Should I Self-Publish My Book?
As a member of the #WritingCommunity on Twitter, I see some version of this question crop up on a regular basis. It’s a hard question to answer, because ultimately, you’re the only one who can decide which path is best for your book, and for your overall writing career. But hopefully, the information and guidelines I’m about to provide can help you with that decision.
But first, a little background so you’ll know where I’m coming from: I self-published my first novel in 2011. It was not the first novel I’d ever written — not by a long shot. It had a number of predecessors, both finished and unfinished. I’d made a few stabs at going the traditional publishing route, only to get rejected.
I decided to post this particular novel online to generate feedback, and put it up to read for free on a Blogger blog (this was around 2009). It got great feedback, so I put it on Scribd, where it continued to get good feedback.
By 2011, self-publishing was really taking off thanks mainly to KDP, and the authors I knew who were going that route were having a blast. I fell in love with the indie spirit, and I was also disheartened by the entire trad-pub submission model and how terribly long each step takes along the way from querying to acceptance to publication.
So I pulled that novel off of Scribd, gave it another polish, used the Photoshop skills I’d learned from my years as a web and graphic designer to put together an attractive cover, and published it to Amazon via KDP.
Suddenly, I was a published author with a real live book for sale.
I fell in love with the indie spirit.
And people started buying it. Not a lot, not enough for me to come anywhere near giving up my freelancing business to write full time, but enough to make me feel like a legit author. They also posted glowing reviews, which definitely helped. I finished my next novel and self-published it in 2012, and managed to write and publish a number of shorter works in the following years.
Fast-forward to 2015. I was a little weary of how much work goes into self-publishing, of having to do it all myself, and was wondering if I should go the trad-pub route again just so I’d have help with production and marketing.
As fate would have it, the acquisitions editor at a midsize independent publishing house based in South Carolina read my first novel, loved it, and looked me up to see if I’d written a sequel. When she saw that I hadn’t, and realized that my book was self-published, she reached out to feel me out about turning that book into a series.
Before I knew it, a three-book publishing contract had landed in my lap. And I’ll tell you something, if I’m being honest: as proud I was of my self-pubbed books, signing that contract made me feel like I’d truly arrived as an author. I don’t deny that it was thrilling, and it gave me legitimacy in the eyes of people who had until that point viewed my writing as more of a hobby.
But then the clouds I was walking on parted and dropped me back into reality.
Signing that contract made me feel like I’d truly arrived as an author.
It turned out, working with a traditional publisher was just as much work as self-publishing. Their manuscript formatting requirements were so rigorous that in the time it took me to prep my manuscript for submission I could have formatted it for KDP and Createspace.
They provided covers that I must say I loved, and professional editing for each book, but to be honest, I turned in such clean manuscripts that I never really felt like their editor did much to improve them, making changes based on their personal preference that in most cases I ended up rejecting (and yes, as the author you’re allowed to reject your editors line edits).
And once each book came out, I not only had to work my own butt off to market them without a lot of help, I was also contractually obligated to do so. Which meant I had to spend a lot of time and energy on “marketing” activities that satisfied my publisher but that weren’t actually effective.
To be clear, this is not a criticism of my publisher. This is all actually pretty standard.
I was ready to run back to the arms of self-publishing, and I haven’t looked back since.
And the most disillusioning part? The royalties were so small, compared to what my self-published books earned. Not to mention dealing with the frustration of not having control over my books, not having the ability to run special promotions or experiment with different price points or trying out different categories to help new readers discover my books and generate sales, all things I’m able to do with my indie books.
By the time I turned in my final book and fulfilled my contract, I was ready to run back to the arms of self-publishing, and I haven’t looked back since.
If you’re on the fence about self-publishing, my story might be enough to sway you. But the fact is that self-publishing isn’t for everybody. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to determine whether it’s the right path for you.
What are your goals?
What does your dream look like? Does it look like being able to announce you’ve signed with your dream agency, posting photos on Instagram of you signing your first publishing contract, getting a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly? Those are all legitimate things to want, and those are all things you won’t get via self-publishing.
But if your dream is simply to have people read and fall in love with your books and/or to make a living as a full-time author, self-publishing might be the better way to go.
Take time to get really clear on your goals, on what you want your writing career to look like, and then decide which publishing path will best help you achieve those goals.
Do You Want to Run a Business?
One thing many people don’t realize is that when you self-publish, you are effectively running your own publishing company. Doing well at self-publishing requires an entrepreneurial mindset and you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of running an actual business, which includes things like taxes and accounting and developing multiple income streams and deciding on a business structure. None of these things have to be complicated, and there are tools out there that help, but these are things you don’t necessarily have to worry much about if you’re a trad-pubbed author.
Do You Have What You Need to Produce a Quality Book?
Turning your manuscript into an actual book, whether an e-book, a paperback, or both (and let’s not forget audiobooks), can be an expensive undertaking if your plan is to outsource all of the work to professionals.
This is not the only way, of course. In Self-Publishing for the Broke Author I show you plenty of free and low-cost options for producing a professional-quality book, from editing and cover design to paperbacks and hardbacks and even audio books. All of this does require an investment of your time, of course, but the good news is that since I DIY’d my first novel back in 2011, the tools and resources available to indie authors have come such a long way that most are not only incredibly effective but also ridiculously easy to use.
I believe anybody can put together a quality book, one way or another, if they really want to, but it does require spending either money or time that you might not want to spend. If that’s the case, traditional publishing might be more your speed.
Are You a Fast Writer or a Slow Writer?
Traditional publishing moves at a snail’s pace. This makes it a good fit for the sort of writer who needs a year or more to write and polish a book. Indie authors, on the other hand, tend to have more success if they can write and release books at a quick pace. If you tend to write fast and have the ability to write two or more books a year, you might be a great fit for self-publishing.
Do You Dream of Quitting Your Day Job?
For a lot of indie writers, the deciding factor came down to this: revenue.
The hard-to-swallow truth is that the traditional publishing model is designed to make money for the publisher. The Stephen Kings, John Grishams and J.K. Rowlings of the publishing world are few and far between. The truth is that the vast majority of traditionally published authors are nowhere near being able to support themselves by writing full time.
The indie world, on the other hand, is full of authors who are making a full-time living at this. It even has its fair share of rock stars who are making six- and seven-figure incomes.
Now before you get too excited, this doesn’t happen for everyone, and it takes time and hard work to get there. But writers tend to get there faster and more frequently than they do via traditional publishing.
If you’re questioning that claim, let’s do a little math. Publishing on Amazon at a price point anywhere between 2.99 and 9.99, you’ll receive a 70 percent share of every e-book sold (in traditional publishing, after your publisher and agent take their cuts, you’ll get closer to 30 to 40 percent on ebooks, and more like 5 to 10 percent on paperbacks).
Which means that for every ebook you sell priced at $4.99, you’ll keep $3.49. If you manage to sell 10 books a day, that’s $34.93 a day for one book. That might not sound too impressive, but if you can keep selling that many books every day for a year, you’ll make $12,750. Add a second book to your catalogue that sells just as well and you’ll double your income. Add a couple more and you’ll be well on your way to leaving your day job behind — all in the same space of time it typically takes to go from acceptance to launch with a traditional publisher.
The simple fact is that higher royalties mean you need to sell fewer books in order to be successful — that is, if you define success as being able to make a living.
But the truth is that success is subjective, and some people need the validation that comes from landing an agent and publisher in order to feel truly successful. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if that’s true for you, then you might not be satisfied with self-publishing. Or you might want to consider a hybrid path in which you pursue both. Nobody says you have to choose one or the other.
For some people, this is a no-brainer. Those people know what they want and they know which path to publishing is most likely to get them there. But if you’re struggling to decide which path is best for you, I hope these insights help you make an informed decision.
But in the end, the only one who can really answer that question for you is you.
Jean Marie Bauhaus is a hybrid author with four novels to her credit, as well as a freelance writer and editor. She’s also the author of Self-Publishing for the Broke Author: How to Edit Your Manuscript, Format Your Book and Create a Killer Cover on Little to No Money. This post was originally published at daydreamerpublishing.wordpress.com on March 29, 2019.
