Self-publishing: the Pros and Cons

There was a time when a traditional publisher was the only way to do it, and people who tried to publish their own books were viewed as failures - people whose books weren't really worth reading. Such people had to pay "vanity publishers" to print and distribute their books for them and vanity publishing had a bad name. If you couldn't interest a traditional publisher and didn't want to use a vanity publisher you had to give away any dream of getting yourself into print.

But the publishing world has changed. Now anyone with something worth saying can produce a book and get it out to readers - as a printed edition or/and as an e-book on, eg., Amazon. You become your own publisher and it's all perfectly legal.

There is nothing difficult about being the publisher of your own book. You don't need to set yourself up legally as a publisher, or pay any fees. You simply name yourself on the copyright page as the publisher of the book and holder of the copyright, and people can only use your material according to your terms. Hey presto you are now a publisher. The growth in self-publishing may mean that the general standard of books is falling as rigorous editing is not happening, but it also means that people who do have something to say but have had no means to say it, can now write and publish - even internationally.

Large traditional publishers are going to be around for a long time yet and they are doing very well. The revolution in e-books has not forced them to close their doors, they have simply embraced the new technology and now produce physical books AND the same titles in e-book form. In fact percentage profits are higher for traditional publishers from e-book sales than from sales of physical books. But the story is still the same: most people are not writing prodigies waiting to be discovered, and most people who have something worth saying are not going to find a publisher interested in it. But for people who do have something they want to say or share, even just with family and close friends or niche markets, there are ways of doing it these days at very reasonable cost.

The growth in self-publishing is happening for many reasons:

1. Very smart digital presses are now making short print runs possible quickly and cheaply. Typical minimum print runs are about 50 books but some printers will go as low as 20 and even less. Most people can afford to print 50 books. These may be 12 pages long or 300 pages long, doesn't matter, though costs will rise with numbers of pages. Your book is presented to the printer in print-ready form, and a book comes out the other end, bound, trimmed and ready for reading. The whole printing process might take only a week. You pick it up or get it couriered to you and do what you want with it.
2. If you print 50 copies it is not only affordable but if you need or want to make changes, you can make them to the next print run. I have never yet seen a book that is perfect first time around. Some spelling mistakes escape the editor's eye, or the author wants to add or remove content, or make changes to a cover or an introduction. Larger print runs by traditional publishers don't give you that option unless the book is reprinted. If it is slow-moving you may never get that chance.
3. Traditional publishers used to print thousands of books at a time. These days, in New Zealand, the average print run is about 300 books, except for those books that have a guaranteed market, eg, Dan Carter's book, My Story, was a safe bet at thousands of copies in a rugby-nuts nation. But generally-speaking, a publisher printing and distributing only 300 copies is probably going to sell fewer copies of your book and more slowly than you will if you print the same number, and are motivated to promote it and distribute it yourself.
4. Slowness! It used to be protocol that you submitted your manuscript to only one publisher at a time. If they took 3 months to get round to reviewing it, you lost time waiting for their rejection slip before you could make an approach to another publisher. If you want to use an agent to find a publisher for you (think $$$ and contracts) it might take you months to get an agent, another year to get a publishing deal and then six months or more to publication. So the pace can be slow. With self-publishing the only delays are your own schedule and the time it takes the book to get through editing and layout processes. Printing itself can be done within 10 days. Turning your book into an e-book is also a fairly quick process - depending of course on the complexity of the book. Self-publishing is lightning fast in comparison with conventional publishing.
5. Contracts. If you're choosing a traditional publisher there is no publishing deal without a legal contract. Many are just standard documents but there are snags for the unwary. Once you sign a contract the book becomes the property of the publisher; it is no longer yours. You can be signing away the look of the book, the cover design, editing control, the title, and anything certain about the return of copyright to you (so you can make your own decisions about the future of your book). Some publishers will be more flexible than others.
6. Traditional publishers will give you what are called royalties. These are essentially payments based on sales. Most prospective authors don't realise they only amount to an average 10% of the retail price of your book. Granted, the publisher meets your printing costs and distribution costs - and some marketing costs - but 10% back on the retail price of your book is not much. If you decide to self-publish you will have to meet your own printing costs up front and do your own distribution but your returns should be better than 10% of your costs - unless you are giving the book away!
7. Traditional publishers have the advantage in distribution. They have established distribution chains and can get your book where you never will. But that doesn't guarantee sales. Outlets typically take the book on a sale-or-return basis and if it doesn't sell it goes back to the distributor after a short period, e.g., about a month. Publishers say they will market your book, but what they don't make clear is that promotion is essentially advertising your book in a publisher's catalogue that goes to their distribution network and/or a visit to a sales chain by a sales agent. In reality traditional publishers rely heavily on the author to do most of the promotion of his/her own book. If you publish and print your own that's exactly what you'll be doing so you don't gain much by promoting your own book and still only getting 10% of the retail price for your efforts. Unless bookshops make efforts to display your book prominently it will be buried under or among other books and escape notice. And bookshops are having their own survival struggles in this digital age. You're not much further ahead than if you do your own promotion and distribution through interested networks known to you. Many people who self-publish rely on special-purpose websites, and their own social networks and interested organisations to make the book known. Some people use local newspapers, or radio interviews to get word of their books out - or target potential reader groups themselves. How far you go with publicity depends on you.
8. Increasingly self-publishing book companies that will "print on demand" and distribute your book "all over the world" are appearing on the scene. One of the most popular is IngramSpark. They claim to get your book into up to 40,000 bookstores and bookshops around the world - both digital and non-digital. But files need to be submitted print-ready and IS templates are demanding. Their agents may want changes to your chosen cover design to bring it more into "brand". You need to do your sums because books in bookstores do not necessarily translate into sales and continuing outlay for IS services can be significant. It's easy for earnest young writers to get sucked in by promises of sales that may not eventuate. Small special interest publishers are also around and may be willing to take your book if it appeals - but you have to find them and pay for them. They will have differing levels of involvement in publicising/distributing your book. Some printers are prepared to distribute books but only those they print for you. Other companies specialise in distribution and publicity. You simply have to look around and found what's out there.
9. Traditional publishers are not charitable organisations, they are businesses and they make profits. You will have to buy your own books. It startles authors sometimes to find that apart from a limited number of complimentary copies of your own book that a traditional publisher will send you, any more copies will have to be purchased from the publisher at discounted prices. If you publish and print your own book you can sell it at whatever price you choose. You may as well print your own copies, sell them at fair prices and have them on hand whenever you want them.
10. Publicity: This a big subject. As a self-publishing author you can publicise the book yourself on a special purpose Facebook or Instagram page which will direct viewers to your website. Which means you need to have a website. A website is no longer out of the reach of self-publishing authors who are prepared to make use of third party website developers who are making hundreds of custom-built templates available for you to use and adapt to purpose - Wordpress and SquareSpace are 2 of these. These can interface with their own commerce modules that can be linked to your site and allow you to sell your book online. Of course there are on-going expenses; web-hosting is not free. (There is a learning curve in setting up your own website but coding skills are not longer critical - though can be useful.) You can approach your local radio station, TV channel, local newspaper. You can work your own networks. You can approach people who have a special interest in the subject matter of your book. You can approach libraries and schools. You can look for speaking engagements at local clubs and sell books through them. Or you can pay for the services of a publicist who knows which outlets might be intereested in your book. And, of course, there will be a fee. You can keep a box of books in your car, so that you always have some on hand wherever you go. You can turn your printed book into an e-book so that it can potentially reach more readers. If you are using Selling on Amazon services, you will need printed copies on hand. Amazon has a helpful service called Selling on Amazon: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/ If you already have your book on Kindle as a digital version, seller-central will work better for you. It links you with people coming across your book on Amazon who would prefer to buy a printed copy from you rather than an e-book. Typically Amazon will email you notice of a buyer's interest and leave you both to communicate within a short period of time. Obviously you need physical copies of your book on hand and the buyer needs to pay fair postage and overseas postage is costly.(Amazon offers a print-on-demand service but computer files of your book need to be submitted according to its templates and the service only kicks in with a minimum number of orders. Amazon's postage costs are doubtless reflected in the price placed on the book and/or lower returns to you.
11. In summary
    Traditional publishers
    Pros
    If they accept your manuscript traditional publishers will print it, market it (within limits) and distribute it (inside their own networks) at no cost to you. You will have no upfront costs (as you will with self-publishing) and you will be able to say your book has stood out from others sufficiently to make the publisher's lineup. Your publisher will not only get your book into bookstores but create e-books for you and get them into online stores.
    Cons
    Your chances of finding a publisher and becoming a sensation are not high. It may be months or up to a year (or more) before you find a publisher and get your book into bookstores. Discouragement can undermine you. If you make the cut you may well be one of the books that doesn't do well (subsidised by that 20% that do!) but you'll be the one doing 90% of the on-going and effective marketing, meaning, you will be the one trying to set up your own newspaper/radio/TV publicity. You will receive very little (on average 10%) of the retail price of the book back in royalties, you will have surrendered ownership and control of your book to the publisher for an indefinite period, you will need to purchase your own copies of your own book if you want to on-sell you will have to carry your own losses. The print run may be much smaller than you expect and sales slow-moving. It can be years before some publishers will return copyright to you, holding up revisions or other alterations and any decision to self-publish.