No matter how things change, they still stay the same

by Rick Blechta

I was on Amazon the other day, looking for something I needed for a modelling project and somehow got into the book section. In a guilty hour of poking around there, I came to a surprising conclusion: book publishing is in a very healthy state.

My response to this was, Huh? How can this be? Your response might well be the same.

I must tell you at the outset that my conclusion is definitely not scientific. It’s simply based on the number of new books that come out every day. Thing is, the majority of them are self-published. There are hundreds and hundreds in every genre you can think of — and some you probably haven’t.

Amazon and other platforms have made it quick, easy and very, very cheap to self-publish any sort of book. One still has to do the hardest part, writing it, but after that the rest is easy. And unlike traditional publishing, an author can finish a book one day and have it released to the world the next, assuming that you’re only doing it electronically.

The big question is: are any of these books worth reading?

Since a listing can allow the casual browser looking for something to electronically crack open a book and skim a few pages to see if it’s worth purchasing, it’s pretty easy to see that many of these books are really very badly written and not worth considering. However, I did find several that seemed to be really quite excellent, based on the prose.

And this is where the title of this post comes in. No matter if your work is published by one of the large publishers or something produced start to finish on your kitchen table, the trick is making yourself known to the general public — assuming you’re not someone really FAMOUS. They definitely have an easier time of it.

Most authors are not given much meaningful promotional help by their publishers. Traditionally publishers expect authors to do more and more of the work. Believe me when I say that it’s no more difficult to get review copies, most of which are electronic these days, into the hands of people who will review them whether you did it yourself or your publisher sent it out. The vast majority of these reviewers aren’t professional anymore either. Many papers have cut their reviewers loose in order to save money. There seems to be no lack of people who are prepared to read a free book and then review it. Will an author get a fair shake? That's where you have to gamble.

The issue is getting your work noticed by the reading public. There is still a huge stigma involved with self-published books, and there is no shortage of bad examples to which one can point fingers. Since these works are more miss than hit, many people are naturally reluctant to plop down their hard-earned money on what could be something terrible.

So, for the vast majority of authors, the real struggle is still how to find your audience. Unless a massive publicity campaign is at your disposal, the sad truth is the author, you, are going to be responsible for the promotional heavy lifting regardless of who publishes your book. You will have to find a way to get your book read.

And that’s the real trick, isn’t it?