• Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
Book Cave: Authors and Publisher promotional services and features
Book Cave
Authors & Publishers
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Overview
      • Free Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
  • Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Overview
      • Free Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
Publishing Tips
03/31/2020 08:00 am PDT
Updated 1 month ago

5 Self-Publishing Myths

By Catia Shattuck

Browse by topic

All Posts Author Pages Author Website Cover Design Ebook Formatting Grammar & Punctuation Mailing Lists Promotion & Marketing Publishing Tips Social Media Technical Tips Tutorials Writing for Authors

Browse by keyword

author tips author website avoid writer's block beginning book writing beginning writing book promotion cover creation cover design cover tips discounting your book ebook formatting ebook promotion Ebook publishing ebooks editing finding story ideas free books free ebooks gain subscribers goals grammar grammar tips group promotions grow your mailing list Jutoh loss leader making more money marketing newsletter overcoming writer's block. promote promote your books promotion realistic characters sales self publishing selling books selling more books sell more books Social media subscriber magnet tools for writers writer's block writing writing tips

Advertisement

JutohWe at Book Cave prefer Jutoh for ebook creation because it gives us more control than most other ebook software out there, while still maintaining a friendly interface.

self-publishing myths

There is a lot of misinformation out there about self-publishing. Here are 5 self-publishing myths to help clear up some of the confusion.

1. Self-Publishing is easy money.

Self-publishing is hard work. Not only are you responsible for writing and getting the book professionally edited, you also have to format it, create a cover, upload it to retailers, and market it. With so many other self-published books out there, you have to work hard to get yours noticed.

2. You can’t make money with self-publishing.

While self-publishing is hard work, you can actually make money doing it if you put out a quality product and promote it well. This means you have to pay a professional editor and, if you’re not experienced at cover design, a cover designer. It also means you have to regularly promote your books, because promotion is never a one-time thing.

You can read more about how much money you can make with traditional publishing versus self-publishing here.

3. If you self-publish, you have to do way more promotion than you would with traditional publishing.

While traditional publishers may do some promotion (perhaps they get your book into bookstores and post on their site), much of the promotion still falls to the author. Only big-budget books (usually books written by already popular authors) get more promotion. And generally, publishers will promote for about three months and then focus on their newest books. This means an author with a traditional publisher may still have to do many of the things a self-published author does: post about their book on their own website and social media, ask for reviews and promote their other books in the backmatter, submit their books to promotion sites like Book Cave, and so on. Except an author with a traditional publisher has less or no say on when their book goes on sale and for how much, making the book harder to promote.

4. Self-publishing makes it less likely to sign a deal with a traditional publisher later.

Traditional publishing is all about selecting and publishing books that the publisher thinks will sell. If you’ve established a reader base with self-publishing, that will actually increase your chances of getting a deal with a traditional publisher. Of course, if you’re self-publishing poorly-edited book, that would hurt your chances, so you should always be using a professional editor.

Keep in mind that we’re talking about submitting a newly written book to a publisher, not your self-published book. Most publishers will not re-publish a book that has already been published, even if it was self-published.

5. Self-published books aren’t as good as traditionally published books.

While it is true there is a lot of self-published titles that are subpar, there are also a lot of high-quality, self-published books by serious authors. A self-published book can be as good as, and even better, than a traditionally published book. As long as your book is well-written, your plot solid, and you’ve invested in a good editor and cover design, readers won’t care (or even know) whether your book is self-published or traditionally published.

What self-publishing myths have you heard? Let us know in the comments below!

If you’d like to learn more about Book Cave promotions and receive more publishing tips, please enter your email below and click the “Learn More” button to receive our author newsletter.

Copyright 2020 by Book Cave
Reuse notice: Non-commercial users, feel free to print out “5 Self-Publishing Myths” for personal use or give to friends, share online, or make a meme of, as long as you attribute and link back to us. Commercial users, you may share a link to this post or quote a short excerpt from it with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety. Thank you for caring about copyright.

Share this authorpost

Leave a Reply

Cancel

Comments

    Receive free ebooks on Amazon Kindle from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Apple Books from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Google Play from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Kobo from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Nook from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Smashwords from Book Cave
    Book Cave
    Book Cave Direct
    My Book Ratings
    MY BOOK RATINGS
    Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
    • Sitemap
    • Contact Us
    • Free ebooks
    © Book Cave - All the rights reserved!