8 myths about self-publishing

If you dig around on the internet long enough, you’ll probably encounter some of these myths about self-publishing. Much of the information out there on indie publishing is very good – and very useful – but there is a tendency to perpetuate myths sometimes.

I’ve been published by a major publishing house with my cat café romances, and I’ve self-published, so I thought it would be fun to do some posts about the myths of each route. First up, self-publishing!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosure here.

1. If you self-publish, you can’t get traditionally published

One of the most common self-publishing myths is that if you go down that path, traditional publishers won’t be interested in you anymore – especially if you aren’t a raging success with a huge audience. This simply isn’t true, and I’m proof of that!

I’ve self-published books, and although I’m happy with how some of them have done given the resources I had, I definitely didn’t sell tens of thousands of copies. I still signed a traditional publishing contract with Hodder, an imprint of Hachette, one of the Big 5… and yes, the books were all under the same name!

Unless your indie book is extremely popular and you have a massive readership, publishers don’t really care about what you’ve done before independently. They care about the book they’re considering from you now – how well written it is, whether it has the potential to sell, if they love it, and if they see a space for it on their list.

If you’re making a big shift in terms of genre, it might mean using a pen name just for that separation. But publishers aren’t going to blacklist you for having self-published something that just did okay (or even something that didn’t do well at all).

2. Self-publishing is easy

There definitely is a quick and easy way to self-publish if you want to throw your manuscript up and hope for the best, with no quality control or care for the result. A few clicks and you’re done. But to self-publish properly and to do it well is incredibly hard – and you have to treat it like a business, just like a publisher would.

Self-publishers have to compete with all the traditionally published books and the indie books that are already killing it in the market. The only way to do that is to put in the time and effort.

And since you’re on your own, this means learning the ropes with most things – and also outsourcing.

Laptop and two people working together on self-publishing a book

Your book will need to be edited. You need a blurb and marketing copy. You’ll need a cover design, and to format it for print and ebook. (Luckily there is software to help authors with this, such as Vellum for Mac, which is excellent.) You need ISBN numbers, a pricing strategy. You need to decide where to sell it, whether to enrol in Kindle Unlimited or sell your ebook widely. You need to research keywords and categories and comparison titles. If you want an audiobook, how will you do that? You need a marketing plan – sending out ARCs (advance reader copies), promotions, writing newsletters and doing newsletter swaps, Facebook ads, Amazon ads, giveaways, networking, social media.

There is so much involved with self-publishing and it’s definitely not easy. It can be quite exhausting no matter how prepared you are.

Self-publishing checklist for authors »

3. You’ll make LOTS more money with self-publishing

It is true that in self-publishing, the author has a higher royalty rate, because they aren’t beholden to a publisher or an agent. (Although retailers like Amazon do take a cut and there are printing charges.)

On Amazon, for instance, the royalty rate for an author can be 70% for an ebook and 40% for a paperback. This means that on a £3.99 ebook sale, an author would make £2.79, and on a £12.99 paperback, an author would make £3.94 after printing costs were also deducted.

(That’s just an example – bear in mind printing costs can be higher if your book is longer and this can impact royalties.)

Online, you’ll see a lot of authors getting excited about high royalties in self-publishing – why go trad when you can get such high royalties if you do it all yourself?

But not all authors can shift enough copies of their book to really benefit from these higher rates. Survivorship bias plays a part here. Most of the stories that blow up about indie authors are the success stories. The authors who have sold a lot of books, and made lots of money. We hear these stories all the time.

You’re less likely to hear about someone who self-published and didn’t recoup their investment, or only sold a small number of books. Why? Because it doesn’t make for exciting news.

It’s certainly possible to make money in self-publishing, and many authors do very well. But to say it’ll always make you more money than trad is untrue. Lots of authors buy into this myth and end up disappointed with their results, or shirk traditional publishing entirely, which is a shame.

Going in with reasonable expectations can help – don’t expect to make megabucks in indie publishing or in traditional. Instead, do your best with the resources you have.

4. Self-published books are lower quality

Now, there are self-published books out there that are low quality. Books that were rushed out before they were ready, and so on. But this doesn’t mean that all self-published books are lower in quality!

Authors who take their self-publishing seriously and put in the time and effort are usually the ones who end up with a high-quality product. It can be hard to think about our art as a product, but when we publish, that’s what it is. And readers will expect a quality book.

Two book stacks balanced on a stool in front of rows of bookshelves

5. You can do everything on your own

There are some wonderful authors out there who do a lot of things on their own in self-publishing, including designing their own covers that look amazing. I’m definitely not against DIY, especially if an author is on a budget, but authors need the skills to be able to do this well – or the ability to learn them in some way! If you go the DIY route, take your time over it to really make sure you can still put out a quality book.

Even if you’re mostly DIY, you won’t be able to do absolutely everything on your own! Nobody is skilled in everything. You might find it confusing to set up a book on Amazon and need someone to help you. Maybe you struggle with writing your marketing copy, or with formatting, and need to outsource it.

You’ll probably have beta readers and an editor. You’ll have early readers, helping to generate buzz. You might ask other authors questions about things you’re unsure of.

No self-published author does everything on their own.

6. If you self-publish, you just weren’t good enough to land a publisher

This is one of the biggest self-publishing myths out there! The idea that someone wasn’t “good enough” and that’s why they self-published bothers me. Quality books get rejected all the time in traditional publishing – for reasons that simply come down to money, timing, or bad luck.

And “good” is so subjective anyway! I can guarantee that if you look up your favourite book, someone else will think it was a badly written mess.

Of course, writers can sometimes send their work out into the world too early. When we’re very new, baby writers, we might not have honed our craft enough to publish yet. But implying that self-publishers just weren’t “good enough” and published as a last resort is quite an insult when many have spent a long time working on their writing.

Many indie authors choose to self-publish without even trying to get an agent or a publisher. And many others publish because they couldn’t get a foot in the door with traditional (as I did, before I landed my book deal). This doesn’t mean they weren’t good enough, though. It simply means traditional publishing didn’t want what they were offering.

A woman in a white shirt writing next to a cup of coffee

Self-publishing and traditional publishing: The pros and cons »

7. You’re guaranteed success if you work hard

In any type of creative pursuit, sadly, hard work doesn’t guarantee we will succeed. Since self-publishing requires so much independence and autonomy, it’s easy to assume that the amount of effort you put in will translate into sales, or reader numbers, or good reviews.

There are just too many variables at play, though. Success can depend on so many other factors outside of hard work: timing, luck, the current market and trends, if a big-name influencer picks up your book and reviews it (positively or negatively), your budget (yes, sadly this does play a role in indie publishing), your genre and age category, and so on.

This is why it’s so important to detangle this notion of success from hard work. Hard work does not guarantee your current book will succeed.

It can be truly sad to realise this. It’s so important to work hard because we love the craft, and stories, and bringing them to readers.

And if success is important to you, the only way to keep your hat in the ring is to keep writing more books – and have hope that one of them will be a success someday and that your hard work will pay off.

8. Your book is cut off from other opportunities

People often say that self-published books won’t be entitled to certain opportunities: they won’t get into bookshops or be translated into other languages, and their authors won’t be ale to attend signings or events to meet readers.

While it’s true that some events and bookshops don’t invite self-publishers, there are many others that do, especially as self-publishing is now becoming much more accepted.

I’ve seen self-published authors who have attended conventions to do signings, signed with foreign rights agents for their work, and had their books stocked by major retailers. A lot of this does usually depend on how well the book has done, and if it’s gained a big readership.

There are other opportunities, though, even for self-publishing authors who are just starting out! Local markets or festivals might be willing to let an author have a table. Some smaller indie bookshops in local areas may be willing to stock your book. If you’re a new indie author, thinking local is a good place to start.

Those are all the myths about self-publishing I could think of! Do you know of any other self-publishing myths? I’d love to hear them! My post on the myths of traditional publishing will be coming up next so watch this space.