Should I traditionally publish or independently publish? This is a question that I have definitely asked myself – and there isn’t one right answer.
I used to think that traditionally publishing was the author’s ultimate achievement – you got a book deal, then sat back and reaped the rewards of all your hard work. You got paid as books sold, and could focus on writing the next thing.
This is something that so many people think – can I just squash that right now? If you traditionally publish today, a great deal of non-writing effort is still required of you. But that isn’t all there is to traditional publishing, and both traditional and independent publishing avenues have their own benefits and challenges. Let me give you the basics of what I’ve learned on this.
Traditional Publishing (Trad Pub)
Traditional publishing is when a book is published through a publishing house. An author is basically selling their rights of print the book to the publisher who then owns those rights (the book deal may or may not also include audio, digital, video, and foreign book rights). Every book deal is different, so the actual work that the author has to do varies. You can get into the weeds on if the publishing house is one of the Big 5 publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster), an off branch of one, or an independent publishing house – but we’re not going there right now.
For the author, the main benefits of traditional publishing are: the advance that they get paid before the book is published, and not having to do all of the work that the publisher does. The main drawbacks are: the publisher owns the book rights, which in turn decreases the profit that the author receives from each book sold.
Independent Publishing (Indie Pub, Self-Publishing, Self Pub)
Independent publishing is when a book is published by the author. The author retains all rights to the book, and can sell the book direct to customers. This freedom, however, comes with the reality that the author does ALL the work. They can either tackle the huge learning curve and figure out what they need to do, or they can hire and manage others to do specific parts of the process for them (arguably, some of the book profits that the author relinquishes to the publisher in a traditional publishing model is paying them for doing just that – hiring out work and managing it all). Here too, you can get into the weeds depending on if an author has created their own publishing house, or if they provide their book through one platform, or go wide and use many – and again, we’re not going there right now.
For the author, the main benefits of independent publishing are: the retention of book rights, which means they have complete control of the book and makes a much higher profit from books sold. The main drawbacks are: there is no advance payment, and they have to do (or outsource) everything related to the book’s production.
That’s the quick and basic of the two ways to publish. Though it can still be a little stigmatized, there isn’t a right or a wrong answer to if you should traditionally publish or independently publish. It’s going to be a different answer with different reasoning for every author, hinging mainly on how they want their work to be portrayed, and what they can and cannot (or want, and don’t want to) do. The best route may be different between two books from the same author, or a book may start out published one way and eventually get changed to another (these are the things that make hybrid authors – someone published through both traditional publishing and independent publishing).
Where I’m At
My current plan for the story I’m working on is to independently publish, mainly because I want to retain the rights to my book, and have the freedoms that come with that. Also, I feel pretty comfortable with the learning required to independently publish, and I’ve been researching this long enough to have some idea of who I would look to with the parts I don’t feel comfortable in. I’m willing to put forth the time and work to do it justice, so there isn’t much allure for me to pass all that work off to the publisher, and in exchange give them the book rights and much of the profit from book sales.
But with the first draft still incomplete, I’m a long way from having to actually be in the thick of this decision. Who knows, maybe my priorities in this will change.
Let me know what your plans are for publishing a project or how you have published before, and what was the most important factor in that decision.
