For some time now I’ve been a bit unnerved by the whole self-published community. There are many disappointed, discouraged and dismayed self-published authors whom I have met, who have uploaded books that are not selling. I met one person who hasn’t sold any of her lovely books at all and another who works 24/7 on her work. While working hard is commendable, this striving and continued work on getting books out to the public has somewhat of an obsessive characteristic. I’ve met other authors who published well-written books as well and yet they have not garnered “substantial” sales.

This is no surprise! The hype from the books that guide us along this wonderful path of self-publishing are often misleading and over-zealous in their attempts to sell us on this work.

Let’s face it.

Writing a book, a good book, a well-thought out book and beautiful book takes heart, soul and energy. It takes hard work and long, lonely hours. Self-publishing requires self-teaching. One must teach oneself about marketing and about target marketing. Goodness, there’s so much to learn! Writing a “Best Seller” is an admirable goal but I fear many are becoming discouraged simply because the expectation to meet this goal is not fulfilled. 

The fact is that most self-published authors make an average of about $12,000 a year and I think that this amount is even a very high average.  I haven’t seen that kind of money from my little books and I don’t even expect to see that.  For me, self-publishing was never about selling so many books that I’d be a huge author, but it was about making a contribution, an excellent contribution, to the picture book world. Self-publishing is simply about publishing books that I feel are needed. That’s it. I published something to help teachers and parents and children and I know that my little book has accomplished its goal, albeit in a small, humble manner. 

That’s it!

So, if you’ve self-published and haven’t become the huge best seller, take heart. You’ve achieved a important life goal. You have published a book and I hope you feel quite proud and humbled at the same time that you’ve been able to complete an incredible project.

Self-publishing is a lot of fun, if, one doesn’t take it too seriously.