why i'm self-publishing my next book

tl;dr i haven’t seen enough benefits from traditional publishing

hi friend,

if you follow me on instagram, you’ve probably heard a lot of this, but since i suspect most of you read this letter because you follow me on instagram, i’m going to try to add some new angles.

for those of you who’ve never seen my instagram stories, i’ve been sharing my experience with traditional publishing over the last few months. i self-published my first two books (and a half if you count you’ll come back to yourself journal) but got picked up by a publisher for my last book (please love me at my worst) after selling a lot of books via tiktok.

tl;dr i’m self-publishing poems for the signs because i haven’t seen enough benefits from traditional publishing.

warning: a lot of this comes off as salty and i’ve decided i’m okay with that. if you want a balanced opinion where i talk about how grateful i am that my dreams of being traditionally published came true… this ain’t it.

to get more deeply into it:

before i had a traditional publisher, i definitely glamorized the publishing industry–i thought that publishers chose books based on literary prowess. but the only reason i was able to get a publishing deal is because i was selling a lot of self-published books. particularly in the poetry space, 90% of traditionally published poets i know became traditionally published because they proved they could sell books.

second of all, i didn’t enjoy the process of working with a publisher. i thought i would feel connected to my editors and the publishing house, that we would get to know each other. i’m a touchy feely gal and i had unrealistic expectations from books and movies that the team i was working with would care about me. but our entire correspondence of editing the book was through email until we had one zoom call about marketing one month before the book was released. i felt like the team didn’t know me at all, and that it wasn’t their job to get to know me.

additionally, my traditionally published book is like… 95% the exact same book i would’ve self-published. i designed the cover and did all the illustrations, and they weren’t changed at all. the only thing the publisher really added was editors, but my book was still released with multiple typos. when i tell people i’m self-publishing, they’ve said, “oh that’s great, you get to control everything.” and ya, that’s true, but i was definitely hoping that the publisher would add something to the book other than typos if they’re taking 85% of the revenue.

third of all, i was sold the promise that traditional publishing would get me more exposure. i thought having books in stores would get my name out there more. surprise, surprise, even though i have a traditional publisher, i only sell books through my own marketing efforts (mainly tiktok). if you take a critical look at most publishers’ social media accounts (specifically ones who sell poetry), you’ll see that their main purpose is to make the publisher look good.

i thought that publishers had more of a say in what stores buy books and where they’re placed, but it turns out, nowadays, it’s completely up to stores. i asked about selling strategy or buying placements in stores (which to me, was a big appeal of having a publisher), and i was told that it wasn’t a thing anymore–stores purchase books based on demand and they place them wherever they want. where was that demand coming from? through the same channel that got my self-published books in stores–my own tiktok account.

all that said, when i self-publish, i get 60% royalties. that means i get 60% of the sale price minus printing costs. with a publisher, i only get around 15% royalties. it works out to making around $7 per book sold for my self-published books and around $2 for my traditionally published book. i would be okay with this if the publisher was actually increasing my ability to sell books… but they aren’t. they’re just taking a bigger cut so i get to “feel like a legit author”? not for me.

not only do i get a smaller cut, the purchasing process for traditional publishing is different than self-publishing. with self-publishing, amazon is able to print books whenever they’re ordered. that means that if i have a tiktok go viral, they can quickly print books to meet the demand.

with traditional publishing, stores place an order with the publisher around once a month based on what they think demand for the book will be. when i’ve had tiktoks go viral with my traditionally published book, it’s sold out multiple times. this has never happened with my self-published books (not because they haven’t sold as much, but because amazon doesn’t ever say a book is ‘sold out’, they just print more).

selling out when your book is doing well sucks. if you’re a person who buys stuff you see on social media, you know that most people aren’t going to remember to check for a book to be back in stock. with this archaic purchasing process for traditionally published books, i definitely miss out on sales.

not only do book stores only place an order once a month, they often overestimate how many books they can sell. this makes the publisher require that you have a “reserve for returns”. it’s anywhere from 20-30% of your royalties that sit with the publisher in case books are returned for the first sixteen months your book is out. i currently have $10,000 USD in my reserve for returns that i won’t get until the beginning of next year. do i sound mad about it? i’m mad about it.

to me, this is just a way for publishers to have more cashflow. in my opinion, they should be able to predict returns after a few months. i can see how many units of my traditionally published book are returned on my royalty statement, and it’s basically the same every month. so there’s no reason for them to be keeping this reserve for that long.

with self-publishing, there is no reserve for returns. i’ve never seen negative effects from returns through KDP (which is amazon’s self-publishing service), but i have heard of some people who sell a pretty low quantity of books going into the red a few dollars. i don’t think amazon makes you pay it back though, you just wait till you sell more books to get out of the red. either way, when i self-publish poems for the signs, no one is going to be keeping $10k away from me for sixteen months 😂

last thing–if i traditionally published poems for the signs, i would have to wait at least a year for it to be published. traditional publishers have their own timelines based on what books they’ve purchased. they don’t have the bandwidth to release a ton of books at once, so they space them out. with self-publishing, i essentially get to publish my book as soon as its ready (july 18-mark your cal).

after complaining about this on instagram, i’ve been asked if there are any benefits to traditional publishing. and i’m not going to say there are absolutely none, but i’m definitely not the person to ask that question 😂 if you believe that as a creative, if you do most of the work, you should reap most of the reward… i don’t see why you would traditionally publish.

sorry if this was a little bit seething. i am grateful to have learned these lessons and to be able to share them so that less people get taken advantage of in the future.

if you read all this i love you,

xoxo
m