Could Self-Publishing Leave Me Bankrupt?!
By Arianna
@Borlotti (268)
United States
December 16, 2020 4:15am CST
So, I'm writing a book -- or I'm soon to start writing my book, at the moment it's just a lot of notes! -- and I've been exploring which route to take when the time comes: whether to go for an agent and a traditional deal or self-publish, like on Kindle or something.
I like to get as much information as I can and look at all perspectives and experiences before I make a decision. I'm really slow at making decisions, but when I do, I feel like I've made the right one and I stick to it.
So, I've been asking questions on here and elsewhere and I've been reading a lot of blogs and articles and stuff. Now, obviously, there's a mixed bag of ideas out there! But this blog I just read -- and it seems kinda convincing reading it -- suggests that if you self-publish it will cost thousands of dollars and you could get bankrupt. That's scary. It's here https://writingcooperative.com/thinking-of-self-publishing-your-book-dbcd29eb3085 but the summary is:
1. If you get an agent then you're covered legally
2. With an agent you get support and a contract
3. With a traditional deal, the publisher pays you even if your book doesn't sell
4. With self-publishing, you're on your own and could get ripped off
5. You need to pay a lot of money for editing and publishing services
6. Most books don't sell and you could get into bad debt
I'm now confused! I can see the points in this blog but I also know that people DO get successful self-publishing. I'd love to hear from anyone on here who actually makes a living out of it, however humble. Or is it true that most people lose money this way? 
4 people like this
5 responses
@just4him (317277)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
16 Dec 20
The best way not to go belly up in publishing is to go with KDP. It's free. You're not paying anyone anything. However, that said, you do your own editing unless you find an editor who will work with you. Then you will pay out for it. Many people will tell you to find an editor. I will tell you to find a couple of really good books that will teach you editing. I highly recommend The Artful Edit by Susan Bell. I also recommend getting your resource library built up. What do you want to write about? Resource it. You can look everything up on the Internet, but it's also handy to have those resources at your fingertips. Especially when you can't find those elusive facts. I'm so glad I have my resource books. They're invaluable.
Every book needs research. If you have a good resource library, you will do well. And you won't go belly up paying through the nose for those self-publish sites that want thousands of dollars from you to publish your book.
Self-publishing also means you will do your own marketing. If you're good at marketing, you should do well with selling your books. I use word of mouth. I don't know much about marketing. You can also pay someone to market your book. Again, you're paying out.
If you learn the basics on your own, you won't go belly up, and you could do well with your book.
KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing. It's an Amazon company. You will get your books in both softcover and Kindle.
There are some pros to publishing with a traditional publisher, but they are getting really picky and asking authors to self-publish first. That's what they told me. They want to see a following before they pick up an author. I don't know if I'll ever try for a traditional publisher again. I love self-publishing. And you're in control of your work, not someone else.
2 people like this
@just4him (317277)
• Green Bay, Wisconsin
18 Dec 20
@Borlotti Okay, my head just swelled to three times its size. Thank you. I'm not successful yet, though I am getting good reviews on my books.
There's a lot to learn, but if you never start, you'll never finish. When I wrote my first book, I wrote it by hand, not by computer or typewriter, which is what I had back then. I wrote it and then went to the library to do the research. It was a little backward, but it worked. That's where editing and revision come in. You won't have a winning novel on the first draft. I can't tell you how many times I revised Scarred before I was happy with it, and still, there were problems. Scarred has been published three times. There were way too many typos in the first edition. I took care of them for the second edition when I had an editor team help me with it. They weren't dependable, so I fired them. It meant I needed to put Scarred out a third time.
The book cover I have for Thread of Evidence is a picture I found on Pixabay which is a free service. I also found a conversion site so I could convert those pictures to 300 DPI which is what you need for the cover.
My son is doing the cover for the sequel. He's a fantastic artist. The picture for Scarred I took with my camera phone. Someone photoshopped the picture because it needed to be authentic to the era. We had a tall ship festival here and I went crazy taking pictures and going through the ships to see what they looked like for space and such. Hands-on research is awesome if you can do it. My book Legacy is also a picture from Pixabay. The others are generic pictures offered by CreateSpace which merged with KDP. I want to publish those books again with better pictures.
Good luck with writing your first novel.
1 person likes this
@Borlotti (268)
• United States
17 Dec 20
Hi Valerie! Your comments, can I just say, are the stuff of legend. I know you must be very busy with your own writing and to take so much time to share your experience, knowledge, and expertise with someone just starting out – – not even starting out, just thinking about starting out! – – is way beyond the call of duty. I'm so grateful to you. You are a total star.
There's a lot of stuff to take in there, so I'm going to copy this comment and put it in a note on my computer, if that's okay, so I can come back and read through it again. From your other comment that you made on my other post about writing, I realize now that I'm probably not ready to start writing the book because I need to do research first and because it's gonna be a Regency romance I'll need to get some history books. The library is gonna get sick of me!
Thanks also for explaining how if you learn to edit and do all that yourself then you can publish your book completely free using KDP. It's cool to know that someone like you is being successful with that. Really encouraging!
Do you make your own book covers, too? And if so, is there like an app or something for doing that, or do you do it in a program like Photoshop? Because that's another big learning curve to climb, I guess, if I go the self-publishing route.
Thanks again, Valerie, you are amazing!
@Marisawriter (62)
• Australia
20 Dec 20
One important thing to be aware of: if you're only going to publish one or two books, don't self-publish, even on KDP, because your book will likely sink without trace and make no sales at all. It is much, much harder to gain a following these days on Amazon than it was just a few short years ago.
All the self-publishing gurus will tell you that you need at least 3 books before you'll start making any money. And even then, you need to publish them in fairly quick succession. Some will even advise you to wait until you've got all three books written before you publish the first one.
You also need to learn how to promote your books and get reviews before you publish the first book. If you publish the first book and then try to work out how to promote it, it will be too late by the time you get going.
These two sites are the most sensible advice I've found:
https://theselfpublisher.com/
https://www.thecreativepenn.com/how-to-self-publish-an-ebook/
1 person likes this
@Marisawriter (62)
• Australia
21 Dec 20
@Borlotti - you don't necessarily need money. You need to be a prolific writer with confidence you can publish a book every six months or so. You need to network, network, network so you have a good group of people who will read and review your book for you. You do need a lot of time because you need to study up on those links I gave you, do lots of research, then put a lot of work into not just writing your book, but polishing it, and then marketing it.
I don't agree with Valerie that you can learn to edit your own work - you can edit a bit, but we are all blind to our own mistakes, so if you rely on your own editing, you're unlikely to end up with a good product. If you can't afford an editor (which many can't) then a good first step is to run your chapters through the submission queues at . It really opens your eyes to your mistakes
Critique Circle is a free online collaborative writing workshop for all genres with an extensive array of features. Improve your writing and meet other writers - Sign-up today!
@Borlotti (268)
• United States
20 Dec 20
Hi Marisa! Thank you so much for that information. That's really helpful. It sounds like unless you have a lot of time and money and knowledge about marketing and stuff, it's probably better to look for an agent to get a traditional deal. Do you think that's right?
@KityCat (7735)
• India
18 Dec 20
I haven't released a book or written one, but I can say is that you can get to a wide variety of audience by Self publishing it via Amazon Kindle. They have the option for you to publish it for both ebook and has well has a paperback. They have two plans. I either you can sell your book or put it in Kindle direct program, which I will not recomend because people with kindle direct subscription will read it, which is good butt they will only pay you pennies per pages read by someone. So you should stick to selling it. I do no not have much knowlege of traditional publishing.
I would say you choose the way you fell comfortable with
1 person likes this
@Borlotti (268)
• United States
18 Dec 20
Hi, and thank you so much for your contribution. That's great! I still haven't quite made up my mind yet, but I think I will probably have to write the book first before I decide which way to go with it. Although a lot of people on here seem to think that self-publishing on Kindle is the best way to go -- and may even lead to getting an agent and a publishing deal in the long term as well, so that's interesting. I always take ages to make up my mind! Thank you so much for sharing.
1 person likes this
