Today I thought about
how far I've come…
Yes, I still have so far to go, but I've learned much from where I started a year ago. Yes, I'm giving myself a pat on the back, or it could be more of a kick in the butt. I know now no one is going to do it for me. Having had a small publisher for one book and self-published others, I've experienced both worlds. As long as Amazon is the gorilla in the room, millions of books are perma free or .99, and anyone can publish a book, it seems difficult for any author or small publisher to survive without spinning that hamster wheel mighty fast or is it a roulette wheel? If you are new to this, or even if you aren't, let's remind ourselves of the two paths to publishing and the advantages of both:
Self-publishing:
Total creative control: control of the cover, size of the book, the book's formatting, choice of type, and the design of the back cover.
Retain all rights: translation, audio, movie.
Total Price Control. You decide how much your book is going to cost. A big plus when trying to market. Books that cost $2.99 qualify for many promos. Priced above $4.99, finding promos is challenging, and even if you find one, it might be difficult to earn the cost of your promo back.
Able to join organizations to support Indie Authors.
Higher royalty rates.
Building your own exclusive audience faster. It's an opportunity for growth. It won't happen overnight, but it can happen. Your decisions during each publishing step teach you something and add up, and each book adds to your audience.
Quicker timeline to turn out a book. It saves time. It took me a year with a publisher to turn out a book. It took me four-months to self publish the second one.
Signing with a Publisher:
Assistance with editing and cover design at a minimum.
Experience less burnout from doing it all. The publisher provides editing assistance, cover design, marketing and distribution. However, if you are with a small publisher, it’s likely all marketing activities are still on you, but you’ll meet other authors from the publisher and network with them. Workshops on marketing activities are usually given to support you. Not all small presses are the same. Some might do more, some less.
More prestige. A chance to get on The NY Times Bestseller List. However, it's becoming less and less important. In the past year The NY Times started reviewing romance books.
Go to Amazon and look at the top 100 best-selling books. Some weeks only sixteen of them are from major publishers. The rest are self-published. Readers are caring less and less. The raw numbers show that self-published authors are making serious gains. They now represent 40% of the market.
The opportunity to win major writing prizes, like the Booker Prize. Indie authors can’t win this, since the publisher must enter them and the book must be published in the UK I believe. Of course, Indie authors can still make the USA Today Bestseller lists.
Major reviewers will review your books. Many don’t or won’t look at self-published books.
Media coverage on major television and radio channels. This is starting to change.
You might earn more money, but not always. Nearly 80% of writers earn less than $1,000 a year, even those with publishers complain, that those big fat advances, are a thing of the past, unless of course your are with one of the big five. No advance with smaller presses either.
A top-five publisher will assist with shopping translation rights and movie rights, etc., but forget this help from smaller presses; they don't have the manpower.
It's a wash. It comes down to personal choices; How important is it for you to be in control and make money versus gaining prestige? What do you feel comfortable doing? How much responsibility do you want to take on? Do you want to hire editors for each step of the editing process and pick your covers? If you self-publish, do you have the bankroll to finance all this and the time to interview and schedule editors and search for book covers? Are you willing to take a loss to establish yourself? It may take two or three books or even more to break even. You might have to change a book's cover two times to get it right.
Suppose you want to go with a publisher. How many agents will you submit to? How many times will you edit your manuscript? How long will you wait? How many times will you rewrite the tagline and the synopsis?
I'd love to hear your thoughts; on hybrid, self-published, and published approaches to getting your books out into the world. Please share your experiences and plans for the future in the comment section.
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Next week I’m posting on Gray Days. Don’t know what those are? Stand by…
You are so right Kim!
Every step of life is about choices and personal likes isn't it? Why should publishing be any different? Always enjoy reading your thoughts. Thanks for sharing both sides of the coin.