Book Self-Publishing: Why Writers Are Their Own Worst Enemies
The
typical visual artist I know is the harshest critic of his or her own
work. They will often refuse to show anyone until they think that they
have achieved 'perfection'.
Such an
artist will often literally destroy his or her own work and start from
scratch again even though professional artists looking at his or her
work might have thought their pieces were fabulous.
This
is not a characteristic that I have observed with writers who have
pursued self-publishing and that's why so many fail on achieving the
success that they had envisioned.
Writers who
go the typical trade publishing route know that it is very difficult to
get published by the elites of the trade publishing world and will go
that extra mile to perfect their manuscript.
However,
typical writers who I have met who self-publish don't seem to be very
concerned about the actual quality of the product he or she has
produced.
They also fail to value all of what goes into producing a professional book product after they have completed writing their manuscript.
Now
with the access to all this "technology" which has made the ability to
self-produce a book much easier, the typical writer boils down the
production of a book simply to the slapping on of covers which they can
now easily achieve through such services as CreateSpace.
And,
after CreateSpace gets their money, why should they care about the
quality of the products that their services are producing - especially
when the writer is so much in love with themselves for having produced
"a book"?
When reality sets in and the
writer ends up not selling as much as they like, they boil everything
down to a "marketing issue", i.e. "if only I had better marketing, I
would sell tons of books."
I hate to tell you but, "Wrong!"
When
you begin to try to tell such writers about all the problems about
their book they usually get either immediately dismissive or angry.
"They
[whoever "they" are] just don't like me because they know I'm
self-published" among other rationales that self-published writers
resort to.
When a corporate trade publisher
produces a book, there are a lot of quality control mechanisms which
ensure a professionally designed book.
Writers
who seek to market a book which has not been professionally edited and
designed to corporate trade standards are often wasting their money.
David
Carnoy estimates that a whopping 98% of self-published writers produce
really crappy books. These books are basically like designing a car
which resembles a huge shoe box with car wheels and a steering wheel
with a motorcycle engine and calling it a "car".
One
of the biggest failings of self-publishing writers are horrific
typesetting and amateur layout / design. The need for better editing is
also a failing among writers. Another big failing is a terrible book
cover which from the get-go makes the book look like an amateur job.
I
have met tons of writers who thought that his or her book cover was
200% perfect, when it was in my view a total garbage job which would
guarantee poor sales and no media interest.
A
wise writer should always get a professional opinion from a
professional book publishing agency like AgoraPublishing.com if a writer
aspires to making tons of sales.
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