Is Self-Publishing Right for You?

Today’s question is one I received via email rather than through my Q&A blog post, but I know it’s a common one these days, so I wanted to take a stab at answering it here:

How do you know if self-publishing is right for you?

A few years ago (shoot, a couple of years ago), self-publishing was a lot less popular than it is today. For most, it wasn’t something you considered if you were a “serious” writer (someone who wanted to make a career out of it), unless you were working in a small niche with a limited market. You can read more about how the tides have turned in my post on Why Self-Publishing Is So Popular Right Now.

Even though the perceptions of writers and readers are changing, it’s still not the road everyone wants to follow. Let’s break this down into reasons why you might want to self-publish and reasons why you might not want to.

Reasons to Self-Publish

• Complete control over your work — You get to write your story, your way. Choose your own cover art, write in the genre you love (not what’s popular), and do whatever you want when it comes to word count. There are no rules on length any more, especially when most of your sales will come as ebooks. Want to write an epic fantasy novel that’s 300,000 words long? Go for it. Prefer short stories and novellas, since you can pen them more quickly? That’s an option too. At Amazon, my 17,000-word steampunk adventure Flash Goldis selling better than all except one of my novels this month.
• Far greater earnings per book — As an indie, you take home 70% per ebook priced between $2.99 and $9.99 (35% on others), whereas, as someone beholden to the traditional system, your cut is whatever your agent can get you (I’ve heard anywhere from a high of 25% to a low of 8% for ebooks — I make 7% as an Amazon affiliate just for linking to a book from my website…it’s truly abysmal to imagine writing the entire book and only getting 1% more than that). And don’t assume you’ll sell a lot more books if you’re traditionally published. I know lots of indies with better sales rankings at Amazon than even popular traditionally published authors. I link to this post a lot, but here’s a comparison of two mid-list fantasy authors, one indie and one traditionally published (note: the trad. published fellow has been in the biz a lot longer and, yes, the indie is making a lot more).
• You can get books to market much more quickly — If your hoping to write for a living someday, it pays to get your books out there sooner rather than later. The sooner you have a body of work out there, the sooner you can start marketing, and the sooner people can buy it and (we hope!) become fans and try your other books.
• Ability to make changes, especially in price — As an indie, you can change the cover art, blurb, and price at any time to see if your book sells better one way than another. Not only do traditionally published folks not get much say in this, but, when it comes to ebooks, the prices the presses set can really hurt your odds of selling books. If you’re a new author and your publisher has decided to sell your ebook at $8 or $9…good luck.
• Horror stories of bad contracts and rights being tied up long-term — Check out this interview I did with Bridget McKenna, a traditionally published author who got sick of working with the system and is turning indie. She never did get the rights back to the books she published in the 90s. Hers isn’t an unusual story.

Reasons to Try the Traditional Route

As you can see, I’m a fan of self-publishing (obviously!), but I can see why some people want to give the traditional route a try. Here are a few reasons that this path might be for you:

• An advance on a book sale — Most of the advances I’ve heard of people getting are pitifully small, but you do see stories here and there of bidding wars between houses that result in authors getting a big advance.
• More hand-holding when it comes to marketing — As far as I can tell, you don’t get much help (money-thrown-into-advertising type help) with the actual marketing unless you do get one of those big advances and the publisher has something wrapped up in your success, but even the small publishers seem to be willing to help with showing you how to arrange blog tours and such. I’d argue that you can learn how to do everything yourself, and you have more control over doing book giveaways and such, but not everybody cares to be all alone in this endeavor.
• A near-perfect manuscript to present to the public — I’ll be the first to admit that even with multiple passes, beta readers, and the work of a good freelance editor (something you have to pay for as an indie), it’s hard to catch all the typos and flubs in a 400-page manuscript. You’ll see typos occasionally in traditionally published books, but they’re rare, since more people have gone over the file. I hate it when someone points out a typo in a review. (I don’t hate the person for doing it; I just hate that the typo slipped through!) With ebooks, I can easily go in and fix the typo, but the review is there forever. You also tend to take such things (formatting mishaps and digs against your cover art too) a lot more personally when you’re an indie, because you can’t pass the buck and say, “Oh, that was my publisher’s fault.”
• The prestige of making a sale to a big publisher — If you sell your book to one of the Big 6 publishers, it’s cool. It just is. You know your paperbacks (maybe hardbacks too) will be on sale in physical bookstores (those that are left!) across the country, maybe across the world eventually. Like I said, cool.

While I hope I’ve given the writers out there something to think about, I do want to sign off by pointing out that it doesn’t have to be an either/or decision. A lot of traditionally published authors are using their names to sell short stories and novellas as indie ebooks and make extra money on their own. Some hardcore independent authors eventually seek representation and a deal with a Big 6 publisher once they’ve shown that their books sell well. Whatever you decide today doesn’t have to be forever.