According to the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at the Harvard Business School, two-thirds of all startups fail. Another statistic cited is that 90% of startups fail within five years. Publishing companies are not only not immune to this, they probably start and fail faster than other types of businesses.
Why?
Well, for a number of possible reasons, but the two most common are:
-the publisher doesn’t anticipate the startup costs and can’t afford to keep it going.
-the publisher doesn’t have all the skills and knowledge necessary.
I and my partner have fallen victim. We thought we had all the skills necessary to publish the works of other authors and we were almost right. I am an experience Indie-author. I’ve self published forty books. I’m also (if I do say so myself) a pretty good editor.
My partner has been traditionally published for years and considers herself a good editor and graphic artist. She also has an extensive network among the writing community.
We figured with those skills, what could possibly go wrong?
Marketing.
That is where we went wrong. My partner was certain she could get a marketing person to join our team, but she was turned down by those she approached. Without that key piece, the whole house of cards fell. And I was the one who breathed the final breath to send it toppling.
My partner believed that if we just published more books things would get better. But I’ve tried that. I’ve published a lot of books and I know that adding more doesn’t make them all sell. You may get a momentary boost, but it quickly disappears.
Marketing—good marketing—successful marketing is the only way to sell books. And marketing costs money. The most successful marketing costs a lot of money. (I know an author to admits to spending a thousand dollars a month on market and doesn’t come close to earning that back and she’s a brilliant author who writes wonderful, funny romcoms.) Neither I nor my partner had that sort of cash to put into the business.
Sadly, I saw this first and wanted to get out, close up shop before we published any more books or spent too much more money. My partner, very understandably, was hurt and angry. She was optimistic that we could truly succeed. I’m afraid that, while I do tend to be a glass half-full type of person, I’m also a pragmatic realist. When I saw what was happening, or rather not happening in terms of sales, I didn’t see the point in continuing and possibly doing harm to the authors we had contracted but not yet published.
I’m not happy to have failed, but I’d rather do so with the least damage to others.
As with all failures, I look for a lesson learned. The one I got from this is to not discount the importance of marketing. I have always been in awe of those who have those skills and know very well that no matter how much I read and study, I will never be good at it. I allow my own work to suffer because of my lack of these skills (again, because I don’t want to spend so much more than I earn like my friend does), but I will not do the same to others who have high hopes and expectations.
So all of this is to say that I am no longer a part of Annessa Ink. My partner( ex-partner?) is going to attempt to either find someone else to take my place or continue on her own. If she does find someone, I can only hope they are an expert at marketing. I wish her well. and look forward to continuing on with my coach and formatting business, which I never gave up.
If you need editing or assistance formatting or publishing your book, you know you can always come to me.