A friend recently suggested that I consider self-publishing Shelf Life: A Book about an Overabundance of books. I didn’t tell her what I was thinking – that I am going to pass on this idea. My reasoning is that this is going to be a great, not a mediocre book – and the mediocre books are the ones that are self-published.

It is true, that a writer stands to make more money if they self-publish. They also have to (as they don’t with a regular publisher) do their own distribution.

But there are more reasons to go with a regular publisher than not.

I have now had thousands of books pass through my hands, some self-published and some not. What people who self-publish don’t acknowledge is that publishers have individuals working for them who are specialists in graphics, marketing, layout, and design. In most instances, self-publishing is like doing brain surgery with a butterknife.

Self-published

I can give an example of why I think this way. Next to my computer, on the right, I have a copy of Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole. Her name is at the top, and underneath it says, “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Shipping News.” The cover is simple – it’s of a metal shed in the middle of a field.

On the reverse side are blurbs from The New York Observer, USA Today, and the Boston Globe. Undoubtedly, the publishers got this book to the blurb reviewers, in this case publications and not names are mentioned.

The author’s bio is under the blurbs. There’s a list of previous publications. The bio ends with a statement: “She lives in Wyoming and Newfoundland.”

The book layout and font are professionally done.

I started to read this book based on all of the above. I stopped one-third of the way through because the book couldn’t keep my interest. This book is a continuous narrative – I was hoping it would be like Wyoming Stories, which is a series of stories.

The book’s appearance and external wording did give me the impression that this book wasn’t quite as good as Proulx’s two previous books.

I am sure that this isn’t what you expected to hear. I’ll bet you expected to hear that the publishers did a really good job on the external marketing, and this verified my claim that this is the way to go. No, instead what I’m saying here is that it’s possible to tell a book by its cover, and in this way determine if the book is as good as the one that came before it.

Knowing what I now know, about the externals related to marketing, you’d think that I’d be gung ho about self-publishing. The answer is no, I am not gung ho because I lack marketing/publishing/graphics expertise. I also would rather have someone else do this because I don’t have the interest. I’d rather spend my time writing.

Next: 54. 2/23/23: Snow Day