When people ask me why I choose to self-publish, the easy answer is that I got tired of chasing agents and traditional publishers. Okay. It wasn’t quite like that. But one of my friends had recently finished a novel (and a darned good one), and she when she looked at the next few steps, she did not like what she saw.
The hassle of querying agents, then maybe getting on with a small press, then having to do all your own publicity, because even if you’re with a larger publisher, you’re not going to get any help there, my friend looked at all of that and what books are selling for these days and did the math. The return for the amount of money she’d be likely to make was just too small, especially after paying the agent’s commission.
That bothered me because she was absolutely right. You sweat your backside off writing a book, then you only get a small percentage of what that book makes. I know because my co-author and I only got less than 10 percent of the selling price of Howdunit: Book of Poisons. Before splitting the earnings between us. It’s done well and I’m still getting royalties even though the book is only available as an ebook now. But when I think of how much I could have made had we done it ourselves, well, such is life.
The one advantage of traditional publishing is that you get much wider reach and a bigger audience, especially if you’re lucky enough to get on with one of the larger publishers out there. If you’re with a small press, as I was for Tyger, Tyger, you lose even that advantage.
It’s worth trying to publish traditionally for the cachet. But that’s the only reason I would do it now. As of this Friday, I’ll have put out 10 books. It’s been an amazing amount of work. Some of them are better than others. But I get what I want and I keep the larger part of the proceeds.
You do need an editor and a cover designer. Fortunately, I have friends and am able to barter for most of the skills I don’t have. So you can do this on a shoestring. You do need to start building your social platform, but you will need a thriving presence on social media to attract an agent or a publisher these days. And you’ll need friends who will be honest with you regarding your book. It’s not always fun, but it does make a difference.
Self-publishing is a lot of work. You don’t always get a lot of respect because it’s assumed that your book isn’t as good as a traditionally published one (never mind that I’ve read some really dreadful traditionally published books and some insanely good self-published ones). But I think it’s worth it.