I Don't Believe I'm an Outlier

I really need to break myself of the habit of surfing Reddit every day. There really is no point to doing it; it's just a bad habit.

I was thinking tonight as I halfheartedly read the self-publishing posts that if an OP asks a question, my mental answer is always the exact opposite of everyone else's. Example: "Do Meta ads work for you?" I shake my head vigorously, then read, "I've sold thousands of books using Meta ads." Worse, a bunch of people chime in to agree. It's enough to make authors like me question our competence, not to mention our sanity. 

But then I got to thinking. Didn't I read that the majority of self-published books fail to sell more than a few copies? 

"Even among these highly committed business-focused authors, 23% to 24% reported earning between $0 and $1,000 total."

"Up to 90% of self-published books sell fewer than 100 copies in their lifetime."  

"Fewer than 1% of self-published books sell more than 500 copies." 

I'm not posting these statements to discourage you, but to let you know that you're a member of an enormous club.

Authors are an insecure lot. All artists are. You're being judged on your creation, not on the number of timeshares you can sell (no offense, I guess, to timeshare salesmen). I'm not mercenary enough to disassociate my work from me. My work is me, or at least a part of me. Authors who view publishing simply as a commodity are not writing good books. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

There are a lot of reasons why a book doesn't sell, and most of them are outside our control.

• A glut of books, including AI-written books, populate Amazon's shelves. One lonely book can be swallowed up.
• If an author doesn't have a boatload of money to spend on advertising, no one will know his or her book exists.
• Traditional publishers pay to have their books prominently featured. Those books are crowding yours out.
• Algorithms favor traditionally published books. Advance marketing ensures both sales and reviews, which is what algorithms are all about.

What's within our control?

• An existing market for what we're selling.
• Getting advance reviews, which is a heavy lift, but still technically within our control.
• Having a good, genre-conforming cover. 
• Writing an intriguing blurb. 
• Talk, talk, talking about our book--to anyone and everyone.

"Experts" will tell you that you have to write a good story. Technically, yes. Except no one knows if the story is good or bad until they read it. A compelling blurb might convince someone to buy, only to find out the writing is awful and the story is as dull as dishwater. Yes, bad reviews will sink the algorithm, but if you make no sales, the algorithm sinks anyway. You need to convince people to buy, then proceed from there. (Hopefully, your book is well written.)

I'm aware that a certain percentage of self-published books are vanity projects or are meant for a very small reader base. Grandpa might publish the story of his life for all his grandkids to read. (I like that, by the way.) So, that group of authors doesn't care about marketing and doesn't bother with it.

But most of us want to be read. The hard part is not beating ourselves up if we're not read. It's not us; it's them.  

And here's a really big factor that's outside our control:

Daily Reading for Pleasure Is in "Free Fall"

• A major long-term analysis of the American Time Use Survey (tracking over 236,000 participants) found that the percentage of Americans who read for pleasure on any given day dropped by over 40% between 2004 and 2023. 
• In 2004, roughly 28% of Americans read for pleasure on an average day. By 2023, that number plummeted to just 16%.

I'm not one to talk. I rarely read books anymore. I'm online a lot, so yes, I'm reading; just not books. In this online age, we've developed a short attention span. That's also why Kindle Unlimited has caught on. If a KU subscriber chooses a book and he/she's not hooked by the first couple of pages, out it goes. On to the next one.

If this blog accomplishes anything, hopefully it offers a realistic view of the self-publishing industry. I won't blow smoke. I refuse to do it. If anyone had given me the straight scoop before I published...well, I still would have done it (we're dreamers, after all), but I wouldn't have been so hard on myself when I failed.