004: Self Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: Which is the Best Path to Publication?

I often get asked if I think writers should pursue traditional publication or self-publish their book. I answer that question in this episode. Tune in for a breakdown of each type of publishing and a list of pros and cons for each option.

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Self Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: Which is the Best Path to Publication?

All right, I'm pretty excited about this episode. This is something that I get asked frequently on TikTok, people have questions about which publishing option is best for them, which route they should take if they should try and self publish, if they should try to find a literary agent and do traditional publishing. And I wanted to make an episode that talks about pros and cons of both. Because let me just get this out of the way very quickly. It's very important. There is no across the board right answer. This is something that every writer has to decide for themselves, I can't tell you automatically which one is best. So what I'm going to do, again, is give you some pros and cons give you some things to think about.

Now, there are self publishing & traditional publishing are not the only options. There are vanity presses. There are hybrid publishers that are sort of a combination of both traditional and publishing, where you work with the press to put out your book. Some of these, you don't need a literary agent to work with them. But for the sake of simplicity, in this episode, I'm just going to be talking about self publishing and traditional publishing.

So if you're totally new to writing, you're just starting on your journey. And you're not even sure what this means. Self publishing is simply you like it, like the name says, You publishing your book on various platforms. traditional publishing means that you go through the process of signing with a literary agent to represent you. And then that agent sends your book to publishing houses, and they decide if they want to purchase that book. And then that publisher takes on the responsibility of printing the book, distributing the book, selling the book, etc.

Alright, let's talk about traditional publishing first. That's the one that I have the most knowledge of, that's the one that I'm currently pursuing. And so I feel like I can speak to that a little bit more than self publishing some of the pros of traditional publishing. When you pursue this route, you're working with established industry professionals, you don't have to figure out the logistics of how to print your book, you don't have to figure out logistics of shipping. You don't have to figure out how to get your book, in the hands of readers, you're working with professionals who do this day in and day out and have done this for years. They know people, they know the market. They know how to go through this process. There's also no upfront investment required when you work. When you sign up a literary agent, you don't pay that agent until you get a book deal. I've heard horror stories of predatory literary agents who will take advantage of writers who just don't know any better. And they'll charge reading fees or signing fees in order for someone to work with them, please run the other direction. If you see that. Literary agents do not charge, you should not have to pay to sign with an agent. Again, they don't get paid, they don't get they don't make money until your book sells. And they will, they will take a percentage of what you make in this industry standard for this is 15%. So your agent will take 15% of what you make. But again, there's no upfront investment. So you can write your book, you can send it to an agent, you can sign it that agent, get a book deal, not having had to invest any money.

Of course, it's still a good idea. I still recommend hiring an editor and you know, working with someone to get your manuscript as ready as it can be, but you don't have to pay out of pocket for any of those expenses. You also have a better chance of your book being in bookstores. If you go the route of traditional publishing, at least on a national scale. If you self publish, you know you can you can definitely get your book in bookstores. It's not that you can't but with traditional publishing, again, that groundwork is already laid.

These professionals have relationships with bookstores, they have relationships with distributors, they have relationship with libraries, so your book has a better chance of being widely available. A few of the cons with traditional publishing like I've mentioned this whole concept of signing with an agent, there's no guarantee that if you go this route that you will find an agent who agrees to represent you. There are a lot of people who are trying to get traditionally published out there, like hundreds of 1000s, maybe millions, I don't know exactly what the statistics are in terms of like how many people are trying, but a lot of people want to get an agent. And agents can only take on a small percentage of people who want representation. You know, it's just a numbers game. So because it requires signing with a literary agent, first, it's more, your chances of doing this are unfortunately, a little bit smaller, the process is really slow. Very, very, very slow.

First, the process of finding an agent can take some time, not for everyone, but for a lot of people, you have to find the agent, you have to send them your manuscript, you have to wait to hear back from them, you'll probably get on a call, you'll end up signing, you'll do some edits on your manuscript before sending it out to publishers, those publishers are going to take some time to get back to you. And then once you have a book deal, once the publisher says, okay, yes, we want to acquire this, let's go. It's anywhere between 18 months to two years, from the date of your book deal to when that book is available in bookstores. So you're looking at several years at least, I mean, that is a very long time to wait.

You also have less curated creative control. With traditional publishing now, I've heard different stories of people who have varying degrees of control, sometimes they you know, the publisher will let you have a lot of input on things like the cover what your book cover looks like, other times, not so much. They have people who do the design work and really, you know, want to go with a cover that they think will sell and the author doesn't always have a ton of input on what it ultimately looks like. So that's something to consider.

Okay, so let's talk about self publishing. Again, I don't have as much knowledge about self publishing, but I do know enough to kind of give the general pros and cons. Okay, so pros, kind of the opposite of what I just mentioned, you have a lot more creative control, you get to decide when it's published, you get to decide the price, you get to decide the cover, you have a lot of control over basically everything, right. You also get a higher percentage of royalties from your book sales, you don't have an agent that you have to give 15% to you don't have an editor or a publishing house, who is going to take a percentage of your sales. So you get more money in your pocket from the sale of your books. And again, I mentioned this briefly, but you can publish when you want to. If you want to write a book and publish it and have it out in three months, you can do that if you want to wait a year, you can do that it's up to you, you don't have to wait 18 months to two years to have your book out in the world. Some cons, it can cost money up front. Now you can absolutely self published for free, you don't have to hire an editor, you don't have to hire a book cover designer. You don't have to spend any money at all, you can just put your book out into the world, I do recommend it.

And I've heard from a lot of self published authors that they recommend this as well, but you don't have to. But if you do decide to you know pay for an editor, get someone to review your manuscript beta reading can sometimes cost money cover design, etc. You'll have to pay upfront for those. You're also on your own for marketing and publicity. In this day and age, you can't expect to just, you know, put your book on Amazon and just expect to rake in the millions, right? Unless like some freak, I don't know, Fluke happens. I've never heard of that happening. But I guess it could you really have to take on the role of a marketing person and a salesperson and a publicity person to let people know about your book. This requires being on social media requires starting an email list, maybe getting involved in your local writing community, you have to take on a lot of those responsibilities yourself. Not that you don't in traditional publishing. I mean, there's a lot less marketing support than there once was with traditional publishing. Like if you're a traditionally published author, you're still expected to, you know, promote the book yourself.

It's not like you just sit back and do nothing but you are. It's basically just you doing all of this when you self publish. And another thing to consider is that there's no built in readership unless you have an existing platform. So if you're starting from scratch, you have no social media followers, no newsletter, no connections in the local community. It's going to be hard for people to find your book So that's why I suggest doing some of the groundwork in terms of marketing and building up, you know, a reader base before your book comes out, so that you've got those people in place. Again, very high level overview, but hopefully that was helpful if you're just starting this journey and thinking about which option is going to be right for you. self published books are just as important and just as wonderful as traditionally published books. So definitely keep that in mind. All right. See you next week.

Katie Wolf