I’m going to be super real and honest. I can’t do traditional publishing as I originally thought.
I want write my stories and one day get published one day, but I don’t think traditional publishing is for me as I originally thought. I cannot write more than one story. I can only focus one novel at a time, that is my speed and I can’t change that. I’m still facing the debacle of writing more stories with self-publishing, but not as much. I am a slow writer in regards that I can only do one novel at a time and struggle with finding a new story to work on. That’s fine and I can only do so much. The issue with self-publishing is money and marketing, but I can do it by saving money and going easy on myself. I can be a part-time author because of self-publishing which I can’t do with traditional publishing.
I want to share my novels with as many people as I can. I just don’t think I can be what traditional publishing wants me to be.
I’m still learning as a writer, but I want this for myself in more ways than I can imagine. I also don’t handle rejection well and the idea of writing a query letter is super daunting to me. Self-publishing is a bit more doable because I have some freedom on my stories and what I want to do for my novel projects.
I’m not saying that self-publishing is easier, but for part-time and something to get myself out there with my novels and world is a no-brainer.
I think the important thing is, you pick a route that aligns with your vision and needs. Both routes have drawbacks, but from everything I’ve seen you say on these forums, I think self-pub might work better for you?
That’s fair. With self publishing your speed is entirely up to you which is great for people who don’t want to find themselves shackled to a multi-book publishing deal. That said, self publishing often hinges on having multiple releases, not just one every few years - if your goal is making money.
I think a lot of trad pub authors also have day jobs, and thus are only part-time authors. Marketing also often falls onto authors with trad, too. With self publishing you can do as much or as little as you want depending on your goals.
This year my author brand expenses have come to a little under 300USD, but that includes Atticus for formatting, and a yearly sub to Prowritingaid. If I didn’t buy those, my expenses would be close to zero. Your expenses as a self-pub author might be less, might be more, depending on covers, editing, etc. Marketing is a weird one in that you can do anything you want. I’m doing literally zero marketing this year. Not sharing the covers anywhere, not buying ads, no social media accounts etc. This approach has worked for me, and I’m making more than the authors I know who do market their books.
That’s the great thing about self-pub
I wish you the best of luck. Seems you’re on the fence and change your mind semi-regularly about which route to go, so I hope you can figure out which works for you
What I mean is I can’t work on two stories at the same time. I can pull two stories a year if I finish a novel at a time. Like if I am finished with story A then work on story B afterwards.
I’m with you. The only attraction in traditional publishing was my belief that they handled all the marketing, but they don’t do that anymore. Probably the reason they only seem to sign authors who already have large platforms.
Although they also provide some legitimacy too. It would be nice to win literary awards, and get my books into libraries and bookshops. Self-published authors will never get any real respect, although many of them are making good money.
I’m a slow writer too, currently writing a series but not planning to publish it for years yet while the industry straightens out the laws for generative AI and copyright protections. No point in putting my work out there if it’s just going to be scraped by Big Tech while I get no money for it. So by the time I do self-publish it will likely be a multi-book series, and I’ll rapid release it with all the fanfare I can afford.
It sounds like you’ve figured out which one will work best for what you want to do. Ultimately, that’s the most important thing. Do you have any idea how you’re gonna self publish?
I have to disagree - if respect is only through awards, then plenty of self-pub authors have won literary awards and claimed the title of NYT bestseller (though there’s plenty of room to debate if NYT Bestseller is even an accolade at all). There’s also reams of self-pub books that went on to get movie adaptations. (Successful Self-Published Authors - Weekend Publisher for a few)
In terms of cash, I believe self-pub authors outearn trad pub these days, but the distribution of income isn’t equal (top earners are earning completely bonkers amounts, and there’s a ton of folks earning zero). (Self-published authors earn more than traditionally published counterparts ) What that looks like for everyone outside of the minority earning millions, though, is that self-pub has considerably higher earning potential than trad.
You can self-pub wide and opt to have your eBooks enrolled in library distribution. I’m not sure about paperbacks, but I’ve seen some absolutely insane results from self-pub authors who intend to do these things. I know in certain countries, there are relatively simple ways to get into mainstream libraries. I’ve never looked into it, but if this is a dream of yours then there’s not really anything to stop you!
All that said, though… there’s plenty of snobbery regarding self-pub, and no, it isn’t as prestigious. It’s just another route into publishing and everyone has different goals - I wouldn’t fit neatly within a trad house, and I prefer doing everything alone. If anything goes wrong, there’s only me to blame… and I like that.
No, I do everything myself. For someone in a different position (i.e, not able to distance themselves from their own work, trying to build a backlog of high quality work rather than a lot of passion projects), I’d encourage you to hire both
