Self Publishing Is Good For Publishers

As much as people see self publishing a threat to publishers, I see opportunity for publishers to reform, regroup and continue to be successful.

From the self published authors side after you write the book (hooray!) you have decisions to make.  What formats are you going to offer? Print? Hard-cover, soft cover both?  E-book?  You know I've come to know there is a least 3 formats including iPad, Nook and Kindle.  How about audio book?  Great, after you've decided you have to go to more important issues.  Even an e-book needs cover art.  Who's going to do that?  You need to copy-write it, I'm sure there might be some other administrative things too. When that's all done we move to marketing.  Press release, tour if you dare, giveaways, campaigning, social networking.  You'll have emails to respond to, results to analyze and books to ship out.  Well, the POD printers might help with that. 

Are you getting that self publishing means running your own business?  You'll have a team that depends on you shelling out the money for their service, not them paying for the books and getting money from books sold.  But wouldn't you want a team that knows if the book does well so do they?  Don't you want people around you that believe in your project as much as you do instead of sure we'll print out whatever you want.

I can see a publisher taking in someone like Amanda Hocking because she's proven herself successful.  A publisher can look at her numbers and think about the risks.  If I were a publisher why wouldn't I take a motivated author that can appreciate what they would do who already has a following?  Perhaps a publisher wouldn't take all the responsibility but it might give that writer a team to rely on.  If at the very least the exposure of being in brick and mortar stores.

Sure e-books are on the rise and that's great!  Self published authors can be successful and that's great!  But, I see publishers being able to sit back and look at authors numbers to see if they want to represent them.  If writing is your full time job and that's all you do then great!  If you want to call all the shots, be responsible for all the work, shell out the money for your product then that's great!

But I like the interaction of an editor.  I love my cheerleaders telling me I do no wrong.  I like letting someone create a cover and seeing what their visual "take" is on my story.  I'd rather have an agent to conspire with about my career.  I'd rather surround myself with knowledgeable people who love my work.  And, I love my cheerleaders telling me I do no wrong.  I'd rather have a publisher to help me spread my books far and wide.  I'm going to listen to everyone's advice.  These are people who love books.

As I've said before, a book isn't just made by one person.  Yes, even those self published authors.  Unless they have a printing machine, write the book, draw the cover, edit their own work (how's that working out for ya), market their book and ship their book.  What are you thinking?  A book is made by many.

The reason why self publishing is good for publishers is because they can judge the future from past numbers.  Self publishers are no longer necessarily that unknown.  While we never know what's going to sell, the past books sold can give a estimate for the future.  When self publishers find out how much work is involved in a book, they might find out having a publisher might be the way to go.