Hellooo, everybody! Is Christmas over? Yes. Am I still wearing my Christmas hats? Also yes.
Is it because I'm too lazy to fix my hair? Also yes. Roughly one thousand years ago,
when I just started this channel, the very first video I posted was all about why I decided to
self-publish my debut novel. And holy shit, people got so mad. The video has since been delisted,
not because of the vitriol, I rather enjoyed it. But because after a while the data I listed was no
longer relevant. The industry is constantly changing and I didn't want to popularize or
provide misinformation. But it's been several years, I have several publications under my belt
and believe it or not, I have been approached by several traditional publishing houses.
And I'm still self-published, by choice. So I figured now would be a good time to tell you all
why I am still self-published after all of these years. Please note, this is not my attempt to
convince you or anyone else to self-publish their book. Obviously I feel like self-publishing was
a superior option for me, but you gotta do what works for you. Hopefully my experience can shed
some light on the topic and give you a clearer idea of which path you should go down. And if I
piss off a few Karens and Kevins along the way, so be it.
(The sound of a pen scratching. LOGO)
Before we get started, a quick announcement. Next month I will be taking a YouTube hiatus.
The last half of 2021 has been a roller coaster. Cliff was hospitalized. We bought a new house.
We sold our old house. We expanded the business. It was a lot. Thus, I've decided to take a break,
so I won't be filming regular content in January. Instead I'm going to be focused on
writing and self care. But that doesn't mean I'm leaving you hanging, instead of posting
videos I will be hosting weekly live streams. Throughout January I will be coming at you live
every Wednesday with writing sprints, Q&A, and special guests. So if you wanna hang out with me
and my writerly friends, definitely stop by. It's going to be so much fun. Don't forget to subscribe
to my channel. I post new videos on Wednesdays. And if you want to be alerted as SOON as I upload,
ring that bell. Do it. I know I'm taking a break, but you still wanna know
when my videos come out. I mean come on, help a cyborg out. The Savior’s Champion and The Savior’
Sister are available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. So, if you wanna spend all of those
bookish gift cards. I know you got Amazon gift cards for the holidays. I know you got audible
gift cards. I know you got Barnes & Noble gift cards. Pick up a copy of The Savior’s Champion,
or The Savior’s Sister, or both of them. You will be so glad you did. I know what I'm talking about,
okay? Now I am breaking down the top ten reasons why I have continued to self-publish my books, and
I will probably keep doing so for the foreseeable future. One quick disclaimer, throughout this
video I will be listing stats and figures that I have uncovered through my research. The tricky
thing about stats and figures is that they change over time. Additionally, one person's research is
never foolproof, which means your research might yield different results, which is why I encourage
you to do just that, research. Number One (1): Author interviews. This is the number one reason
why I decided to self-publish my debut novel. Back when I was a wee baby writer I interviewed
a bunch of writers who are both traditionally published and self-published. Nearly all of them
said don't become a writer, you're wasting your life. It was super uplifting. There were only
two writers who had anything positive to say. One was self-published. The other was traditionally
published. The traditionally published author was an elderly woman, she had been signed with
her publishing house for ages and she was finally able to become a full time author, in her old age.
She told me she had been getting the midlist treatment for about twenty years. But after ten
books and a lot of persistence, she was finally able to get enough attention and visibility from
her publishing house to make writing her full time job. On the flip side, the self-published author
had done a lot of research into marketing, and pay for play advertising, he had a professional book
cover, he had his book professionally edited. So he was getting pretty good sales off of this
first book. He projected that by his third book, which he planned to publish the following year,
he could make writing his full time job. Let's compare shall we, twenty years and over ten
publications to full time writing, versus two years and three publications to full time writing.
I was floored that this woman was with her publishing house for twenty years before they
started to take her seriously. I’m not waiting twenty years. Ultimately, this sealed the deal
for me and I'm really glad I did those author interviews. Number Two (2): Royalties. Let's look
at money, shall we? I'm gonna start with paperback and hardback novels, because those are the turds
in the punchbowl. A lot of readers don't realize this, but physical books are extremely expensive
to produce. There's paper, printing, binding production, and labor to take into consideration,
among a million other things. Because of this, the average author, whether they're self-published or
traditionally published usually gets about 15% royalties for every paperback or hardback book
they sell. Self-published authors usually have a bit more wiggle room to make higher royalties, but
typically that's if you're writing a shorter book, which is something that I don't do. Additionally,
traditionally published authors have to give a cut of their royalties to their agent so that 15%
is gonna get a little bit smaller. However, the biggest royalty difference is in ebooks and
audiobooks. Depending on the platform they publish through, self-published authors typically get
about 60 to 70% royalties for every ebook they sell. On the other hand, traditionally published
authors typically get about 25% royalties for every ebook they sell. As for audiobooks,
again, depending on the publishing platform, self-published authors typically make about 40%
royalties for every audio book they sell. Whereas traditionally published authors typically make
10% to 25% royalties for every audiobook they sell. This is a huge difference, especially when
you consider the fact that ebooks and audiobooks are extremely popular. My ebooks and audiobooks
outsold my physical books by four times this year. If I had gone traditional,
I'd be missing out on a lot of money. And this doesn't take into account the fact that
if you go traditional you have to earn back your advance before you even start making royalties,
and many authors never earn back their advance. “But Jennaaa, an advance is guaranteed money. You
don't get that with self-publishing.” That's true, but based on my research, the average advance,
especially for a debut novel, is somewhere between $5,000 to $20,000. But typically,
it's usually around ten grand. Keep in mind, this covers two years worth of payment. That's ten
grand for two years, or five grand a year. Nobody can support themselves off that. Additionally,
if you go traditional, your publishing house gets to decide whether or not your book becomes an
audiobook. You have no control over that decision, which means you could be losing out on big sales.
No matter how you slice it, self-publishing offers a lot more income. Which brings us to Number
Three (3): Decision making. The number one reason most writers cite for going with self-publishing
is creative control. They don't want a publishing house telling them what to write. However,
I am equally concerned about being in control and making my own decisions on a business level.
A lot of people wanna go traditional, specifically so they can avoid making business decisions,
which makes sense, until you get screwed. The issue is that people are expecting the Stephen
King treatment and they don't realize that 99% of authors are not getting that level of attention.
The average traditionally published novel gets retired after two years. That means at the two
year mark, your publishing house is going to stop printing your book, whether you like it or not.
Additionally, your publishing house decides when you release, how you release, what your cover
art looks like, and what formats you're going to get. Look if I'm busting my ass to write a book,
I want to decide what happens to it. Period. Number Four (4): You have to market yourself
no matter what. I've said this a thousand times, but for some reason people still don't believe me,
probably because they're stupid. The number one reason people tell me they're going traditional
is because they don't want to market their book. Guess what, bitch, you gotta do it anyway. In
fact, most publishing houses are not interested in signing writers unless they've already started to
build an online presence. They're going to expect you to create a website. They're going to expect
you to promote the release. This was a huge eye opener for me personally, my thought process was:
shit if I have to do marketing anyway, what the fuck are you here for? Again, your move may vary,
but if you expect your publishing house to make you famous, you're an idiot. Number Five (5): The
stats are unreliable. “But Jennaaa, I read that the average self-published book sells
less than 100 copies in its lifetime.” Yes, but keep in mind, literally anyone can self-publish
a book. My three year old niece could scribble on a page, upload it to Amazon, and it would
be considered a self-published book. This stat lumps the novice or hobby self-published books,
with the professionally self-published books. There's no way to separate the legitimate with the
not so credible, which makes the stat unreliable. Additionally, the stats for traditional publishing
aren't that much more impressive. There are a million figures floating around the internet but
the one that I've seen most common, is 250. As in the average traditionally published book sells 250
copies. No matter which route you go, the stats are abysmal, and that's because it takes a lot of
business savvy and know-how in order to make it in this industry. Most writers don't understand
the business side of things, and that's why these stats are so low. At least with self-publishing,
I'm in control of my own business, which means I can make the sort of decisions that give me the
upper hand. Which brings us to Number Six (6): My business background. “But Jennaaa,
I don't know anything about business.” Okay, but I do. I majored in business with
a concentration in finance. I understand money management, opportunity costs, advertising,
all that good stuff. That means I already have some understanding of the industry and anything
I don't know I'm willing to learn. This was a huge advantage for me. Is it an advantage all writers
have? No, but this is my list. And keep in mind all the research I did was on the internet, which
means you have access to it too. Long story short, pairing my business background with my research,
I realized I had little need for a publishing house. Assuming I wouldn't get the Stephen King
treatment, I could basically do everything that they were going to do for me. Number
Seven (7): The YA boom. This may not be the case anymore. I've heard there might be a decline in YA
printing, don't quote me on that. But for a long time, YA was the preferred fiction category. So
agents and publishing houses were gobbling up as much YA as possible, which is really inconvenient
if you write adult fiction like I do. I knew a lot of writers who were querying their books,
or going through the editing process with their publishing houses, and they were all getting the
same feedback. Age your characters down to make it YA, or we don't want it. I don't write YA, I
don't read YA, so I had no desire to bend to these particular whims. Number Eight (8): Accessibility
is about the same. Indie authors have access to professional cover artists and editors with
decades of experience. Indie authors can publish their books in ebook, paperback, hardback, and
audiobook. Indie authors can publish their books across all retailers, including Book Depository
and Audible. Indie authors can have their books distributed through major distribution chains,
like the Ingram channel. And indie authors can get their books into brick and mortar stores. This
wasn't always the case, but it's been this way for a while now. The accessibility for indie books has
come head to head with traditional books, which scares publishers shitless. On top of that,
in recent years, the consumer market has begun shifting in favor of indie authors, in large
part because traditional publishing houses have been too stubborn to acclimate to the new
sales environment. All this to say, I wouldn't be surprised if indie became the preferred publishing
method. It's already kind of getting there. Number Nine (9): Validation is useless. A lot of writers
decide to go traditional because they want the validation. They wanna be able to tell people
‘my book was so good, a huge publisher decided to sign it.’ Sorry, but I can't pay my bills with
validation. The taboo against self-publishing is disappearing because as we already covered,
the accessibility is the same. People can't tell the difference between a professional
self-published novel and a traditionally published novel. You can pretend you can, but I've seen
your book hauls. Your traditionally published books are just as smutty as the indie ones,
and a whole lot more toxic. Additionally, getting signed to a traditional publisher doesn't
necessarily validate your greatness. Plenty of shitty books get traditionally published,
you can keep your validation, I'm good. And Number Ten (10): There's only one benefit.
After I took all the affirmation factors into consideration. I could only find one personal
benefit for going traditional. They were going to pay for everything. Except for marketing,
of course. That's on you, remember? They would pay for my editor. They would pay for my copyright.
They would pay for my cover art. It's 100% valid to go traditional to avoid the cost of publishing
your novel. From my experience and research it can cost about $4,000 to publish a quality novel,
and not everyone can afford that. But for me, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
I saved my money over time in order to pay for the publication process. And with the increased
royalties I get as a self-published author, I am able to recoup those costs and make a hefty profit
right away. If I were to go traditional, even with them paying for the cover art, the copyright,
the editor, all that good stuff. I would still be making about 10% of what I'm making right now
as a self-published author. Yes, self-publishing is expensive, but given the money that I'm making
as a self-published author, it's totally worth it, in my opinion. So that's all I got for you today.
If your publishing journey looks different than mine, that's great. I don't give a shit. I'm not
against going traditional sometime in the future, if a publishing house were to offer me a contract
that's better than what I've got going on right now, I would absolutely consider it. But right now
I'm happy where I'm at. I'm supporting my family off of my writing, and I definitely made the right
decision for me. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I post new videos on Wednesdays. And if
you wanna be alerted as SOON as I upload, ring that bell. The Savior's Champion and The Savior
Sister are available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. They're available at
all major retailers. So, pick up a copy right now. I know you got holiday gift cards. I know you do.
Buy some books, buy my books. And be sure to follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram,
Tumblr, Facebook and BookBub. And of course you can tweet me @JennaMoreci! Bye!
(Regal, But Distracted Female Voice) Oh! Hello there. I’m Leila and I'm off to…a
meeting with…a…senator. While you're here, why don't you subscribe to Jenna’s channel? And ring
the bell! That way you'll always know when our videos go live. It's the perfect distraction—I
mean, entertainment. Well, off I go! Ignore the blade, it's just for show. Bye!