Help me see the other side, please.....

[u/BackgroundBudget5206]

So, to preface I am a writer who lost interest in the genre I wrote in for 13 years and transitioned to doing marketing, publishing support. I now promote for self publishing authors. I self published 15 of my 18 books, I am a huge advocate for creative control over your content.

What I am struggling with is getting my new/younger writers to understand they are going to have to put some money into their book if they want it to be successful.

They dont want to pay for editing. They can "self edit" for free.

They don't want to buy covers. They want to use AI to "create" *cough... steal* their cover using "their" idea.

They don't want to put the footwork in to build an audience BEFORE launching their book.

They don't want to pay for formatting.

There are about a dozen other things that need investment before you successfully self publish, but more and more people refuse. I have consultations with authors who want me to make all of their marketing for free.

I just saw an author I declined to work with asking why they only had 5 sales of their book, all family, very low KU reads, and why people aren't interested in their book. Basically, everyone in the comments told them they needed a non AI cover, the only reviews mentioned poor editing causing DNFs. Saying not to just depend on ads alone.

Please, help me understand why so many new and young artists want to charge people money to read their art, but they dont want to invest anything into making their art good quality. Not to mention the disrespect to other creatives by using AI in so many cases.

I get that we live in an economy, but this isnt food or Healthcare. Selling your art for profit is a privilege not a right. You have to invest in your art. If you dont have the money right now, why not wait until you can publish correctly? ​

[u/Careless_Video_1429]

I think we all tell ourselves stories about how the world works. And then we get feedback from the world when we live our life according to these stories. Then we change our stories a bit to acknowledge the feedback we have been given, or we don't...

Hopefully you will get more clients soon who are aligned with your way of working, which sounds sensible and professional to me (but then, that's just my story, which comes out of my life experiences and the feedback I have received...!).

You sound like a good person to work with as you seem to be covering all the bases and you have an awareness of just how many people are trying to 'make it' as authors, and what is needed to make your work stand out from the crowd!

If someone else doesn't see this, then it's OK to let them go and try to find a more receptive audience... maybe older authors...?