Writing
Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing
August 7, 2022 Sabrina K. Marshall
As a writer, when you've finished your manuscript, you have a decision to make of whether or not you should self-publish your book or publish the traditional route. Now, if it were easy for all of us to publish the traditional route, I don't think self-publishing would have been created, but luckily for a lot of indie authors, self-publishing is an option. There are some pros and cons between self-publishing and traditional publishing that you should keep in mind before you proceed.
4 Benefits of Self-Publishing Your Book
1. Limited Barriers
In order to get published the traditional route, you’ll need a literary agent to represent you and pitch your work to publishing companies for consideration. This means you have to acquire a literary agent first. This could be an obstacle for many writers, especially under represented groups. If you choose self-publishing you wouldn't need to worry about sending countless query letters to agents, or going through countless rejection letters from them. You could skip this step altogether, worry-free. This is the perfect opportunity to prove yourself as a solid writer and get your name into the marketplace for agents and publishers to notice you.
2. Full Creative Control
With traditional publishing, there’s generally people who will have opinions on your content with the creative control to change it, even if you don’t agree with the change. You won’t have the ability to hold onto characters or plot lines that are near and dear to you as a storyteller. An interesting example of this I read in the Huffpost was the suggestion for Joanne Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, to change her name to the initials J.K. The suggestion actually came from the publishing company, Bloomsbury who thought having an obvious female named author would deter boys from reading the book.
With self-publishing your book, you retain full control of everything. You design the cover as you've envisioned it, format the contents how you want it, and stet or accept edits as you see fit. You have the final say...period.
3. Percentage of Royalties
When you self-publish your book on platforms like Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble, Ingram Spark, Book Baby, you choose the royalty option you feel works best for you. This will be a higher cut for you than with traditional publishing. You can typically get up to 70 percent of your royalties with self-publishing as compared to up to 25 percent with traditional publishing, which is being generous. Although the extent of your success in either route lies in the number of book sold, which is key.
4. Speed to Market
Publishing your own content has a much shorter path to market than traditional publishing. When you’ve finished your manuscript, completed your final round of editing and proofreading, and formatted your book, you only need to upload it to the self-publishing company of your choice. With KDP it could be ready to sell within 6 hours of hitting the publish button. Traditional publishing would take significantly longer.
Self-publishing gives more writers the ability to have their content published allowing for more creativity and diversity to breakthrough the literary marketplace, and the chance to be seen and heard.
4 Downsides of Self-Publishing
1. No Representation
While it’s difficult for some writers to acquire a literary agent, having one could be a considerable advantage in the literary world. Agents have direct connections and relationships with publishing companies, making their attempt to pitch new content for consideration more efficient. In fact, most publishing companies won’t even look at your content without being represented by an agent. If you are lucky enough to land an agent, they would pitch the book to small, medium, and large publishing companies like Scholastic, Bloomsbury, or Harper Collins, etc. in an attempt to get a book deal. They will do what they can to negotiate a better deal on your behalf, with a percentage going their way. If all goes well, you’ll get a great offer and be on your way to being a traditionally published author.
2. Credibility
Being a traditionally published author and associated with a major publishing house means more clout. Indie authors have a lot more to prove as being a legit author when they self-publish.
3. Visibility
Traditional publishing will drive more awareness for you as an author and for your book. Publishing companies have the resources in place to execute fully integrated marketing campaigns pre book launch, launch, and post-launch. As a self-publishing author you’d have to plan your marketing strategy and execute the plan yourself using your own money and resources. You’d have to double up as a writer and marketing executive. Some say at this point, you'd need to be 10 percent writer, 90 percent marketer in order to succeed. If people don’t know your book exists, it won’t sell, and driving awareness takes a lot of work. On the contrary, the publishing company will only profit if your book sells, so they’d do everything they can to drive awareness and book sales so they can recoup their own fees and be profitable.
4. Less Profits
After all the expenses you’ve exhausted self-publishing your book, you’ll need to at least break even before you start seeing profits. Once your friends and family buys a copy, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to sell a few more books. Tally up all your expenses, determine the best pricing strategy - if it's too high potential customers may be reluctant to buy it, if it's too low you'll take longer to make a profit - then determine how many books you'll need to sell to breakeven. Here’s where your advertising dollars and savvy marketing skills will come into play. If you’re not as savvy with marketing techniques and your book is not selling, you'd get fewer sales and in turn fewer profits.
You'll have to wear many hats as a self-publisher, doing multiple jobs that directly impact the success of your book.
My recommendation would be to at least try to land a literary agent first so that you can have a chance at being traditionally published. If successful, this will take a huge workload off your shoulders and improve your chances of getting money upfront. If that doesn't work out, then self-publishing is a solid back up plan. Don't let the cons of self-publishing discourage you from making the leap toward making your dream come true. There are many successful indie authors who have made a great name for themselves using the indie route to either successfully transition to traditional publishing or just choosing to stay independent.
