- The stats are out, and the number of self-published books
are up 40% over the previous year.
With self-publishing clearly becoming a mainstream way
to publish, you might be thinking it's the best option
for you to get your book out into the world.
Well maybe, but maybe not.
Stick around and I'll explain.
(upbeat music)
Hey, I'm Julie The Book Broad,
an award-winning author and the founder
of a fantastic company called Book Launchers.
Your fabulous professional self-publishing team,
helping you write, publish, and sell non-fiction books
that grow your business and make you money.
Yeah, you hear that right.
I run a company that helps you self-publish
and I'm saying, maybe you shouldn't self-publish.
But let me explain.
There are really three situation
where I think you shouldn't self-publish your book.
If you're writing a non-fiction book,
most of the time I think you need to self-publish.
I talked about it extensively in this video right here.
So let's get to it, shall well.
Here are the three situations
where you shouldn't self-publish a book in 2020.
Number one, the traditional book deal
makes so much sense for your goals.
If you wanna be a New York Times best seller, for example,
and, you're getting a sweet deal,
and let me be clear, there are not very many sweet deals.
The authors who do get these sweet deals
are typically celebrities or they have
a very strong following on social media
or in their business.
Even if you get a deal with a traditional publisher,
there are very few that I would categorize
as juicy deals worth taking.
For me, a deal that would meet the criteria of taking
is a deal that has at least a five-figure advance.
I get to keep the audio book rights
or, if that's not gonna fly,
most contracts these days require audio book rights
go to the publishers, but I would want some sort
of a guarantee that they're going to produce
that audio book and I would want
the international rights to my book.
Most importantly I want the right to use all content
in the book without the publishers permission
or them getting any payment.
For example, if I get the opportunity to turn my book
into a TV show of some kind, I wanna be fully free
to pursue that on my own and contract that deal on my own.
The advance is important for a few reasons.
But the biggest is that if a publisher
is advancing you five or six figures,
they're extremely likely to put their marketing engines
behind you, which is positive.
You'd be shocked at how little marketing
most traditional publishers do
for the majority of their books.
But the advance will also give you money
to invest in hiring some marketing power yourself
so you can get great PR and marketing for your launch.
You might think that's all on the traditional publisher
but it is actually on you.
So if you get one of these sweet deals
and it's a good fit for your goals,
self-publishing probably doesn't make sense.
Number two, you want to just write the book
and somebody else does the rest.
So many authors think that they need a traditional book deal
because they just wanna write the book
and somebody else will do the rest.
The problem is, that's now how a traditional deal works.
Your book proposal is essentially your book-marketing plan.
And if you can't show the publisher how you
are going to sell books, they're not interested
in signing you as an author, trust me.
Wiley ultimately rejected me because they didn't think
I had a big enough platform to sell books.
I loved proving them so wrong
by taking my book to number one overall,
ahead of Dan Brown and the "Game Of Throne" series in Canada
where I lived at the time.
They never had a niche, non-fiction real estate book debut
at number one on Amazon.
So that felt good, but they didn't want me
because they didn't think I'd sell enough books.
So traditional book deals aren't going to work for you
if you think you can just write the book
and someone else does the rest.
But self-publishing isn't gonna work for you either.
You'll just join the ranks of all those authors
who put a book on Amazon and sell less than 100 copies
and wonder why they didn't success.
Let me be clear, publishing, whether you're self-publishing
or getting a traditional book deal,
it's crazy-hard work and the hard work really
begins when your book is done.
Hiring help is smart, but even a company like Book Launchers
can't do it all for you.
We work with you to market your book
but you still have to show up for those podcast interviews,
prep the talk and deliver it when you get a speaking gig.
And you are the one who has to build a platform
to surround your book and your business.
If you don't wanna do that, publishing isn't for you.
Number three, the final situation where you shouldn't
self-publish a book in 2020, you're not clear on your goals.
You don't have a specific reason why you wanna write a book.
And this is killer because a book is big-time energy
and money investment.
It feels amazing to be an author
and know that you've done something
that so few people have done.
But let's be clear, you're going to put
at least a year of your life into writing
and publishing a book.
And probably another year into marketing it.
Let's make sure you're clear on why
you're writing a book and that you've taken the time
to match your goals with your message.
Make sure if you wanna get paid speaking gigs
that your book topic showcases you
with a message people will pay to hear.
I talked about that in this video,
"Are You Writing The Wrong Book."
If you want media attention,
make sure there's a strong hook.
If you wanna funnel for your business,
make sure you're speaking to your ideal client
and you're addressing a problem they are looking to solve.
If you're not clear on why you're writing,
you're gonna spin in circles, whooooo, and waste time.
Or worse, write the wrong book for you.
I love self-publishing because I love to control my content,
be the one that benefits when my book does awesome
and your reader, well your read will never know
you self-published if you do it well.
They don't care if you worked with a big publishing company
or not, they only care what your book
is going to do for them.
So the trick is to make sure your book is so good,
the thought that you self-published
doesn't even enter their mind.
In fact, I've had calls from people asking
for me to connect them to my publishing company
because the books are so good they didn't know
they were self-published.
Imagine their surprise when I say,
you're on the phone with the president
of the publishing company (laughs).
Self-publishing in 2020 is the best way to go
for most non-fiction authors.
But in these three situations, I don't think
you should do it, and that stat
that I sent at the beginning,
that self-published books are up 40%
over the previous year, true stat.
But you should know that the driving force behind that
was a single change by Katie P.,
where they basically allowed authors with an E-book
to push a button and have it turn
into a print version of the book.
So the number was good for effect
but maybe didn't mean what you thought it meant.
All right, back to the topic of the video.
What do you think?
Are there situations where you should not self-publish?
Share that in the comments below
and when you comment the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet Book Launcher swag
like this oh so soft journal.
Like this tip?
Smash that thumbs up button, go ahead, try it, I'll wait.
It feels so good, right?
And make sure you subscribe to the channel
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so we can hang out every Tuesday and Friday
when new videos come out.
If you wanna learn the nitty gritty
about self-publishing versus traditional publishing,
check out this video right here.
Or if you wanna make sure that you're not writing
the wrong book, this video is perfect for you.
Go ahead, choose the video you wanna see next,
I can't wait to see you there.
(upbeat music)