Quite a few authors today are coming to the realization that the publishing world doesn't need them, or at least doesn't believe that it needs them. Publishing is set up so that people with connections are more likely to bring in money while people without connections are often required to pay money just to see light of day. So what's an author to do?

The large majority of authors with only one book under their belt have begun turning more and more to self-publishing or to independent presses. For a lot of them, self publishing is the obvious choice. It doesn't take six months to get past the screening process and you can get immediate returns. Is it worth it?

A quality self-pub author with only one book out can pull in between $100 and $300 a month. It may not seem like much, but it is paying that particular author's car payment.

A different self published author turned independently published author has a string of 8 books written and was, up to last year, entirely self-published. He recently was picked up by an indie press and has since found a revenue stream that is larger than he received as a tenured PhD at a college.

The second author only got picked up BECAUSE of his self-publishing. If it hadn’t been for his self-generated fan base, he wouldn’t have been attractive to this small press. But here’s the best part: the same small press is now actively pulling in self-published authors in the hopes of finding another gold mine. 

Successful authors are not always the ‘loudest’ authors when it comes to marketing. Some former journalists have been unable to fulfill their sales requirements to pay off their signing amount. It was not because they failed to have contacts. It was because they failed to write more than one book despite the success of their first self-published novel.

That particular author had the major contacts and the massive push on the novel they had written under a Big 6 contract. They had even pulled in their audience from their runaway hit from the self-publishing segment. But the new book with the publisher flopped. The problem? The publisher did not do the sort of grass-roots, word of mouth promotion that the author had run on the self-published book. Instead he got the average amount of promotion a publisher does on the average book. And it wasn't enough.

Getting a major publishing house to propagate your title just isn't enough these days. It’s about cross-promotion, doing what works, and knowing which share of the market to go after. And after all that, an indie press might be the way to go because they can get you in places that the publishing industry has locked down. Places like the industry’s Jacketcaster & eBook caster lists [and similar services] which are closed to non-publishers.

Ebooks are the must-have market. E-books are zero risk because there is zero outlay for a self publishing author. Paperbacks, while necessary, are simply not the major draw they used to be. Statistically speaking paperback book sales have plummeted by 64 percent compared to figures from last year. eBooks sales however, have pushed hard, seeing a sales increase of 161 percent.

Authors have been trained by the Publishing Industry to think success comes from putting a book on the book store shelf. Unfortunately, in today's world of failing brick and mortar stores [see Borders], such a dream is less likely to occur.

Another commone trope of the Publishing world is that self-pub isn’t Vanity Press but it's not a wise career move either. Lots of new authors are being told that to self-pub is an automatic rejection for a publishing contract because the Publishing Houses want to be the first launch. Self Published authors with experience know it’s not vanity press, and know that it helps build an audience. But good luck convincing the rest of the publishing industry.

“Appearance is reality” is the sad fact for a lot of people and until the self-publishing community manages to breach the PR wall the establishment has put in place, it’s going to continue to be an uphill battle. 

The truth is that we don’t need to discuss whether self-publishing is better than traditional publishing anymore. The numbers are in. Accept ‘yes’ for an answer and push ahead.

Image courtesy of AuthorOutbreak.com