-in audience. The publishing house has to spend nothing on marketing for huge returns. 

Best Selling Books

Another massive part of the revenue that publishers make is from their backlist. Bibles, Lord of the Rings and The Very Hungry Caterpillar make considerable money yearly. 

These books don't need marketing, especially children's books, as they are passed down through generations. They have to do nothing for this income, so they don't need to market your book. 

New books typically do not sell multiple copies. These books are a stable, passive income that keeps earning. 

Our backlist brings in about a third of our annual revenues, so $300 million a year roughly, a little less.— Michael Pietsch, CEO,

Publishers

These two categories comprise the entire publishing industry and produce the money to fund their vanity projects, that is, the books we submit. Most of these books make no money and sell under 1000 copies. 

Publishers use a scatter approach to find their unicorn. They invest a small amount of money in every book they market, hoping one makes it big. 

The conception that traditional publishers help market your books is true, but they do not invest as much as most authors think. That reduces the chance of success to a similar level to someone who knows how to market their self-published books. 

For those sitting there thinking, yes, my book might be the exception. I hope it is, but it seems less likely when I tell you unicorns happen every five to ten years. 

The last unicorn was Fifty Shades; before that, it was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and before that, Twilight. 

Amazon Is The Publisher You Need

In 2020, just over 250 books sold over 100,000 copies—ninety-six per cent of books sold less than 1,000. Imagine you had hung out for a traditional publishing deal to have fewer people buy your book than read your Substack. 

Would you feel better if you had self-published and received those few sales? 

No matter your answer, you might not need to worry about sales because Amazon has some impressive statistics. Amazon pays $250 million in royalties to self-published authors each year. 85% of Kindle Unlimited books are self-published. Self-published books account for 31% of Amazon's ebook sales.

Amazon knows what people are buying. They have good data and can use this to your advantage. 

Their bestseller list, in my view, is more important than The New York Times best seller list because it's in realtime. It's hourly. And I look at that Amazon best seller list regularly, every day. — Jonathan Karp, CEO, Simon &

The big publishing houses are scared of Amazon, especially Kindle Unlimited, as it can potentially be Netflix for books. None of these companies allow their authors to participate in Kindle Unlimited for this reason. 

We think it's going to destroy the publishing industry. — Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Publishing House

Self Publishing

Publishing houses make minimal investments in marketing books; they primarily focus on celebrity books and their backlists. This leads me to consider that my time might be better spent building my audience and self-publishing than chasing a traditional publishing contract. 

Like many of us, though I am reluctant, there is something special about being traditionally published. It is like the holy grail of writing, even though it might offer none of the advantages we thought. 

I feel like many writers that I will not be a success until I am traditionally published. My head says self-publishing and building a loyal following. My heart says go and query that novel. I am sure I am not alone.