Don’t Believe These “Truths” About Your Book

As a traditional publishing expert, sometimes I get tagged on social media posts from would-be authors who have questions about their books but no one to ask.

So they naturally ask the Internet. And today I decided to address a few of the most common answers I see that are totally false.

What’s in bold below are real comments, from real people, posted on LinkedIn.

Underneath is my take as an expert in publishing who has worked in traditional publishing for 20 years AND who has helped authors both self- and hybrid publish.

If the sales were high enough, a publisher would come in later.

This is technically true but “high enough” is A LOT of books. Like millions of copies.

Given that most books sell far less than that, this outcome is super unlikely for any author. It’s only happened twice in my entire career, and I’ve worked on hundreds of books.

TLDR — This is not a thing that you should bet on. And it’s not true for subsequent books either.

You wrote the book, why give a publishing house any of your money to do the same thing that you can do and keep all of your revenue.

I feel rage bubbling up in me because this is just WRONG. Traditional publishing houses do not…