Why I Didn't Self-Publish All My Books That Didn't Sell

Hey friends,

I hope those of you (mostly in the Northeast US) had a great February break last week and/or didn't go too bonkers spending all that time with your family. Yay school holidays! And if you're also on the Eastern seaboard, I hope you have cozy socks and many warm things to eat and drink after the Blizzard of '26.

Anyway, last weekend I did an online event with The Writers Circle, where we talked about how to stay creative and consistent in tough times. It was a great conversation and I really enjoyed talking about a non-query letter topic, even though I also do like talking about query letters. It's just that the non-this info will get you published events tend to get less attention than the other stuff. That's ok–I know what most people want to know when it comes to publishing info. Still, don't sleep on the other stuff. An attendee asked a really great question and I wanted to talk about about it here.

She asked: why didn't you choose to self-publish the books you didn't sell before Write Through It?

SUCH a good question! For those who don't know, Write Through It is my first published book, but it's not the first I wrote and it's far from the first book my agent and I tried to sell. All in all, I've written three picture books, three novels, and two non-fiction books, and only two of those sold to publishers. One novel never went on sub, and that's ok. It was the first one I ever wrote and I'm glad it didn't, lol. I did not consider self-publishing any of those manuscripts, except for one, and I'll tell you why.

I didn't want to.

I didn't want to self-publish them. I didn't want to do all the work that goes into successfully self-publishing a book. I didn't want to design, edit, copyedit, make a cover, 100% market and promote, distribute, and deal with customer service by myself. That'a a lot of work! I also didn't want to invest money in hiring other people to help me do all those things (because I absolutely would have hired a copyeditor and book/cover designer) mostly because when I started trying to get published myself I didn't have the money and now that I do, I still don't want to do the leftover work I couldn't pay someone to do. I just plain old did not want to do that work.

Most of the genres I worked in aren't strong in self-publishing markets.

Of those unsold manuscripts, two are picture books, one is middle grade, and one is YA. In my opinion, (except for maybe YA), those markets are not robust genres for self-publishing. I could be wrong, and I don't have any numbers here, but when I think of buying a picture book, I don't think first of ebooks (which is the primary, but not exclusive format of self-published books) and/or self-publishing marketplaces to buy one. I go to a bookstore and pick one up with my hands. I think this is true for most consumers. I also wrote a middle grade novel, and most MG readers (kids of that age and librarians) are not shopping in self-publishing marketplaces. How will they know about my book? I maybe could have self-published that YA novel, but tbh it was not ready for prime time, so that was never an option for me. (I also didn't want to do all the work, see above.)

I wanted to see my book in a bookstore.

I really, really, really wanted my book(s) distributed to brick and mortar stores across the country (and even the world). I knew from my publishing experience that if I self-published and wanted to see it in a Barnes & Noble, I would have to go to each. one. my. self. and ask if they would stock my book. Same for indies. There's no way I would have the time to do that for every bookstore in my city, no less the state, or country, obviously. Seeing my book in a store was and is important to me and it was and is important enough for me to shelve books that didn't sell and focus on others that might. This is a trade off I'm willing to accept to be traditionally published. I still love the books I wrote that didn't get picked up. They're no less good, to me, just because other editors out there didn't agree with me.

There was one project I thought about self-publishing.

About twelve years ago or so, I wrote a non-fiction book on how to get a craft book (sewing, knitting, etc) published. It was over 50,000 words and I paid a friend to copyedit it for me and everything. I'd been thinking about this idea for many years, because earlier in my career, I did a LOT of this kind of book, and it's a very particular kind of book to try to sell and write. I had great fun writing that book! And I also knew I could get the word out about it. Back then there were ten times as many craft blogs and I knew lots and lots of people in that world. I knew I could get coverage on blogs, get high profile craft people to blurb or endorse the book, and even sell it on Etsy. But by the time I got my act together and wrote the whole thing, the tide had already turned on this genre. YouTube was chipping away at craft blog traffic and craft book sales with quick and free video tutorials. It was getting harder for me, as an agent, to sell my clients' craft books and I could not in good conscience put a book out there that said YOU TOO CAN WRITE A CRAFT BOOK if I knew the market was cooling and those who did would be unlikely to see success. I mean, craft books did, and still do, continue to sell, but I'd missed the boom and I didn't want to mislead authors. I was totally well positioned to self-publish this book: I was known in craft circles as "the craft book agent," I knew tons of people, I knew I could get to readers who wanted this info, and I also knew traditional publishers would not pick up this book because it was too niche. What I didn't have on my side was timing. And so it goes.

Self-publishing is great. If that is the road you want to take you should absolutely do it. But it is not always the best off ramp if traditional publishing doesn't work out for you. It's not an automatic second choice or fallback. It doesn't work for every kind of book or every kind of writer. There are so many reasons to self-publish and many, many people find success there. I knew I wouldn't, so I didn't do it. It's as simple as that.

How do you feel about self-publishing? Tell me in the comments.

Quick announcement: I'm closing to queries on February 27th until Summer-ish, so I can catch up. If you want to query me before then, you can do so here: https://QueryManager.com/katemckean As a reminder, if you send me a query to any email address, I just delete it.

Preorder alert!! World Without Birds by Nick Lund, illustrations by Asia Orlando comes out March 3rd from Workman Kids and the bird-loving, environmentally-minded young person in your life will love it.

XOXOXOOX,

Kate