Self-Publishing: Traditional vs Self-Publishing

I chose to self-publish my first book. Here's why.

I was quickly turned off by the idea of traditional publishing due to the lengthy process (and expected rejections) of sending out query letters to literary agents before even getting to a publisher. While having the backing of a publisher is appealing for many reasons, not seeing my book reach the market for months, years, (ever?) didn’t appeal to me.

Self-publishing has its own list of down sides as well that I think are important to note. Much of it boils down to having to do the work yourself and invest your own money to get your project off the ground. Like a lot of things in life, it’s all about time and money.

Time

• Researching what to do and how to do it.
• If you’re going to upload your book to various platforms as eBooks or for Print on Demand (like Amazon, IngramSpark and Barnes & Noble) expect to spend a fair amount of time formatting and reformatting your files based on their unique requirements.
• Getting your book out there, whether through social media, contacting book stores directly or creating your own marketing materials.
• Setting up a website, unless you opt to have someone else do it for you. In which case, more money.

Money

• Using a quality editor is going to cost you.
• Purchasing your own ISBNs.
• Setting up a website and having your own domain name.
• With no publisher backing you, you’re only going to make money on what sells. So no one’s paying you to write that next novel.
• Depending on how and where you decide to try and distribute your book there can be costs associated with listing it.
• The cost for marketing and promotional materials.
• Anything you can’t do yourself you’ll need to hire someone else to do, like creating your cover.

I have a unique background that positioned me well to take all this on. My profession is in web development, so navigating self-publishing websites and setting up my personal site was all doable for me. I also had the great fortune of growing up in a printing business, so I understand the terminology and have experience with the software used in creating the files for publishing. And perhaps luckiest of all, I’m married to an artist so I was able to get my cover created free of charge.

All of this made self-publishing an easy decision for me. I was able to get my book out to consumers quickly, which allows me to get realtime feedback as I work on my next novel. Do I think that self-publishing is a viable direction for other authors? Absolutely. There are a lot of great resources out there to help you along your way, but it’s definitely not going to be for everyone.

Is traditional publishing completely off the table for me? Perhaps not. But for now, I’m happy to have my book out there to share with others.