At BookLocker.com, we have had several authors land traditional contracts after self-publishing through us. However, many have returned to us because their earnings through traditional publishers were so low. Most traditional publishers expect new authors to do all of the promotional work. If a book takes off, only then will the invest marketing dollars. Those authors were doing the same amount of work, but earned higher royalties through BookLocker than they did later through the traditional publishers.
I had one title published through St. Martin's Press after self-publishing it for years. It sold extremely well. I earned more than $700 selling it through my own website, WritersWeekly.com, on the very first day. It was only available as an ebook at that time. I was still working on designing the print files. The advance from St. Martin's was nice but the publisher made me take my self-published edition off the market while they worked on their edition. I lost over a year of sales while they worked every so slowly (and their editor made mistakes over and over again that I had to keep telling her to fix). Also, by the time they got their edition on the market, some of the information was old and some links no longer worked. Was I going to go through the whole process with them again? No way!
They even tried to tell me I had to hand over my website, WritersWeekly.com, to them. Ha ha ha. That was NOT in the contract! After it finally hit the market, they did essentially nothing to promote the book. I never made another dime on that book. If I had kept self-publishing it, I'd have made a LOT more money.
Years later, I self-published a book on a very similar subject and sales have been consistent and strong. I update it on a regular basis and my royalty percentages are much higher through self-publishing than those offered by St. Martin's Press.
At BookLocker.com, we have had several authors land traditional contracts after self-publishing through us. However, many have returned to us because their earnings through traditional publishers were so low. Most traditional publishers expect new authors to do all of the promotional work. If a book takes off, only then will the invest marketing dollars. Those authors were doing the same amount of work, but earned higher royalties through BookLocker than they did later through the traditional publishers.
I had one title published through St. Martin's Press after self-publishing it for years. It sold extremely well. I earned more than $700 selling it through my own website, WritersWeekly.com, on the very first day. It was only available as an ebook at that time. I was still working on designing the print files. The advance from St. Martin's was nice but the publisher made me take my self-published edition off the market while they worked on their edition. I lost over a year of sales while they worked every so slowly (and their editor made mistakes over and over again that I had to keep telling her to fix). Also, by the time they got their edition on the market, some of the information was old and some links no longer worked. Was I going to go through the whole process with them again? No way!
They even tried to tell me I had to hand over my website, WritersWeekly.com, to them. Ha ha ha. That was NOT in the contract! After it finally hit the market, they did essentially nothing to promote the book. I never made another dime on that book. If I had kept self-publishing it, I'd have made a LOT more money.
Years later, I self-published a book on a very similar subject and sales have been consistent and strong. I update it on a regular basis and my royalty percentages are much higher through self-publishing than those offered by St. Martin's Press.
Thank you for the transparency.