Cameron Chapman

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time researching self publishing in an effort to make sure I’m well informed as I proceed with self publishing my own book. One of the things I see over and over again are statistics about how self published books sell so poorly.

Photo by happysweetmama, via Flickr

According to a post on the blog How Publishing Really Works about sales statistics for self published books, the average POD book sells less than 200 copies. The article appears to be well-researched and I don’t doubt the numbers. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. There are a variety of reasons why self published books don’t sell more than 200 copies, and being self published isn’t one of them.

Here are the main reasons I believe so many self published books don’t sell more than a hundred or so copies:

#1: The book was intended for a very small niche audience.
A lot of self published books are published with the intention of selling a few copies to family and friends. These might be family or personal histories or books about a local event. The authors generally don’t publish them with the intention of selling many copies or making any money; they simply want those who are interested to be able to purchase the book if they choose. These books can often be picked out by their lack of an ISBN.

#2: The author never did any marketing.
This is probably the most common reason why self published books don’t sell. The author writes their book, does some editing, uploads it to the POD service of their choice, and that’s it. They might order a few copies to give to family and friends, and there’s almost definitely a copy displayed prominently on their bookshelf. But they never bother to market it. They don’t take advantage of the Amazon book pages. They don’t have a blog or even a basic website. They don’t engage with people who might be interested. They don’t send out review copies or contact bookstores to persuade them to carry the book. They do nothing once the book has been printed.

#3: The book is very low quality.
This is the one that is mostly responsible for self publishing’s negative image. Someone writes a book. They show it to their mom, or their spouse, or their best friend, and that person says it’s great. The may try submitting to traditional agents or publishers for awhile but when that proves fruitless, they turn to self publishing. They never ask themselves why their book wasn’t picked up by a publisher or an agent. They don’t bother with trying to get an independent critique by someone who doesn’t know them and doesn’t feel like they have to be “nice”. They format their book according to the free guide their POD printer of choice offers, sometimes disregarding the information on good font choices or consistency or margins. They make a cover using free clip-art that came on their computer or a photo they took themselves. They send it off and then wait for the rave reviews and orders to start coming in. They might market more heavily than the authors in #2, but their product just won’t hold up.

If you’re considering self publishing, don’t fall into the traps of #2 and #3. Realize that self publishing is a business. It takes work. You need to know how to market yourself and your book. And make sure before you put your book out there that some independent, critical eyes have looked it over a few times. Hire an editor if you can afford it. Hire a copyeditor or at least a proofreader (or find a friend whose grammar and spelling is good enough to do it for you). Even if your spelling and grammar are impeccable, you need a third party to double check things. Make sure you’re putting out the best product you possibly can. Study books in your genre or niche and see how yours stacks up against them.

And most importantly, look beyond the numbers in statistics and think about the methodology. While the numbers might be sound, they may not mean what you think they do.