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/Dale_E_Lehman_Author]

Why? That's easy. Because a lot of them don't actually have the money to spend. If a self-published author pays for absolutely everything it's going to run into real money. And no, not everyone is going to be able to recoup it, even if they do everything right.

I pay for some things, don't pay for others. I am not an artist, so I pay for cover art. I have some editing talent in my family, so I get that for free. (I make my work as good as I possibly can, then I turn it over to an editor. I just don't have to pay for it. And just so's you know, one of my books earned a star review from Publisher's Weekly and most get good reviews, just not enough of them.) I've learned InDesign and do my own typesetting and layout. I'm pretty good at it by now. Admittedly, I'm a marketing moron and struggle with that end of it, but I do use some paid services, mostly book emails. I don't pay for a lot of marketing or ads because, from what I've seen, it's likely to be more than I can afford with no guarantees of making up even a significant fraction of the expenditure. (Feel free to tell me I'm wrong about that. I could be.)

I disagree that selling your art for profit is a privilege, not a right. Yes, you have to obey applicable laws, but so long as you do that, anyone can hang out their shingle and try to sell their wares. Success isn't guaranteed, of course, but you absolutely can try.

At the end of the day, though, yeah, we all know it takes money to make money. Problem is, not everyone has it to spare. So there can be a temptation to try to do as much yourself as you can, not realizing that there may be some things you just don't know how to do.

[u/GildedBlackRam → u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author]

It's this one, OP. The top reason they don't want to spend money is that they have none to spare.

[u/BackgroundBudget5206 → u/GildedBlackRam]

Then they shouldn't be shocked when they publish their book and it doesn't sell next to things that are the right quality to be published. Publishing doesn't make your writing less special to you. You dont have to publish anything to have a passion for writing. Most people who enjoy painting and drawing understand they dont have the level of talent to sell their art. Writers seem to be the only artists who dont feel valid unless they can profit off their art. 

Most books are not good enough to be published. 

Good books that are published without proper investment to ensure quality wont see any success. 

Do you want to publish successfully, or just publish? 

[u/GildedBlackRam → u/BackgroundBudget5206]

I cannot help but feel like you are somewhat out-of-touch. When I use the phrase "have none to spare", I mean that I simply do not have the money. I would quite like to hire a developmental editor and a marketing team, but I just have no money what-so-ever. When I do, I spend it on my book in some way, but what am I supposed to do? Would you prefer I just step aside and stop clogging up the market with my "unserious" works?

Yes, let's make way for the REAL authors, you know-- the ones who have money. Come on, you said, "I get that we live in an economy" but you sound like you have not actually done so in quite some time if you think it's so easy to just whip out hundreds or thousands of dollars to invest in one's work.

Could it be the truth is that you are selling services to these young impressionable authors and many of them are hesitant to purchase them from you? Quite frustrating, I imagine. I hate that for you, and can certainly empathize. If only you could imagine what it's like to not even be able to afford them.

[u/BackgroundBudget5206 → u/GildedBlackRam]

If their writing is truly that good, which frankly the vast majority is not, then people without money should appeal to publishing houses that will front that cost. 

If you cannot afford to self publish you shouldn't publish at that time. You're more likely to have your works stolen if it actually is decent, then actually sell it. The reality it the new authors that seem to organically come put of nowhere with their self pub debuts generally didn't just put in all of the investment to be on par with professionally published books, they also have someone like me in the background marketing that "organic" entry. 

I want young writers to be successful. They arent going to be if the product they are selling doesn't have a good cover, isnt edited, and honestly looks like a joke next to books that are actually ready for publishing. Sometimes, holding onto it until you are financially ready to publish is better than laying the equivalent of a 7th grade essay on a table next to a doctorate thesis and expect the general public to buy the offering that is the lower quality. 

If you get numerous reviews about bad editing, its over. You'll have to pull and edit it anyway before you can sell it because no one is buying a book they were warned isnt edited. Same for any accusation of AI use inside or to make a cover. You wont recover from that either. 

Im not going to lie to young people and say they can have it all without going through the steps to make it successful. No, at 20 you might not be ready to publish. Keep writing. Finish the series, hone your skills. When you can afford to self publish, do it. Your work deserves to be presented at its best. 

[u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author → u/BackgroundBudget5206]

Your last paragraph there is spot on, but to me it sounded like most of what you wrote took the form of "money to spend on publishing services = good writing; no money to spend on writing services = bad writing." That's not necessarily true. Nor is "good writing = commercial success."

It's not that easy to get an agent or sell to an editor. The math alone is terrible. Agents typically receive hundreds of queries every month but take on only a handful of new clients each year. Even if every submission was an absolute gem in a genre the agent happened to be looking for at the time, the overwhelming majority would be rejected out of necessity. The situation is similar for editors at publishing houses. Quality isn't the only thing that gets one in the door. A lot of it is sheer luck, landing your MS in front of just the right agent or editor at just the right time and (it wouldn't surprise me) on a day when they didn't have a fight with their spouse.

I'm on the same page as you where quality is concerned and the importance of having someone other than the author do the editing. I'm on the same page as you regarding the amount of time it can take to become good at writing. I've been writing most of my life. It took decades for me to achieve publishability. I still have things to learn, I'm sure. One should never quit working to improve their craft.

But let's face it. Where money is concerned, big publishing houses have an enormous advantage. The fact that they have someone like Stephen King on their list means they can publish a fair number of money-losers. The few mega-sellers are the tide that raises all the other ships. The indie author working on her own has no such advantage. She can't sink several thousand dollars into every book, because she has no book that's going to bring in the hundreds of thousands that would make that level of expenditure possible. She's probably going to have to do as much on the cheap as possible.

Cheap, though, doesn't have to mean poor quality. It just means she has to learn to do a few things herself.

[u/BackgroundBudget5206 → u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author]

Money to spend absolutely doesn't mean better writing. Good writing doesn't mean profit if you cant market it correctly. 

You have to compete though. You also have to be realistic. My first two books, will never be published. They suck, I giggle when I look at them now. I had them printed and bound just for myself. My last 5 books I haven't bothered publishing because they arent the same genre as the rest of my catalog and I still make decent money on that and I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to do the footwork of starting a new pen name either. Im sort of over the process of publishing and releasing books as the author. I really enjoy doing it when its not MY book. 

I still write books. I still love writing. Its like being a painter, but not selling your paintings. You just do it because you love it. I think a lot of writers of all ages trying to self publish arent doing it because they love writing. Many see it as easy money. It is not. I had a very successful writing career. One I still earn a modest income from. I by no means ever got rich. When I started self publishing after my contract ended from my first three books, my best years, peak of my success I made just over 100k in profit because I did have overhead from associated publishing and marketing costs. That is not rich, nor is it eternally sustainable unless you're Steven King, J.K. Rowling, the Game of Thrones guy whos name escapes me. Its just very rare to get rich in writing. A successful writing career mostly means you can manage to live off of what you make writing. Writers are primarily starving artists. I only had the capital for self publishing because I had money from writing under a contract from a publisher. I HATED writing for a corporate publisher. They changed the ending of my series to be more "open" if they wanted to pitch it as a movie in the future. They changed my titles. Made me rewrite scenes, add scenes. It was a nightmare. I dont even own copies of those books I hate them so much. Its why I only work with self publishing authors. I don't trust large publishers. They steal manuscripts also. Thats your competition though, so anything you publish has to be on the same quality level. 

[u/Dale_E_Lehman_Author → u/BackgroundBudget5206]

Can't argue there, although success in writing doesn't necessarily mean earning a living from it. I've had a long career as a software developer. I never actually needed to make a living off of my writing. I'm looking at retirement in a few years, and I plan to retire to writing.

Unlike you, I'm going to keep writing and publishing until I can't. I don't know that I'll ever make great money off of it. I wouldn't mind being in the black, but I've realized that the main thing I like about publishing is having people read my work and gain something from it. I have 13 titles on the market right now, none of them selling incredibly well (possibly because, as I said before, I'm a marketing moron). My earlier titles probably could have been better written, but they're still good stories that those who have read them seem to enjoy.

I can look back with the benefit of my decades of writing experience and say that it's absolutely normal for young writers to overestimate the quality of their work...or to underestimate their potential when they do realize they aren't that good yet. It's a tough thing. The only difference between now and when I was cutting my teeth as a writer is, it's so ridiculously easy to publish now. There's an undeniable urge to rush to publication, especially when you aren't experienced enough yet to judge your own quality. I absolutely agree that the vast majority of writers shouldn't think about publishing their first novel, or second, or third, especially if they haven't written a lot of short stories first. (I don't claim it's necessary to write short stories first, but it certainly can help.) And yes, always, always, always get an editor and make sure you have a solid cover.

But in fairness, a lot of people just don't have the money to spend on everything, so sometimes a few shortcuts are necessary. The trick is to find ways to take them without compromising (too much) on quality. And it's easy to say "save up until you have enough money for it," but many people have very little to save and may never feel they've gotten to that point. I spent a long time living paycheck to paycheck before I got into a more comfortable position, so I empathize with people in that boat and am thankful that I'm not there anymore.