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RE: Self-Publishing Your Book Kinda Sucks
My partner is a writer and working on both a longer novel and a collection of short stories. After your experience self-publishing, would you still recommend going that route rather than seeking a publisher?
so, i would. from a self-publishing standpoint, the entirety of the creative process is exactly what i wanted; the cover, the layout, the font type, etc. every bit of that part was either done by me or approved by me. also, each book is printed on demand, so there's no huge amount of overstock sitting in a publisher's warehouse not making money.
the biggest issue is marketing. i've spent i don't know how many hours buying ads through facebook, goodreads, instagram, and posting it up through three different twitter accounts with absolutely zero change in sales. plenty of engagement with the ads (something like 79,000 people 'liked' the ad on instagram out of nearly a million who saw it in their newsfeed across the globe). but no one bought it?
it's possible the genre (surrealist, post-apocalyptic sci-fi short stories) didn't jive with people, which is fine. my stuff leans toward the very weird. i knew i was gonna be a very niche author going into things. but with a publishing house, they're able to really dig into other markets more easily AS WELL AS have some pull getting other magazines/publications to review the book. i've queried some 40 legitimate places asking for a review and have heard nothing back. there remains a serious stigma with the self-published book because so much of the self-published stuff is poorly written and poorly edited.
so it all comes down to what's more important to your partner...total creative control or access to larger markets.