Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Post Troubles And More On Self-Publishing

My computer won't let me sign on, but for some reason my iPad will. So what does that mean? This is going to be a short post. I had a friend pass along an article from the Wall Street Journal (from Dec. 9) about self publishing. It was about an author named Darcie Chan who wrote a manuscript a number of years ago. She submitted it to over 100 agents before finding one that would represent her. Then none of the major publishing companies would pick it up. After shelving it for years she finally decided to go the self publishing route and published it earlier this year through Amazon's Kindle self-publishing program, selling her books for 99 cents (Chan makes about 35 cents per book).

She did some research and purchased some ads and reviews, and after some fortunate mentions on websites, etc. she has now sold over 4000,000 copies. Her book has been on the NY Times best selling list, yet astoundingly, she still can't find a publisher. She's had six film studios request the rights to her book, along with audio-book publishers and foreign publishers. She hasnt accepted any offers because she's afraid it will make it more difficult to get a publishing deal here in the US. But the traditional publishers are still hesitant to take her book on because they now fear it's "run it's course" and won't be successful for them. Any offers she's received have been worse than the money she makes on her own. So frustrating!!!

It's an interesting article. It reminds us that we need to be informed when it comes to self-publishing or traditional publishing. We need to know what our ultimate goals are, and what roads we need to take to get there. And we have to be prepared if those roads lead us somewhere we didn't expect.