You’re welcome!

You said, “I would very much like to see a thorough comparison of what the benefits and drawbacks are between self publishing and having your book published by a traditional publisher with a track record.

Can you say more about this?”

The primary complaints I’ve read from authors over the years about traditional publishers revolve around the marketing of their books. From the complaints, it seems that if you’re not already a celebrity or best-selling author, then the major publishers don’t promote your book with any real energy or creativity. That sort of effort is reserved for top-tier, best-selling authors.

Meanwhile, you as the author have NO control or even real input about what the publisher is doing (or not doing) to promote your book.

Expect Success!

I get so much mail and see so many internet sites based on how to self publish. I would very much like to see a thorough comparison of what the benefits and drawbacks are between self publishing and having your book published by a traditional publisher with a track record.

Can you say more about this?

Thank you.

Joanna Poppink, MFT
Los Angeles psychotherapist
author: Healing Your Hungry Heart, 08/11 Conari Press

You’re welcome, and good luck! I look forward to checking out your ebooks when you have them published. {martial arts bow}
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Amanda,

I would strongly urge you NOT to self-publish your fiction. Or, at minimum, to get some industry “stamps of approval” for your fiction writing BEFORE self-publishing any fiction.

The reason is because self-publishing fiction tends to block future opportunities for your fiction to be traditionally published. I figure that I can only get away with self-publishing fiction AFTER I’ve already gotten some industry “stamps of approval” with my fiction. Such as:

(1) Landing an agent, and having at least one of my fiction works published by a traditional publisher; and/or

(2) Winning at least one fiction-writing contest; and/or

(3) Selling a screenplay to a major studio.

Also note that when I speak of “self-publishing” my future fiction, I’m talking about doing so in the context of:

(1) Having an actual publishing company

(2) That is already making money with other, nonfiction, “how to” books.

To repeat: My recommendation for 99.99% of the people who are thinking about self-publishing their fiction is DON’T DO IT!

I say this because most folks have not thought through the stigma issue and decided how they’re going to deal with it; they have not established a pre-existing fan/supporter network that is primed to buy their book and urge others to buy their book; and they don’t have a business model of how they’re going to sell their book. This is a recipe for disappointment and failure.

Peace, blessings and solidarity.

You ain’t never lied about that. I’m thinking of writing a story (I have been working on forever as a novel instead of a screenplay). I also am looking into writing a romance novel and self-publishing that as well. The thing that has turned me off are the book covers. People who say don’t judge a book by it’s cover (literally) forget that many of the books they have picked up are because the cover caught their eye.

I’ve been researching book cover designs for my scifi/fantasy idea as well as romance book covers. What I want to know for romance is how does one hold a photo shoot. Because I cannot stand bw-ir,bw-bm romance novels where the characters don’t even resemble the description of the people in the book.

Like you I’m wondering if self-publishing fiction is viable. My reason especially for the romance especially bw-ir is it seems I have control over things like the covers. From what I’ve learned for other writers is that even when the company specifically asked what they wanted the book covers to look like the company went and did their own thing anyway.