A consumer wrote me lately and asked what I thought of his utilizing a publicist to promote his guide – to the tune of $four,000 per month. In my typical blunt style, I responded by telling him most self-published publications never sell much more than one hundred copies, that 2000 product sales is considered excellent in the business and that the number of individuals who sell between fifty,000 and one hundred,000 can probably be counted on one hand. I just was not sure the publicist would give him the details, because said publicist stood to make a great deal of money off this writer, whether he offered a guide or not.

Following a while I started pondering that I’d painted a instead bleak image of the entire business and realized that while indeed, many self-published publications make very little money, there are exceptions, and his guide – or your guide, could well be the exception.

Success stories are not hard to discover. There’s MJ Rose for instance, who published her initial guide electronically and later on offered it to Doubleday. Because then, her profession as an writer has taken off and she lately announced the sale of three paranormal thrillers.

One of my former clients, Paul Clayton, utilized Booklocker to create his war novel Carl Melcher Goes To Vietnam and it was picked up by traditional publisher, Dunne Books. Likewise, Marnia Robinson whose Peace Between the Sheets, was also purchased by a traditional publisher following its release via Booklocker.

I had another consumer, also published via Booklocker, interviewed on both 48 Hours and Good Morning America. Yet another offered nearly one thousand publications in two days, even though he did not use any self-publishing company and managed the project independently.

In accordance to business specialists (study: these who stand to make gobs of money if you self-publish) there’s little opportunity that a new writer will be in a position to sell a guide to a traditional publisher in present day marketplace. At minimum one company proprietor will rapidly assure you that even if you do handle to sell your guide, you won’t get a big progress, if you get one at all. Maybe. Whether or not it is accurate or not, this certainly was not the case for 27-year-old Marisha Pessl whose initial novel lately offered at auction for hundreds of 1000′s of dollars.

The reality is that if you have a good guide and there’s a marketplace for it, there’s no need to let other people dissuade you from attempting to discover an agent or traditional publisher, if that is the way you want to go. There are also many factors to self-publish (particularly if you have a niche marketplace). Just make sure the advice you are receiving is unbiased.

Cathi Stevenson is a former newspaper author and editor who has much more than 2,000 published articles to her credit. In publishing because 1981, she opened her own guide cover style company in 2000 and because then BookCoverExpress.com has produced much more than 650 guide addresses for independent publishers and presses of all sizes. Study much more of Cathi’s articles about publishing at: http://www.thoughtblog.net