Publishers DO Market Books

This is going to be a short post.

Lately there has been a myth among the self-publishing community that publishers do not market books, and because of this many feel they might as well self-publish. Now let me say that self-publishing, in my opinion, shouldn’t be used as a last resort, because that is insulting to self-publishing itself nowadays. But it should also not be used because you think having a publisher isn’t going to add any value you to. (In reality, we should just ditch the term self-publishing and just go with the indie label, which I think many are doing anyway.)

Rachelle Gardner is an excellent voice among the publishing community. I do not like to read articles from self-published authors that tout self-publishing as the way to go, and I do not like to read articles from experts in the publishing business who say self-published authors are doomed to fail and are only adding to the crap storm of books burying all the gems.

But she is an excellent voice because she is both in favor of self-publishing and traditionally publishing. So you can read her article here. This is also an argument for small presses, because they do marketing, although they may not be able to do it in the way legacy publishers can.