And the other 18% think they can tell you their story, you write it, and yall split the profits. Here’s an interesting article with one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul guys. You may not be quite as aggressive as this author in terms of promoting your work, but we all could use a kick in the marketing tail from time to time.
I seriously doubt that the average self-published book sells about 3,000 copies, as this guy claims.
Marketing your book is important, but when it comes to fiction, your first step is to write the best book possible. People who say that writing the book is “10 percent” of the process in my opinion are full of it. Keep in mind that this guy doesn’t really write much of anything — he compiles and edits anecdotes written by other people.
“Don’t put it off. Even if you can write only a page per day, that’s about 250 words. At the end of a year, if you write every day, you will have a book of about 365 pages. It’s better to devote that kind of time and attention than stretching your book writing over 10 or 15 years, he says.”
This is excellent advice, especially for those of us who are still trying to get our writing careers off the ground while working a full-time job. Write whenever you can-morning, lunch time, evening, whenever you can fit it in. Most importanty, maintain consistency by writing every day, even if its only a page.
The average self-published book sells 3,000 copies? WTF is he talking about?