Quote:
Originally Posted by carld
But how much actual help are traditional publishers in connecting to the market and selling books? If you've got a big name or a hot book, a lot I'm sure. But, I hear and read a lot about how many authors get little or no assistance from publishers, who leave them to make their own connections and do their own promotion.
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If your book's not on the shelf, no-one's going to buy it. A large part of a print publisher's job is just getting the book out there into shops so that people can see it, and that is
not easy to do on your own.
Sure, Amazon's self-publishing system makes this a lot easier for ebooks, but even established midlist authors who've gone into self-publishing (leveraging the exposure they got from traditional publishers in the process) aren't really taking in enough to live on. It's a nice sideline, and it's a good way to monetise books that your publisher has passed on, but anyone thinking of doing this as a career move shouldn't give up their day job.