It’s been the better part of a year refining your manuscript, but you feel your book is ready for publishing. The question remains; do you start sending letters to agents and publishing houses, or do you consider taking the self-published route? Let’s examine the pros and cons and help you decide on the next move.
Who Should Use Traditional Publishing for Their Book?
Sending your manuscript to a publishing house or agent will probably result in rejection, heartache, and a huge blow to your motivation. Most writers only get published if they have a track record of success or influence in the market.
Unless you’re a celebrity, bigshot CEO, A-list actor, or politician, the chances are you’ll receive a rejection email. There are thousands of unpublished authors looking for their golden ticket to fame and fortune. What makes you think you’re the one they’ll pick from the stack of query letters in their inbox?
We’re not trying to bring you down, you could be the exception, and it’s your right to pursue this avenue if you wish. We’re trying to level your expectations and prevent a months-long chase that goes nowhere.
Who Should Use Self-Publishing for Their Book?
If this is your first crack at a manuscript and you feel it’s something the market wants, go with the self-publishing route. Entrepreneurs, consultants, business professionals, lawyers, doctors, and novelists use self-publishing to get their work in front of a target audience.
Self-publishing offers you several benefits as a newcomer to the writing industry, but it’s not without risk. There’s no guarantee of success, so why shouldn’t you chase that potential $500,000 advance from a publishing house. We hear you, and that’s why we decided to give you a list of pros and cons to help you determine what’s right for you.
What are the Pros of Traditional Publishing?
The Advance and Lower Publishing Costs
If a publisher takes you on, they’ll give you an advance on your future book sales. That’s life-changing for many authors. Receiving a check in the mail for your work is validation that you add value and a huge lift to your morale as a writer; essentially, you’ve made it.
Publishers take care of everything for you, including the publishing costs of getting your book to market and promoting your work. They invest in your book because they see value in it, and they can profit from it.
Industry Contacts, Clout & Credibility
Publishing houses run a business and have a network of contacts and resources to make you a star. They take care of every aspect of getting your book to market, including arranging book signings and featured author profiles in a high-level industry publication like the New York Times.
Publishers, big or small, have industry clout. The industry listens when they ask a big player like a newspaper or authority website to feature you. You get a champion in your corner backing your career, and that goes a long way to potentially reaching best-seller status.
An In-House Team
Publishers have all the infrastructure to print your book, get it on the shelves, and influence the market to purchase your work. Acquisitions editors, fact-checkers, copy, and substantive editors are all on hand to review your work and polish it to perfection. You get access to a publicist to promote you. You never know; you could end up on the next edition of Oprah’s book club. Imagine what that would do for your career.
What are the Cons of Traditional Publishing?
You Lose the Rights to Your Work
When your sign with a publisher, they get the rights to your work. It doesn’t belong to you anymore, and they can do as they please with it. They could leave out sections they don’t agree with and edit parts you find critical to the storyline, regardless of what you think about their decisions.
Publishing Delays
The publisher owns your work, and they can decide to do with it what they please. They control you and don’t care if that advance is running out and you need them to publish the book so you can start seeing royalty checks. They could shelve your book because they feel it will conflict with another top-rated author’s release. You’re left holding the bag, maybe for years on end.
What are the Pros of Self-Publishing?
Fast to Market and All the Profits
Self-publishing is the fastest route to getting your book onto the market. You can self-publish your work in a week with the right strategy and start seeing results overnight with a good marketing campaign. Instead of waiting years and relying on your advance, you start selling immediately, keeping all the profits.
Full Creative Control
You don’t hand the rights to a publisher when you self-publish your work. You keep full creative control over the content, and you don’t have to deal with editors that want to slice and dice your book. From the cover design to the content, you have the final word on everything to do with the publishing process.
What are the Cons of Self-Publishing?
You Front the Publishing Cost
There’s no publisher to front your book’s printing and marketing costs. You don’t get any advance, so you’re totally reliant on your marketing. The development, production, and distribution expenses are all on you. You must rely on guerilla marketing tactics like selling on Amazon and building social media ad campaigns to promote your work.
No Guarantee of Success
There’s no way a bookstore will put your book on its shelves. Unless a publisher backs you, they’re not interested in selling unsolicited material. Forget about going to those prestigious book signing events, and there’s no possibility of media interviews or agents offering their help promoting your work.
As a self-published author, you take your success into your hands, and there’s no guarantee your book will sell. You’re competing with thousands of other authors using the same marketing model as you, and you’ll need something special to stand out from the crowd.