Realizing that Self-Publishing Isn't the Way
The Diary of an Incomplete Failure #2
Ahoy. I hope you’ve all been well since I’ve gone on a bit of a hiatus. I’ve been taking some time to get my shit together. Things got pretty bleak for me a few months ago, both in my personal life and my attempt at a writing career. I’m going to be as transparent as possible, because I consider this blog to be a journal of my writing journey and a place to vent about the things that concern me. What concerns me currently, and what this post concerns, is money.
For a long while, I was working a degrading, soul stealing, low paying job, and not getting fulltime hours. My rent is wildly high, as many people can relate to, with the world inflating and such. The combination of these things made it so I was seriously considering putting my stuff in storage and living out of my car to save a bit, and stave off this constant feeling of being in over my head. Drowning. Meanwhile, in my author life, I was hustling as best I could. I had just released my eleventh book, In the Darkness, Eyes and Teeth at the end of April. I had been promoting my other books, marketing regularly, all that good stuff. At the end of April, I looked at my sales. 55 books sold (a good month for me at this point in my career). Then I looked at my royalties for that same month. You’d think I had made a decent bit of profit. What I made from those 55 sales was $77.63. And that’s in Canadian currency. When converted, that equates to 54.83 USD. It was then I realized, there must be another way… I also realized that everything I was doing in just about every aspect of my life had to change.
Most self-published and independent authors (I will use the term ‘indie authors’ going forward to describe both) aren’t exactly rolling in dough. Most of us work fulltime jobs with writing relegated to a side gig. Think about how many indie ebooks you see priced at 99 cents. Each of those will return the author 35 cents (even less if they are splitting their royalties with an indie publisher). Quick maths: that means, if an indie author sells 1000 ebooks at 99 cents, they will make 350 dollars. And not many indie authors are selling a thousand books. According to Scribe Media, the average self-published ebook sells less than 250 copies in its lifetime.
Paperback sales are not much better. One of my novellas, priced at 8.88 USD returns 2.37 CAD for each sale. And if you buy it online from Indigo, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, or any other online book retailer, I get roughly 60 cents. This is not the road to riches. And I never expected it to be. As I’m sure is the case with most indie authors, I started this journey with just the hopes of having my work read. Which is why, for years, I only made 25 cents from the sale of each paperback of my debut book How To Make A Monster: The Loveliest Shade of Red, because I wanted it to be as affordable as possible. It’s why I released multiple novellas for free. But as badly as I want to be read, I need to live. And I need to make writing my living. That isn’t going to happen if I stick to the same route that I and most indie authors are currently taking. My goal is to earn enough from my writing to no longer need a full-time job by 2029, and to be making a living entirely through my writing by 2033. Those dates seem like reasonable ones to me. But, at this pace, doing what I’ve been doing, those dates are a delusion.
Of course, there are many indie authors who market expertly, strategize effectively, and have managed to make a living publishing on their own terms. But I neither have the marketing budget nor the online savvy to be one of those people. For now. So, after reflecting on what I have been doing and what I can do going forward, I’ve decided to do what seems most logical. Rather than spending months or years working on publishing one unprofitable book that will largely go unread, and often paying my editor and artists more than I make from my projects, I’m going to spend my time finishing the plethora of stories I’ve had to put aside because of my publishing schedule; I’m going to attempt to find an agent, sell my stories to publishers, and attend more events where I can sell my existing books in person.
How do in-person events and selling individual stories compare to online sales? Consider my 55 online sales in April, which made me just over 77 Canadian dollars. On a Saturday in September, I attended a horror convention and sold 28 books, which brought me back nearly 400 dollars. I’ve sold two short stories to small publishing houses so far, totaling just under 12,000 words combined. These two stories earned me roughly 800 dollars. Which is nearly as much as I earned from the 436 books I sold online in 2023. When I did the maths and figured out what brought the most value to my time, the decision to ease back on self-publishing wasn’t a difficult one.
Anyone can self-publish a book. And at times it seems as if almost everyone has. According to Word Rated, Amazon releases over 1.4 million self-published books via Kindle Direct Publishing every year. And that doesn’t include ebooks without ISBN numbers, so that 1.4 million is likely much higher. That also doesn’t include all the indie books being released on other self-publishing platforms. When I stop and consider the number of indie authors out there, and the new authors popping up every day, I feel like just another person doing what everyone else is doing. And that’s another reason I want to spend more time working on story submissions. Submitting stories is the truest proving ground an author can find. It is a real measuring stick of one’s abilities when compared directly to their peers. It’s how you figure out if you have what it takes. And I believe I do. But if I don’t, I’m ready to find that out the hard way.
Why didn’t I just start out trying to sell my stories to publishers to begin with? My mindset was a defeatist one of “No one is going to want to publish me.” I’m a Black man, Nigerian born, Canadian raised. I believed no one would want to hear my perspective. Especially when I have a somewhat atypical writing style, and my subject matter is not overtly focused on racism, slavery, or Black suffering, which seems to be the expectation of Black (male) authors. When I decided to self-publish, I kind of just put something out into the world and hoped for the best, the way many new indie authors do. I had no strategy, no game plan, no real chance. But I have since realized that there is a market for my writing, there are people who love what I have put out and want others to have the chance to read my work as well. Canadians have made it before me, Black men have made it before me, Nigerian authors have made it before me. Many authors with atypical writing styles have done just fine. Why can’t I? That’s what I’m set to find out. There will be rejections and heart wrenching disappointments along the way (there already have been). But that’s a part of the process I can no longer shy away from.
What does this mean for my future releases? I’ve got some bad news and some good news. The bad news first: The reason I decided to give this update at this particular time is because I promised a Christmas book at the beginning of the year. The Bastard of Claus, unfortunately, will not be released this year for the reasons I mentioned above. This is a special story. To have worked on it as hard as I have and to know what comes after it makes me not want to risk releasing it on my own. At least not at this time. Especially because it will only be relevant for a couple of months of the year. Instead of self-publishing it, The Bastard of Claus will be one of the first novels I will be shopping to potential agents and publishers.
I’m hugely disappointed that I won’t be able to release Bastard of Claus and my serialization of The Day of the Dust as I promised at the start of the year. And I am apologetic to those who have been looking forward to these projects. The good news is that my hiatus and taking a step back from self-publishing is affording me more time to write. Eventually, there will be many more stories out there for my current readers. And they will be published in places where new readers can discover me. On top of that, I’m working on making merchandise, I’ll be setting up a new website where readers can buy my books directly from me, and I’ve started a Patreon page. It will be the first place I post about my progress, what kind of stories I’m working on, what I’ve submitted, rejections, acceptances and all the feelings that come with both. It’s also where I’ll delve more into my writing process and the lore of my stories. I’ve created entire interconnected universes with several of my books, and I’ve pretty much never talked about them. That will change on all my platforms, but most intimately on Patreon. Those who join my Patreon will also have beta reading opportunities. So, for some of you who don’t mind reading for the sake of providing criticism, you’ll get to read stories, including novels and novellas, that others may not even hear about for years.
Another piece of good news is that I will not stop self-publishing entirely. While self-publishing isn't the way for me to attain my goals right now, I haven't given up on it entirely. I will still release one book a year because I don’t want to leave my existing readers hanging for too long while I try to get my work more widely published. But more on that closer to when the time comes, I’ve broken enough promises lately as it is. For now, it’s back to writing, plotting, planning. I’ll be active on Patreon with the behind-the-scenes stuff going on in the next few months, including news about my latest novella, Just Like Home, and how it ties into one of my existing novels. You can read more about Just Like Home, including an excerpt, on Patreon for free right now. I won’t be back to posting regularly on other platforms until some point early-ish in the New Year when things are more solidified. By then, I expect to have a lot of news, both good and bad. Until then, thank you for your patience, thank you to those who have checked in on me during this hiatus, thank you for reading this long ass post. And thank you for letting me vent.
Oh, and as for the personal issues that helped to inspire these changes. I left my inadequately paying, dehumanizing job (and I did it in an epic way that would make George Costanza proud. But that’s a story for the memoirs), and I’ve found a higher paying job with adequate hours that doesn’t make me want to cartwheel off a cliff on a regular basis. And I haven’t had to think about putting my stuff in storage for a few months now. Like I said, I’ve been getting my shit together. Because rock bottom is a place I’ve known, and have climbed away from, and fallen back to, and repeat, and repeat. But this is the furthest I have felt from there in a very long time. And with this restart, both personally and professionally, I hope to continue to climb. And I hope you’ll be there to boost me. Because an author, no matter their talent level, is nothing without their readers. And while I don’t have a great deal of them, I have some of the most loyal and awesome readers a writer could ask for. Readers who have motivated and encouraged me during this break in ways they probably don’t even realize.
I no longer want to let them down.
I will make sure their belief in me is justified.
These Are The Things That Keep Me Up At Night
oh dang. as soon as Bastard exists in the world, I will be acquiring a copy. that cover is incredible.
thank you for sharing your reality - it's a good reminder that there are so many different paths to finding the right readers, and that all of them are fraught with their own perils. I admire not only your self-honesty and critical eval of your situation, but also your bravery in putting it out there.
hoping for a snowball of success for you in 2025!
Thank you for such an honest post, Felix. I'm sorry to hear you've had such a rough time lately, but I'm glad to hear you've gotten a new job and that things are looking up. As for your writing goals, I think they're fantastic and wish you all the luck in achieving them. You are such a talented writer and I have no doubt you'll find a publisher.