Don't take the easy way out

Hey guys! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you’re sticking with me through this month’s topic—I know it’s been a little rough for some of you, but believe me, it’s all good to know.

Today, I’m talking about something a lot of authors don’t want to hear. Actually, it’s something I don’t really want to hear either, but something I’ve come to accept over the years.

Createspace is the easy way out, but that doesn’t make it the right way to go.

I know this not from personal experience, but from so many people I know who’ve published through Createspace: their system is incredibly easy to use, and feels like you’re doing something good, like you’re working toward an actual publication, like you’re finally moving forward with your book.

I know this, from personal experience as well as many of those accounts: you’re wrong.

I met an author over the weekend, at an event I went to, who was talking about how when she released book two a year after book one, it was too early. People were only just starting to discover book one by the time book two had come out. But Createspace authors will tell you that you have to be pushing out book after book after book, at least four a year.

Why? Because that’s what Createspace is.

It’s instant gratification for authors who weren’t patient enough to go about things the traditional (or “old fashioned”) way.

See, publishers know the market really well. That’s what they do, in general. Their primary focus is books, books, and more books. Logically then, they know what’s selling in the field of books and they know what to look for when they’re keeping an eye out for the next big thing.

Amazon doesn’t work like that. Createspace doesn’t work like that. Amazon has their fingers in so many pies that they cannot possibly focus even remotely on books themselves. Books are just something that they sell, and something they happen to be pretty good at selling. So they work their magic and keep selling, and keep authors putting out product because they’ve created a system of instant gratification that pleases the average American author.

Why’s that, you wonder? It’s because as a culture, we’ve grown very impatient, and we’ve stopped wanting anyone to tell us what to do.

Now, granted, I’ll be the first one to admit that a lot of publishers are wrong when they tell you what to write. They’re so focused on their niche that they might not notice anything else. But publishers, as a whole, have a far greater idea of what’s going to sell than Amazon does. Because publishers, you see, are built up of people like us. They’re readers, they’re writers, and they’re editors. So they know this field, they know what makes it up, and they know what will make it thrive. They also know what people want to read, because they have easy access to a reader focus group. They are a reader focus group.

That’s why we should listen to them in the first place. They know better than we do, and it’s okay to admit that. It really is.

Beyond that though, beyond just knowing the market and knowing what’s going to sell, publishers know books. Publishers are made up of editors who love to make books better, who love to work with authors to make a book all that it can possibly be. In the end, that’s what your book needs. 

Your book doesn’t need you to be instantly gratified by having it on the market. It needs you to love it, to nurture it and cherish it, to send it to someone who will mold it and train it and teach it to be all that it can be.

Your book is like your child, you know. It needs to learn, and not only from you. It needs an editor to look at it, to teach it how to be better.

Instant gratification, publishing via outlets like Createspace, is not what your book needs. Not every book is ready to be on the market. That’s a fact. What your book needs, before you even consider that stage, is to be better.

And honestly, the only way it’s going to get better, to reach its fullest potential, is through the editors in a publishing company. The freelancers, the ones who do it on the side just as a gig that pays, they don’t love your book like real editors do. The ones you can pay through a self-publishing firm like Createspace, they don’t love authors like real editors do.

You need to find a real publisher, a real editor, and get your book into the place where it really wants to be.

Instant gratification will never see the same dividends as putting the work in and taking the time to make your book reach its fullest potential.

Harsh? Yes. But true, nonetheless. 

[love]

{Rani Divine}