Why You Should Self-Publish

In case you missed it yesterday (which my stats tell me you didn’t), I listed several reasons not to self-publish. The received the predicable response- I’m full of it, the ‘I sell a bunch of books’ (I never said you couldn’t, and to be fair, the person who said that knows what she’s about) and of course the ‘you-might-learn-something’ one.

Let your hate flow through you. Give in to the dark side.

In any case, here are the reasons I decided to self-publish. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments.

Money. I mean, really? This is what it boils down to, when you’re selling a book and not writing one. 70% is a better cut than it is ever possible to get through any traditional publisher. Even if you sell less books, you can still make more money. Pretty good motivation.

Control. It is a chore, as I said yesterday. You have to decide on editors, artists, etc. But, on the flip side, you get to- you don’t get handed a cover, or an editor that you just have to live with.

Time. If you go the traditional route, you’re submitting to agents for a minimum of six months, who in turn submit to publishing houses for at least that long, who in turn go through the whole editing process, cover art, etc, which is (at least) months. Oh, and if your book is not the next 50 Shade of Grey, in that it’s actually an intelligent piece of literature, or doesn’t feature cookie cutter heroes & villains, good luck even getting it published (how’s that, people who said I sounded bitter about self-publishing?). If you self-publish, your book will be out months- if not years- sooner.

Accountability. It’s no secret that there is a lot of crap out there, and I’ve said before that it’s unfair to ask readers to read through slush. But with self-publishing, you are directly accountable to readers- and readers only. They like your book, or they don’t. It’s not governed by what’s hot, if it has White People Kissing on the cover, or whatever safe standard trainload publishers hold writers too. The reader gets to decide if it is good or not.

And there is this… (via Bo’s Cafe Life)

You Define Success. You want to be a best seller? Work your ass off, and you can get there. You want to have a book out and don’t care how many copies you sell or how much you make? Bam, done. You just want to share your work with the world? There you go. Traditional publishing isn’t going to do anything for you unless it can make money off you. That’s not wrong, it’s just the way business works. But if you self-publish, you get to decide what your goals are, and work towards them- no matter what they are.

–DESR