Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the pros and cons of traditional publishing versus self-publishing. I feel pretty well positioned to compare and contrast the two methods (broadly – there are a lot of subsets and gray areas) of publishing books because I’m solidly hybrid. In 2016, my income was 40%/60% traditional/self-publishing; in 2017, it was the reverse proportion. So here’s a handy table to consider the pros and cons of the two approaches and I’ll discuss below.
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Traditional
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Self-Publishing
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Money
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Handled for you
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Handle it all yourself
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Cover Design
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No control
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Have to decide
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Team
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Lots of people invested
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Build your own
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Publication Schedule
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No control
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Much more control
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Quality
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Lots of help (theoretically)
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On your own
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Marketing
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Crapshoot
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Expensive
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Validation
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Built in
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Active community
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Money
The first and most obvious difference between traditional
and self-publishing is that with the latter you have to front your own money.
And believe me, to self-publish well, you must
invest in it. Doing it on the cheap is possible, but it always shows. If
nothing else, pay for editing.
But there are other aspects to the money that aren’t so obvious.
With traditional publishing, the house does all the accounting and cuts you a
check (or, more likely, direct deposit). Depending on their system, payments
can range from monthly to annual. With self-publishing, most retailers pay
monthly, but it’s up to you to track and verify the financials. On the plus
side, you get a bigger cut (which helps counter-balance that investment) and you
can see all the numbers. On the con side, keeping accurate track of the financials
can take a lot of time. Basically you become your own accounting department.
Cover Design
Another obvious difference with self-publishing is that you “get”
to choose your own cover. With traditional publishing there’s vanishingly small
opportunity for input. Some authors love
this aspect. Me, not so much. I’m better at it now, as I have a better idea of
what I like, but I can’t afford the cover artists my publishers can. While
sometimes I don’t like the trad covers they give me, there is something restful
about not having to angst over that aspect.
Team
A considerable pro to traditional publishing is having a
whole team of people invested in your book. This is really wonderful to have.
From your agent to your editor to the production and marketing team to the
librarians and booksellers, all of these people make a living by loving your
books and selling them. That’s an amazing support network. With
self-publishing, you can build your own team. That takes time so it can feel
like being a lone ranger. Also, with many of the folks on your self-publishing
team being essentially contract workers—paid by the job—there’s less long-term
investment in the process.
Publication Schedule
For me this is one of the biggest drawbacks of traditional
publishing: not being able to control my release schedule. I end up having to
work around those dates. In some ways they provide external structure, but when
it’s a terrible release date, that can be frustrating.
Quality
With self-publishing, the quality of the final product is
entirely up to you. The people you hire, and how much you pay them, are
critical to that quality. It used to be that traditional publishing came with a
guarantee of quality. Theoretically only the best books made it through the filters
to be pitched and bought, then professional editors worked on the books. With
cutbacks in traditional publishing, I’m seeing a lot of editors only acquiring
books and spending minimal time on giving content feedback. This is one of the
biggest value-adds of traditional publishing, working with a career editor to
make the story the very best it can be. Copy editing is pretty straightforward
and you can hire people to make sure word choice, grammar and punctuation are
correct. Finding an editor who can refine a story is priceless. I’ve been
disappointed to see some editors at traditional houses punting on this aspect
and to me it’s one of the biggest reasons to go indie. If my books aren’t being
edited, I might as well pay an editor.
Marketing
Either way, you’re going to have to do your own promo. The question
is how much. With traditional publishing, how much they put into marketing
varies on dozens if not hundreds of factors. A lot depends on the publicist you
draw. I’ve had books receive a lot of marketing and others receive practically
nil. With self-publishing, you’ll find lots of people swearing by various ads—pretty
much all of which you can do as a traditional author, too, if you’re so
inclined—but how much you’re willing to do, and spend, is a personal choice.
Validation
There are active communities and networks that support self-publishing
authors. Many readers will read only
self-published books. Of course, many readers refuse to read self-published
books. While this is changing over time, traditional publishing still has most
of the cachet. Publishing a book with a house, especially one of the Big Five, brings
a network of validation that can be amazing. (Though it’s not guaranteed.) The
house might get Big Name Authors to blurb the book and give it buzz. There’s a
more direct pipeline to review notices, awards nominations, bookstores, and venues
like book festivals. With self-publishing this can feel like an uphill battle
still.
Any questions? Thoughts? Stuff I missed???
