Is Self Publishing A Good Idea? Can You Make Money Publishing Your Own Book or Ebook?

Earlier in my writing career, I sold two non-fiction books to large publishing houses. It was just as thrilling as you imagine and I don't even mean that sarcastically. I appeared on radio and TV shows to promote the books and even on Good Morning America, the Sunday version. (That is a wonderfully funny story so if you have an extra minute in your day, definitely click the link to read it.)

How did I do it and why can't I do it again, you might ask? Well, first how I did it. At the time I was managing the Educational Services department of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. As such, and because I was a former teacher, I wrote hundreds of features showing teachers how a daily newspaper could be used to help children learn. Meanwhile, my oldest friend was a very successful literary agent whose client made millions for themselves and their publishers. (Remember that detail; it comes back around in a minute.) She understood what I did for a living and felt that parents could use the same type of advice I was writing for teachers. She thought that parents would love to help their children enhance their performance in school and would be happy to use something like a daily newspaper, which was cheap and readily available. This was, of course, back in what seems like the Stone Age, when newspapers were ubiquitous. So, because my friend was such a successful agent, big publishing houses wanted to make her happy so they'd take her up-and-coming author clients seriously in order to be sure that she'd think kindly of them when she was seeking publishers for her already-wildly-popular clients' new books.

So, I was published -- TWICE. After the book designed to help parents help their children with school work, came a parenting book with more broad-based but still practical child-raising advice. For each one I got a nice advance and then -- nothing! Why? Because my books didn't sell. Why? Because no one promoted them. One publisher explained it to me this way. They publish lots of books and can't afford to promote them all, so basically, unless you were like John Grisham or J.K. Rowling, they didn't have the budget to promote you. They said the newly published books were like spaghetti. They just threw them all against the wall and whatever stuck, or succeeded on its own was fine and the rest, well, they just dropped to the ground and effectively, off the planet.

Fast forward a few years to now. After working on it for a while, I finally am ready to bring forth my newest parenting book -- Raising Amazing Children (...While Having a Life of Your Own) -- offering folks a new view on parenting. What with the Chinese Tiger Mom and the latest French "bebe" parenting book (actually written by an American who purports to tell us how the French are doing it right and we're not), I figured it was time to offer a view of parenting that is strictly All American. You know, no insistence on success at all costs (the Tiger Mom theory which basically has kids chained to their musical instruments until they are prodigies) and no attitude about how saying "Bonjour" makes every kid perfect, just good old fashioned tips and advice on how you can be a good parent while you have a happy life of your own. You are, after all, still a person after becoming a parent. I just wanted to help people see that parenting doesn't have to mean the end of spontaneity, and that you can actually raise kids who are cool to hang out with, well behaved and reasonably smart and responsible without sacrificing everything you ever enjoyed doing.

So, could I have been published by a publishing house again? Perhaps but I'm making a different choice this time. This time I actually want to sell some books, not just get an advance. (Although, sigh, I do miss that big check.) So, I opted out of the agent and big publishing house thing and into the self publishing world of the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. I looked at PubIt, Barnes and Noble's foray into self publishing, Lulu, and I looked at Outskirts Press (I have to, it keeps popping up on my browser windows.) Honestly, they all sounded pretty good. I could choose almost any and publish for free.

I picked Amazon for a couple of reasons:

1. I have a Kindle. But, fyi, these ebooks on Kindle Direct Publishing aren't limited to Kindles. They can be read on any device (any computer or iPads, phones with Kindle apps, etc.)

2. These people know how to sell books.

How's it going so far you ask? Well, today's Day 1 and I already sold a book! At my price of $2.99, I chose 70% royalties so if you do the math, you'll see that I already made about $2.00! And, since I'm not working with an agent, I get to keep the whole $2.00! (minus the tax I will eventually be happy to pay) I am promoting it online on my Hubs (shameless self promotion for sure; not that there's anything wrong with that) via Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc. and I feel great about this choice. For one thing, I feel as though I'm mistress of my own destiny. While the big publishing houses never really cared about me or my books (although I did get treated to a fancy French restaurant lunch once), I do. I believe that I have something to say of value to people and I can genuinely say that in my promotions of the book.

I opted to sign my book up for 90 days of what they called KDP Select, which makes it exclusive to Amazon for 90 days. For this I'll get some additional promotion options and I figure if I'm not happy, at the end of those three months, I'll just publish it everywhere. This way, too, I'll have some time to learn more about the self publishing world before I put it in a new venue.

So, if you're looking to share your words of wit or wisdom with others, I suggest this for you too. Dip your toe into the self-publishing waters. Dive on in, in fact, the water's fine!

Maybe even you can make $2.00!

And, check back here from time to time and I'll update my publishing adventure and let you know what else I learn along the way that may help you too.

If you'd like to see my Kindle book, click here. It is also in paperback on Amazon which I published a few weeks after publishing it for Kindle. Click here to see that listing.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm about three weeks post publishing and my book has sold about 400 copies. Don't get too excited, 350 of those were given away free thanks to the Kindle program that allows you to give away your book as a promotion to create buzz. I tried it and it did increase actual sales once the free day was over so I believe it was a good choice to get the book out there. I've got two very nice reviews, which felt great to read and perhaps helped a bit as well. If you do buy my book, please feel free to review it as well. (Come to think of it, maybe just review it if you liked it. As your mother likely said, "If you don't have anything nice to say....")

UPDATE: About 6 weeks post publishing, I've sold (not counting the free ones) I've been selling a handful of books each week and gotten some wonderful reviews on parenting blogs. Word of mouth is building. The e-book is outselling the paperback but that may change. All in all, I'm still pretty happy with the build. I hope it continues!