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To self-publish or not to self-publish - that is the question!
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Hey, Alex. This is a really good topic I haven't encountered often on here. Also, very thought-provoking. I've just recently published my first novel on Kindle, and I'm going through the process of getting to know how it all works. My thoughts about this, consequently, won't come from experience as much, but from general pros and cons analysis with a dash of subjective approach, since I'm an author myself.I understand your dilemma perfectly. In this ever changing industry, ebooks have become the easiest route to get published. The creativity freedom and accessibility of all the tools is surely one major plus for all authors. After all, we're only a couple clicks away from putting our books out there. On the other hand, majority of us have no marketing tools on disposal, and we all know that marketing is what sells the book. There are, of course, numerous alternative ways we can reach our audience: Goodreads, free ARC reviews, paid reviews, social media promotions, etc. But for those who have no resources for such intense campaigns, it can be hard at best and depressing at worst, especially if writing is your true calling and the one thing you want to do in life.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are huge publishers with all the tools at their disposal, with the biggest advantage being the social base they can influence and make the author known to all. As you've already mentioned, there are many problematic restrictions: the very acceptance of the book, the royalties, control over the content of the book, etc. For some, this can become a very confined space but they're bound by contracts not easy to get out of. I've had the opportunity to talk to some publishers and their agents and I've had all the connections necessary for a breakthrough, but what stopped me was the element of high uncertainty: would they accept the book as I want it to be; how much money would I have to invest; would the investment even pay off; is the market already full of authors like myself, etc.
The biggest downside of this vocation is the absolute certainty that there are people out there with the most amazing books written, but they can never get the spotlight they deserve simply because the search for a publisher can be endless, the resources necessary too high, and the self-publishing option too meek to get the necessary recognition.
I understand the dilemma you're faced with right now. This latest book of yours took a lot of time, effort and nerves, which is why you really want it to succeed. All of us want that, of course. But now you're presented with a choice: the traditional route or the self-publishing one. The difference is, you've already tried the latter, so why not go for the former this time? Nobody says you absolutely have to go through a publisher if you don't like their terms and conditions, but if it's a constant thought in the back of your mind, maybe you should give it a shot. After all, in the beginning stages of the search, all you have to invest is time. Easier said than done, I know. Still, knowing something is or isn't for you sure as hell beats the "what if and what could've been" inner questions.
Lastly, if you ever wish to talk about topics similar to this one, writing in general, or anything else, feel free to pm me (or email me - alexisleiaauthor@gmail.com). I'm more than happy to help, encourage, debate, and so on.
Alex wrote: "Before I start, what follows is based on my research of opinions posted on the web - I don’t claim to be any kind of authority on the subject.Twenty years ago, the majority of books were publishe..."
Hello Alex,
Congratulations on finishing your next book!
My thought is, you answered yourself in the lasts paragraph of your discussion: You do have the opportunity right now to query your new book, and the point could be moot. You will never know unless you try that traditional route.
Alexis summed it up well in her post suggesting to invest time right now (be patient, it takes a lot of time) and answer those nagging questions of "what if."
Good luck in your publication, whichever path you end up taking!
Hi Alex,I read your post with great interest. I am in my sixties and I've been writing since my twenties. I wrote seven novels in the '90s and tried gathering interest from publishers for one of them. I didn't have any luck and gave up. A few years ago, an editor helped me prep some of my novels and I sent them to several publishers and a few agents. I heard directly from every publisher with positive responses/advice, yet in essence, rejections. Recently, I decided to self-publish. I have heard the same as you, traditional publishers work harder to promote your books while the royalties are less. Here is my summation: Breaking into the 'publisher/agent' world is extremely difficult as they want not just a good or even great book. They want an exceptional book where they are pretty much guaranteed massive sales. Mine did not fall into that category, but I would still have preferred that route to self-publishing. I have had over 200 sales for my first 2 novels in self-publishing in 2 months and should be receiving the 70% royalties, but I have also spent more money than I wanted to (more than my royalties) trying to market them on Facebook, Pinterest, Goodreads, Writersnet, Whizzbooks, Twitter, etc. Unless your social network is huge (mine isn't by choice), everyone and their brother will try to lure you in to pay for their marketing/promotional services. And what I've also discovered? Everyone and their brother are now writing books. If you can gather interest from a traditional publisher and don't have a huge social following, I would definitely advise that route, at least first before you self-publish. I hope that helps. Good luck to you! Gail
Not very long ago, only a few thousand living writers could legitimately claim the title of published author. The inventions and wide-spread availability of the personal computer and internet have made it possible for literally millions to claim that title.The positive result is now talented writers who invest the time, effort, and study to learn and then strive to continuously improve upon basic technical writing, narration, marketing, and promotional skills have an alternative to the very limited traditional publishing opportunities.
The negative result is that far too many self-published authors elect to forego the learning and continuous improvement phases of the process. Unfortunately, more often than not, this shortcut produces an amateurish, poor quality product that taints the reputations of those who produce polished, professional work.
Very few manage to become commercially successful in this extremely competitive field. However, some have. There is no reason why you could not eventually become one of them. Try both the traditional and alternative publishing opportunities. If one does not work for you, the other just might. I wish you success.
Thank you all for your comments and advice. You are of course quite right that I have little to lose by approaching agents (or perhaps publishers) first - even if one were to express an interest in my book (however much the odds are against it) I could still decline.I suppose there’s another question it would be interesting to answer - to what extent can a potential customer, scanning the ebook shelves for their next purchase distinguish between a book that has been self-published, and one that has emerged from one of the established publishing houses? And if they can tell the difference, does it influence their decision to buy?
If being published via the traditional route results in greater credibility in the eyes of the book-purchasing customer - however unfair that might be - then that on its own would potentially have a significant impact on sales.
Alex wrote: "Thank you all for your comments and advice. You are of course quite right that I have little to lose by approaching agents (or perhaps publishers) first - even if one were to express an interest in..."This is an interesting one. I think on the one hand, book shops and libraries are way, way more likely to stock a traditionally published book. Even if you've used ingram/lightning source, published your books wide and are in all the right catalogues you will find a complete wall, as a self published author, when it comes to traditional places to find books: Libraries, book shops and literary festivals. With a few gracious and wonderful exceptions, as I understand it (and have experienced it) you'll be very lucky if you can persuade them to stock your independent offering.
That said, what you might had gained from reads in those places, you will lose in royalties. With trad you get a much lower percentage of the royalties, as the author, indeed a trad author, unless they're in the two percent at the top, will earn their cash from appearances.
Folks like Barry Hutchieson, who wrote a very successful series called Space Team do tend to bear this out. He was a trad published author for years. He is gradually switching to being entirely self published because he earns so much more and has more creative freedom. He's quite up front about it - he did a podcast with Mark Dawson a couple of months ago.
I guess the ideal is to be hybrid. That way you have the Kudos of trad, plus the opened doors, so they are way more likely to stock your indie stuff which, if it sells well, is the thing that will make you the money.
Go indie and you need to learn everything, hiring decent editors, getting good cover art, branding, all that malarky. A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I used to be a marketing manager so I did realise, going into it, how much work it would be and also I'd produced enough print to know how much I needed to learn to produce a decent book.
To earn a lot you need to write to market, and to be honest, I just write what I like. But I've found that being indie gives me the freedom to write what I want, rather than what I'm told. There's also less pressure - especially if you ignore what other people are doing and go at your own pace.
Home life is hectic, my mum has dementia and I visit her once a week for lunch, it's a 300 mile round trip 5 hrs in the car minimum. My father died of Alzheimer's earlier this year, I have a young son and a husband who works, frankly, ludicrous hours (a 76 hour week is a good one). In what I laughingly call 'my spare time' I write.
Being an indie author has given me the freedom to have an actual job in a life where, really, there isn't time for me to be anything more than the person a lot of other folks depend on. In that way, it's brilliant for retaining something of yourself. I did try to get an agent for a year after I finished my book. In those days, simultaneous submissions were frowned upon and you had to apply one by one. There were only a handful prepared to look at humorous science fantasy books and it took 12 months to get a replies from six of them. It occurred to me that I might have actually died of old age before I got answers from all twenty or so, let alone before any of them deigned to read my book.
Worse, I was foolish enough to treat it like a job hunt, so before I submitted I would do stupid things like ring them to make sure my facts were right; was the contact given in the artists and writers yearbook still there? Were their lists still open? Were the submission guidelines on their website still up to date? Most reacted rather how I imagine a mother would if I asked her to roast one of her children alive over an open fire.
In the end, I self published because I couldn't be arsed to wait thirty or forty years for one of them to give me the time of day. And also because I believe politeness costs nothing. I sat back and thought, do I really want people working for me who are so utterly vile to anyone ringing their office? Do I really want to employ someone with a switchboard operator who treats people appallingly and hasn't fired them? And the answer was no.
So a lot of the enjoyment you get from it depends what you do, what your life is like, and how much patience you have for being treated like a nuisance by arrogant 20 year old graduate gatekeepers. I fear I had very little.
Looking back on it, I probably needed to give trad a bit of a go to settle something in me, but I can't help thinking that the year I spent querying agents was actually a complete waste of time.
Things may be better now, I hope they are. I also hope this helps!
Cheers
MTM
I am totally new to writing and publishing so it has been quite the learning experience. I found there was a dizzying amount of information and advice available.There are so many different ways to go about self-publishing today. You can do it completely by yourself with eBook tools and graphic design programs and publish on the big 3: Amazon / Kobo / Google and that's a good way to start to get a following or recognition which could lead to a publisher wanting to be involved in your next project.
There are also many companies that do a majority of the work, so you are basically contracting out a lot of the work. I looked at a few self-pubs and I found that a lot of them were a bit to pushy for my liking i.e, upselling, which I understand-it is their business.
I finally decided on a company after a few emails and phone calls . I got a good vibe and they were very attentive to my initial queries. There was no rush to make a decision so I appreciated that.
While I am anxiously awaiting the final product, I put together my own eBook with samples of my work as promotional material. So
I've gone both ways, paid someone who knows what they are doing (probably a good choice), and did some on my own.
Now the hard work begins- Marketing. 'nuff said...
Leon
Alex wrote: "Thank you all for your comments and advice. You are of course quite right that I have little to lose by approaching agents (or perhaps publishers) first - even if one were to express an interest in..."I approached agents and they wouldn't give me the time of day (back in the mid-90s), and publishers (same thing...plus you needed an agent back then), so I self-published setting up my sole-proprietorship, OmegaBooks. Published/printed two books, late 90s. Then had to raise my kids, home school them. Did not have time to wait years for an agent/publisher to respond. If you are a celebrity (even if you suck at writing and have to hire ghostwriters which I suspect most do), you'll become a best seller no matter what (because most people worship celebrities, right?). Regardless, as with recording artists who make squat on record/media sales, if you want to become wealthy or whatever, you have to do book tours, etc. Public appereances.
M.T. wrote: "Alex wrote: "Thank you all for your comments and advice. You are of course quite right that I have little to lose by approaching agents (or perhaps publishers) first - even if one were to express a..."That part about your mum, etc., MT, I was in the same position but a happier one, having to raise and home school my two kids when I was working on my two novels self-published in the late 90s. You also mentioned hybrid. In order to be available for sale on various world-wide platforms I went with Lulu and their GlobalReach program. Classic package, since I had the money. For sale now on Amazon, etc. I am almost 70 and do not have the wherewithall to try to format for EPub, Mobi, AWS, whatever for all these different sellers, so I paid to have the 'heavy lifting' done, and it was worth the cost. And like you, I write whatever comes into my head (I call it divine inspiration).
Deborah wrote: "M.T. wrote: "Alex wrote: "Thank you all for your comments and advice. You are of course quite right that I have little to lose by approaching agents (or perhaps publishers) first - even if one were..."Mwahahahaaaaargh divine inspiration! I love that.
Cheers
MTM
Investing in the services of a reputable, professional copy editor, conceptual editor, interior design artist, and graphic design artist significantly enhances the quality and commercial appeal of a book.I seriously doubt that any self-published or traditionally published author for that matter possesses the skill set of those listed in the previous paragraph. The old saying "You get what you pay for." is timeless and, more often than not, absolutely true.
So, are you saying to those who can't pay for professional help 'too bad, don't write'? Many did not use professional editors, design artists and the like not because they were too arrogant or thought that they were too smart to need their services, but simply because they don't have the money to pay them. Too many of us live paycheck to paycheck and don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend on editorial services. Yet, those same people may have something to offer in term of their imagination and ideas.
Michel wrote: "So, are you saying to those who can't pay for professional help 'too bad, don't write'? Many did not use professional editors, design artists and the like not because they were too arrogant or thou..."I hope not. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Although, in my case, I’m dyslexic, so it was fairly important that I found a decent editor. At the same time, it’s also the reason why there’s quite a long gap between books usually, although my Dad being sick didn’t help that one either, hence ... er hem ... four years. I’m three months behind with the new series, too because I had a £1k bill for my car in September!
That said, my old editor, who sadly died, charged about £450 for each one of my novels (and they are all over 100k). So there’s also a lot to be said for shopping around. There’s also editing and editing. The £450 lady approached editing as one job so she’d do developmental, then she’d do continuity errors, next harmonising speech, Character X says ‘yer’ instead of ‘yes’ all the way through but Character Y says ‘Yep’ etc and finally she’d trawl through it making apostrophes curly, sorting out the lengths of dashes etc. She charged me less because she liked the books. So it is possible to get help from people who love your work at a reduced rate.
The editor I use now is more expensive but she’s local. She’s not quite as strong developmentally, although my stuff may have just improved a bit, but she’s good at sorting out the consistency/dash length, literals dodgy spelling etc.
And of course, with editing, there are a lot of sharks in the water. I always go for someone who charges by the book and will include re-reading and re-checking changes before launch.
Cheers
MTM
I think there can be little doubt that every book submitted for publication should be as good as it can be - editing polished, continuity addressed, plot tuned, blurb tweaked and cover polished - the competition for space on readers’ bookshelves is fierce, and there’s little point in handing your potential customers any reasons not to choose your offering.We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and unless going down the traditional publishing route (given the chance), or fortunate enough to possess very deep pockets, I suspect many of us look for corners to cut. If we can do the editing then we do it. If blessed with a degree in graphic design then perhaps we design our own cover, and anyone with marketing experience must be tempted to peddle their own wares! Perhaps the trick then is to be sufficiently astute as to acknowledge what assistance our book will need to allow it to fly off the shelves, and sufficiently self-aware as to be honest about our own limitations.
In the end, many writers will dispense with professional services in these areas simply because they can’t afford them. Although they may be rare, the real tragedy is that some of these books are probably exceptional and deserve to succeed, but they may well not, simply because without that final polish, too many readers will recoil at the unprepossessing cover, flinch at the poorly contrived blurb or never venture beyond the spelling mistake on the first page.
Alex wrote: "I think there can be little doubt that every book submitted for publication should be as good as it can be - editing polished, continuity addressed, plot tuned, blurb tweaked and cover polished - t..."Yep. It really is too bad that folks have to spend oodles of money on getting that incredible cover done up, since the dagnabbit cover really is the deciding force in book sales. I believe in "you can't judge a book by its cover," but unfortunately that went out with Vonnegut, Tolkien, and CS Lewis. My advice? Take cell phone or other photos and incorporate them into your cover--that way, you own the copyright and don't have to pay Getty or whoever for cover photos. Do NOT rely on pexels.com or other "copyright free-royalty free" photos with that dagnabbit CASE Act where any copyright troll can "claim" he or she "owns" the copyright just because he or she can afford a shyster lawyer and can bribe the judge. And if you think I'm making this up a site of a friend of mine that advertises my books for free just lost a bogus "infringement lawsuit."
As for hiring an editor--I did that years ago on my first printed book for 1996 "Battle of the Band". This person taught English in HS and did beta reading, editing, and proofing--and she STILL handed me a final copy with mistakes! I truly believe that even the most prolific authors are still going to submit edited-proofed-beta-read books with a couple of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and slang or word mistakes, no matter how good they think they are.
If only a couple of mistakes, don't have a cow over it. And who knows? The mistakes could be because of the book publisher or printer.
If you have the money, go with an indie package publisher such as Lulu Press (the cost is worth it and it has global reach without having to format it many times). if not, format it for Amazon and see what happens. Use other formats as well, but make sure it's for sale on Amazon!
Twenty years ago, the majority of books were published through the ‘conventional’ route; by a publisher. Self-publishing generally meant so-called ‘vanity publishing’ as ebooks were more or less the stuff of science fiction.
In those twenty years the face of publishing has changed dramatically - I suspect the majority has now swung the other way, and thanks to the availability of a multitude of options for self-publishing (for both ebook and print-on-demand), the huge number of frustrated writers, turned down by publishers and/or agents are now taking that alternative route.
When I published my first book in 2013, I only submitted my manuscript to one publisher (and no agents) before deciding that self-publishing for Kindle was a better bet. Six year later, I’ve just finished my latest book, and again I’m faced with that same choice, only this time having invested a huge amount in my writing I’m a little more reluctant to jump at the self-publishing option without first properly evaluating the alternatives.
A browse through the myriad of posts on the subject on the web suggests a bias in favour of self-publishing. The justification for this seems to be threefold - higher royalties, greater creative control, and (of course) no one to turn your offering down. The traditional route may be much harder to achieve (a powerful argument in itself, and probably the first and most persuasive one for many people), but on the face of it, it does have advantages too - the kudos of having been accepted for publication, the vested interest that a publisher has in your success (they will want to see a return on their investment), access to markets (book shops, for example), and expertise in cover design, editing, market placement and so on.
The royalties point is often quoted (perhaps 70% for self-publishing an ebook as opposed to typically closer to 10% for royalties from a publisher), but I wonder if this could be a case of 10% of a large number of sales being more than 70% of not many!
And then there’s the challenge of self-marketing, if you decide to publish yourself - how many people have the skills, aptitude and (a significant consideration for many of us), the time!
Of course, if no publisher will accept your book then the question is moot, but just supposing you have the choice, which way is really better? Any thoughts?