This is what I’ve learned and earned from self-publishing
Published in · 6 min read · Nov 9, 2022
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If Moses were to come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments today, he’d get so pissed off trying to find a publisher they’d end up as a listicle on Medium.
We would all like to write that bestselling book, wouldn’t we?
The acclaim, the fame, the money.
So what are your chances?
The literary world was stunned by the revelation that out of 58k titles published every year, half of those sell fewer than twelve books.
Author April Henry Tweeted her response, which was seen by tens of thousands of people.
It’s beyond belief. Imagine getting traditionally published and seeing it languish on the shelf. Your only sales were the ones you bought your family — and even they aren’t reading it (personal experience).
It’s a depressing thought for writers.
A lawyer from the US Department of Justice made the claims during the antitrust trial involving the largest publisher in the world, Penguin Random House, which wants to buy the third largest, Simon & Schuster.
It appears he pulled the figures from a hat. Another example of fiction posing as facts. Manufactured misinformation to suit the message.
In his podcast, More or Less, economist Tim Harford got to the truth — but it isn’t exactly inspiring.
His researcher looked at the top ten publishers. There were 42,000 unique titles published in the last year. Of those, 15% had sold less than 12 copies — not 50%.
That’s still 6,300 traditionally published authors staring at their books on a shelf and wondering if all their time and effort would have been better spent growing turnips.
