{"id":2053,"date":"2010-01-25T09:12:15","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T14:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smittenbybooks.com\/blog\/?p=2053"},"modified":"2010-01-25T09:12:15","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T14:12:15","slug":"why-not-self-publish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smittenbybooks.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/25\/why-not-self-publish\/","title":{"rendered":"Why not self-publish?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indeed, why do I not feature self-published books on The Season<\/strong><\/span><\/a> sites? I did at one time, in the very beginning. Like the scales (I’m a Libra), I wanted to be fair, to give all romance writers an opportunity to have their books featured on the site.<\/p>\n

They say one apple can spoil the whole bunch. Well, to some degree that’s what happened here. I had an author renege on their promise to send an entrant of a contest their book. Yes, I featured their book for an entire month and the author agreed to give away a copy of her book, but when the time came to send the book, she became non-communicado. I know what you’re going to say, that can happen in both cases, for mass market paper books as well as self-published. I know and it did. I’ve had New York published authors fail to send books they promised. But what this instance did was open my eyes to the life of a self-published author.<\/p>\n

They pay for everything. And I mean everything, which includes promotion, advertising and author copies of their books. The very paper it’s printed on. It’s not a cheap venture and in fact gets darn expensive. And their ROI (return on investment) is meager if anything at all. Most will end up in the red. Who buys most of their books. They do. They are encouraged to buy their books on a regular basis by the publisher–discounted, of course. And because they pay for everything, because their books are not readily available on the shelves of your local Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble or Borders, a reader would have to search out these self-published books online. They’d most likely be POD (Print on Demand), which means you could order them from online bookstores or perhaps special order them from B&N, Amazon or Borders.<\/p>\n

Now let’s say a reader is willing to do that for this self-published title, which in most likelihood has had little to no exposure to the reading public, at the end of the day 99.9% of readers will suffer a sticker shock price at the cost of the book. Even if you look beyond the fact that the reader has no idea whether this book was professionally edited etc, most readers of fictional works will not part with over $20 for a book by an unknown author from a self-publishing house. I recently saw a historical romance title for over $30. Sticker shock indeed!<\/p>\n

Book buying is really the only extravagance I currently allow myself. Why? Because books are relatively inexpensive. This passion of mine, this entertainment costs me not even $6 (I usually shop at Walmart for my books, where they are 30% off retail). I can get a $7.99 Lisa Kleypas<\/em><\/span><\/a> for a steal. I don’t normally buy trade books, but even on the rare times that I do–like I will be purchasing Maggie Robinson’s<\/em><\/a> Mistress By Mistake<\/strong><\/span> even though I’ve already read it, it’s just that good–I can purchase it for around $10 at discount. A far cry cheaper than the twenty or thirty something dollar for a self-published romance.<\/p>\n

When it comes down to it, that is one of the main reasons I don’t have self-published novels on my site. They are just too expensive for the average romance reader. Believe me, I’m not saying that a self-published author’s work is not on par with e-published or NY published authors’ works. I’ve read enough unpublished manuscripts to know that’s not the truth at all. I’ve often scratched my head wondering why NY publishing houses turned down a novel I felt was better than many novels I’ve read. But on the on the other hand, I’ve read samplings of self-published books which I felt desperately required, at minimum, a proof-reader. But like everything, you’ll find the good and the desperately needs an editor <\/em>when it comes to self-publishing.<\/p>\n

But that’s my personal opinion. What about you? Would you buy a self-published book? And would you be willing to part with $20 and upward for this romance novel? <\/strong>Agree, disagree? Let me know.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

[poll id=”15″]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

[poll id=”16″]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Check back tomorrow, when I’ll be interviewing Monica Burns<\/em><\/span><\/a> and chatting about her new release, Kismet<\/strong><\/span>. \"\"<\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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