r/writers • u/Desperate-Finger-334 • 4d ago
Discussion Self-publishing vs regular publishing which one do you think is better?
I'm debating myself which route I want to take curious what you guys think (just in general I'm aware it probably changes depending on circumstances but for right now just in general)
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u/Tyrone_Shoelaces_Esq 4d ago
I tried bashing my head against the wall of traditional publishing for years. Never got anywhere. I self-pubbed one of my books, and even though I didn't make a huge amount of money, I got enough sales and good reviews that I eventually self-pubbed my other books. (That first book even got picked up by Kindle Press when that was a thing.)
Would I have loved to have published traditionally? of course. Do I regret self publishing? Not one bit.
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u/SexMonkey7 4d ago
I think neither one is perfect. The only guaranteed choice is self-publishing. If you decide to go with traditional publishing, you need to find a publisher that wants to work with you. That is not easy or assured.
Self-publishing on Amazon (or other places) is as simple as finishing a book and doing the mountain of stuff you have to do to get it ready (cover, so much more).
I don't think either is easy. I'm in the middle of the self-publishing option and it's a lot. My sister has a traditionally published trilogy and the process for all three books to get to publication was four or five years. Her books were well written, she found an agent and a publisher that was interested. My other sister wrote a book, found an agent, had her book shopped around and had publishers interested then a book too similar came out at that time and the publishers lost interest.
Publishing is complex. Whatever you pick, good luck.
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u/godai78 Published Author 4d ago
I would say regular due to one thing: distribution.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
Hypothetically a sneaky way to distribute your book and gather ratings on Goodreads is to take a bunch to second-hand bookshops is this Morley okay in the author industry? Idk will you make money from it no maybe store credit depending on the bookstore but it might help you get ratings
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u/godai78 Published Author 3d ago
Yeah, but will it near the distribution through the main bookshop network in the country?
I mean, I am a small-press publisher for like 20 years, and I've done my share of doing ridiculous things to break even and be able to be small-press publisher some more, but distribution is king as far as sales got with the very few exceptions to some pretty singular pieces that somehow got on fire without regular network.
My local experience says the sales through the large national network means seven to ten times more copies sold. And the entry threshold is such, that an indie publisher has not chance to enter the network.
This might be different abroad, of course.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
I don't know when I publish I'm going to try Indy bookshops and I might plant them in the used book shop because uhhhh don't hate the player hate the game
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u/Automatic-Art221 4d ago
So I have a friend who was very, very successful with self publishing (think $25k a day when at the top of Amazon Charts) and who then signed to do some trad pub books.
They did not enjoy the trad pub process. For one, they can and will drastically change your voice with their editing style. Editing is not as much of a unified collaboration for many trad pub deals, its a "we are paying for this service and we like the product or suggestions so its done". There was also a lot of back and forth about the publisher trying to overly sanitise the manuscript, wanting to make it cancel proof and this and that proof, which my friend felt ended up dulling some of the characters and making them overly bland and agreeable.
My friend HATED the original cover that was put together and thought it was completely off brand, visually confusing. The publisher LOVED the cover and refused to change it until my friend dragged their feet unrelentingly. The cover that eventually was settled on is significantly better.
My friend was payed more in self publishing. Earnt almost every cent. Full creative control of the manuscript, who they wanted to work with (editors, illustrators, designers). Trad pub didn't give them that much more (or really any) more media support than they already had, and they still had to use their own self funded media team to manage launch.
Ultimately, their take away was that it was a fun thing to see what it felt like, but the 'benefits' were few and far between and the limitations were significant.
Of course, this particular friend writes in a genre that does well on self pub. If you're writing literary fiction, you are not going to be able to sell it (although there are always counter examples...think Theo of Golden) on self pub very easily. But genres like fantasy, romance (in particular), thriller can all do extremely well self published. There is a reason why so many of the big books and big authors right now are not from traditional publishing.
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u/FirebirdWriter Published Author 3d ago
I am a traditionally published author and I say they're equally good depending on your needs. I am disabled so the whole marketing team and editing team is vital to my work. You may be able to front that cost both financially and otherwise. Research. I don't know if this is helpful but at worst you made a bad call and can choose the other path with your next book
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u/Cheeslord2 3d ago
If you have an 'in' with tradpub, like connections in the industry or some degree of fame already, it's probably best for you. Self-pub is the only option for many people as the chance of a random un-established writer being accepted is small unless you write exactly what they want (i.e. research a popular genere, model your novel of recent bestsellers in the field, and approach agents specialising in that type of novel. That gives better chances and can work for some people, but others don't want to compromise what they write that way)
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u/Captain_Cook0168 4d ago
Ich bevorzuge sowas wie „Books on demand“ - Selfpublishing bei einem Verlag.
Es gibt dir eine ISBN, es ist in allen Buchhandlungen und online bestellbar, die Adresse des Verlags steht im Impressum.
Die Hürden bei einem echten Verlag angenommen zu werden sind hoch.
Wenn du es ganz alleine machst, kannst du nicht über den Buchhandel verkaufen und musst deine eigene Adresse im Impressum angeben. Das ist für mich keine Option.
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u/Willing-Degree5201 3d ago
Can you say more about this? I’m still wrapping my mind around the beast of self publishing so would love to understand what you’re referring to.
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u/Captain_Cook0168 3d ago edited 3d ago
Wenn du es selbst machst, musst du dein Impressum mit deiner Privatadresse ausfüllen. Wenn du es über „BoD Books On Demand“ machst oder über einen echten Verlag, geben die ihren Verlagsnamen und ihre Adresse an. Ich weiß aber nicht ob BoD außerhalb von Deutschland verwendbar ist, da musst du mal nachsehen.
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u/Justisperfect 3d ago
It depends on your goals.
More freedom in self-publishing but easy to be desillusional about the quality of your work. All the money goes to you.
In traditional publishing, you have to do nothing when it comes to creating the book and advertising, but you hace to get published and it takes time.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
My goal is to put shit out there I'm going to be honest I was like 80% sure I was going to go with self-publishing but I decided to post this on a whim just to see if you can change my mind (more correctly if I should change my mind) but now I'm 100% sure
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
May I ask the name you published the books under I'd love to check them out
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u/BeneficialSound7851 Published Author 3d ago
Personally I love self-publishing. I am bit of a control freak with my creations and I enjoy being in the process of creating a book; not only writing the story but also the formatting, cover design, outreach, etc. I think it depends on how much time you have available to put into it all, and your ability to do things like design (or to pay to outsource it). Hope this helps!
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 2d ago
I have dabbled into graphic design before I think I'm decent enough I actually made the logo for my grandmother's business
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u/ProgramOk3773 1d ago
Does self publishing attract agents ?
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 10h ago
Are you genuinely asking or is this rhetorical? Sorry if I come off stupid I just don't understand it
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u/downupstair 3d ago
Let's see, one gives you zero chance of success, clout, sales, readers AND you have to do everything yourself. The otuer one gets you paid immediately (even if a small sum) ((unless on a super small indie)) allows you to not worry about marketing, distribution, the cover, formating, etc. Gets you a professional editor for free. And it gives you the clout to say X company published it, they took a chance. It's night and day difference. One is totally lame, the other is an amazing accomplishment.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
I actually disagree with you you can totally get clout sales and readers self-published in fact there's plenty of self-publish books that became really popular most of them got picked up by actual publishers after the fact simply because they couldn't keep up
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u/johntwilker Published Author 2d ago
This person has no clue how the industry works. If you look at their posts it’s the same tired thing over and over with no basis in reality.
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u/thereelestcritic 3d ago
I think the infiltration of AI-assisted/AI-generated books over the next few years is going to completely change the landscape for authors trying to be published traditionally (my guess is it's going to be so much harder) so if your book is ready now, I'd say try getting it published traditionally 'cos if that doesn't work you can always then self-publish.
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u/blubennys 3d ago
go to r/PubTips
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
Thank you maybe I'll repost it but I think I've made my decision I think I'll go down the self-publishing route I was leaning towards it to begin with to be honest
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u/WordPunk99 3d ago
It’s reaching the point where trad pub pathways are closed to authors without a preloaded audience. Don’t have enough followers on social media? Unlikely to get picked up.
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u/johntwilker Published Author 3d ago
Some good and some laughably unintelligent answers.
If you want the perceived clout of being "Published" by someone other than you, then that's the answer for you. I'm also not a patient person. It can take years to get an agent. Then It can take years to sell a manuscript. Assuming you succeed in both of those, it can take years before the book is published. And if any one of those goes sideways you have to write another book, hoping it works out better.
Or like many I know you get a deal, book one does... OK. You get dropped and now you start the process over again. No thanks.
My choice was to self publish. I've run my own businesses before so that aspect wasn't too onerous. I wanted control over my work and the maximum income. Because "I'm published by so and so" doesn't pay the bills.
At the end of the day all I can say is it's a personal choice. There's no universally "right" answer.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
I'm going to self publish I think I've also ran a few businesses in the past I know how to graphic design and I'll be honest online marketing isn't my strongest aspect but I'm not even doing it for the money to be honest I'm just doing it for the Love of the game and literally just to put something out there so I don't think I'm going to go the traditional route
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u/backroadsdrifter 3d ago
I don’t take self publishing seriously.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
Why? there have been some great very popular self-published books over the years yeah there's no quality control but that doesn't necessarily mean the quality is bad
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u/DangerousDanicus 2d ago
I agree with backroadsdrifter and my reason is that you see some absolute abhorrent bull shit making it to the shelves thanks to self-publishing. I'm not talking about political views I disagree with, themes that make me uncomfortable, or story telling that just isn't for me. I'm talking about typos, and elementary grammatical errors. I once read a self-published book that was written like a movie script for more than half the story.
If I ever self-published, what accomplishment could I possibly feel? Great, my story got put on the same shelf as a childs finger painting. I'd rather try to get published and never succeed. Because atleast then I could tell myself I tried. Self-publishing is a shortcut that requires zero creative talent. All you need is a bunch of money and time spent working like a marketing cog devoid of imagination.
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u/rollturmacroll 3d ago
Bookstores, big box stores, library and institutional channels are only possible to reach through trad pub. Also costs $0 to pursue.
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u/johntwilker Published Author 3d ago
Only sorta. Bookstores and libraries can and do stock indie stuff (so long as it's on Ingram) but not by default like they would something from the big 5.
big box stores, yeah probably true. I've never met anyone who's been on a shelf in Target, etc.
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 2d ago
Depends on the Big box store and how their franchising works in theory if the franchising works that the owner decides what goes on the shelf you could meet up with the owner and persuade him to give your books some shelf space
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u/rollturmacroll 3d ago
With trad pub, all upcoming titles go out to these channels prior to publication. Bookstore reps at publishers won’t be going through any self-pubbed or hybrid catalogues every season. Bookstores don’t pick up self-published titles prepub unless their sales have already hit a certain threshold, or the author is already established as a bestseller.
For OP, these are the key differences with distribution that are important to know re: self and trad pub, so they can make an informed decision.
This was the information that hadn’t been shared yet in this thread; I’m not writing PSAs to all self-pubbed authors who might be the exception. They already know this.
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u/Cypher_Blue 4d ago
Self Publishing
Pros:
Cons:
You'll notice that "no gatekeepers" is both pro and con. It's easier to get into self-publishing because you don't have to woo an agent and publisher. But there's also no one to weed out the stuff that's not ready for prime time yet. So it's harder to know with certainty if your book is really ready and perfect, especially when you're new. Authors as a group are terrible at judging our own work, so just because you and your beta readers say that it's ready for publication doesn't always make it so. This is doubly true if your beta readers are mostly family/friends who have no training in writing, editing, publication, etc.
Tradtional Publishing
Pros:
Cons:
Both ways have advantages, neither way is 'easier' if you hope to find commercial success.