A guest post submitted by Jennifer Harshman from Harshman Services.

It is exceedingly difficult to get an agent to notice your work—just 2 out of 10,000 authors can get an agent interested. Without an agent, forget going with a traditional publisher. The market is so flooded with authors looking for representation that many agents can’t even begin to look through the stacks of manuscripts arriving to them on a daily basis. You could have the greatest book ever written, but they would never know. 

This is just one of the reasons why the self-publishing industry is growing so rapidly. A few decades ago, self-publishing wasn’t seen as a viable, legitimate way to publish. If you were self-published, people would think your writing just didn’t pass muster. But that’s no longer the case. Self-publishing is now a viable alternative to traditional publishing. Let’s talk about the pros and cons.

The Pros of Self-Publishing

• Creative control – When you hand your work over to a traditional publisher, they will pull in the reins and make a lot of decisions without input from you. These decisions can range anywhere from setting distribution options, changing characters in your story to make it more marketable for them, and assigning a cover for the book. You are handing them complete creative control. With self-publishing, you can keep your characters the way you envisioned them, and you can hire a designer who will create the cover of your dreams, at your direction. You have the final say over revisions. It’s your baby, and you truly own every aspect of it.

• Make changes – If you realize something is not working well, such as the cover, or you’ve heard from people who have found a typo, you can update your files and upload them that day. If there is an issue with a traditionally published book, it’s a feat to make any changes, and a lot of the time, it’s just not possible. When you self-publish, you use POD (Print on Demand), which means your books are printed when ordered by the reader. Traditional publishers get the books printed in bulk, so there is virtually no opportunity for changes.

• You keep the revenue – The average traditionally published author’s royalty is 5%. That means if your book sells for ten dollars, you get fifty cents. If you self-publish, you can keep much more of that for yourself. If you publish through KDP (Amazon) you can keep 30–70% of revenue from book sales. Of course, you have to remember that the upfront costs of publishing fall on your shoulders, which includes paying the editor, cover designer, and layout artist. But you’ll make more money off of each copy that sells.

• Quicker to publish – Expect traditional publishing to take two to three years. With self-publishing, you can have things on the market much faster. You can write your book, have it edited, and work with a designer in a fraction of the time it takes a traditional publisher. Once you finish writing your book, it could be as short as two or three months until it’s available for sale. 

• Available indefinitely – A traditional publisher will stop selling your book as soon as it stops meeting their quota. They call this “moving the book to the backlist.” Most books get moved to the backlist in a matter of months. If you self-publish, you make all decisions for how long you would like to keep your book available. Smart authors leave their books up forever, and continue to write more, building an empire.

The Cons of Self-Publishing

• Marketing – All the marketing of your book falls on your shoulders. But this isn’t much different from traditionally published authors. Traditional publishers do not invest much into unknowns, so you would end up marketing yourself anyway. I highly suggest growing your reader base the moment you start writing your book. Here is some good advice about growing your reader base. 

• No advance – If you are one of the lucky few to get a traditional publishing contract, you might get an advance. An advance is a pre-payment for revenue that the publisher expects to earn by book sales. The amount can vary from tiny to substantial. Then, you won’t start earning revenue until after you “earn out your advance.” You will not get any advance as a self-published author. But I would argue that this is not earth-shattering. The vast majority of authors don’t get much of an advance anyway. 

• Paying out of pocket – As a self-published author, you will have to pay for editing, design, and layout out of your own pocket. You will not have access to a publishing company’s resources. Many actually consider this to be positive. It means you have complete control over your finished product. Just be ready to invest some money. 

• All work falls on you to do and coordinate – You realized by now that writing “The End” does not mean that you are finished. Not by a long shot. There is still a lot more work to do, and most of it has to do with coordinating other professionals as they polish and make your manuscript into a proper book that is ready for sale. If you want to DIY this part, you will have to stay on top of deadlines, professionals, legal issues, and financial matters. In that case, I highly recommend this book Project Management for Writers by my client Terry Stafford, who was a project manager for NASA for more than 20 years and is now a novelist. The book includes a timeline for the steps in the writing, editing, and publishing process. Sometimes it’s good to use a one-stop shop—a company that will serve as a project manager for you and take care of everything you need for one fee. Feel free to discuss this with Jennifer.

• Marketing – With so many books being uploaded to Amazon every day, it’s important to realize how important marketing is. You must take this seriously, or no one will ever know how amazing your book is. In fact, I highly recommend starting to market yourself the moment you write the first word of your book. Here’s a wonderful article written by publishing expert Jane Friedman. 

Self-Publishing Checklist

• Write a cover blurb – After your title and cover, the back blurb is incredibly important. Don’t give a summary of your book. Write advertising copy. You should draw in your reader to persuade them to open your book and read the first few paragraphs. The longer a book is in the hand of a potential reader (or on an open tab in a web browser) the higher the chance it will be bought. Click here to learn about writing the perfect blurb for your book. 

• Write your author bio – Your author bio is important. It’s where you set yourself up as the expert. Take your time writing this so that it is interesting as well as informative. It’s a good idea to have several versions of varying word count for your author bio. Here’s some information on how to craft a compelling author bio, including templates.

• Write your Dedication, Acknowledgments page – Always thank those people who helped you on your path of publishing. Please take the time to write something about those people who stepped in to make your work shine. Don’t forget your family members who sacrificed time with you while you wrote your book.

• Editing, design, layout, and proofing – We’ve talked a lot about editing, design, layout and proofing in previous articles. Take this step seriously. There’s nothing worse than an error-filled book, or a cover that fades to the back. 

• E-Book – Don’t let your e-book become an afterthought. Many people only read e-books, so you cannot leave it on your back burner completely. Harshman Services has layout artists on staff to help you with your eBook. 

• Distributor – There are so many choices when it comes to choosing a distributor. KDP (Amazon), IngramSpark, LuLu, and Barnes & Noble Press are a few that offer services to self-published authors. How do you choose? Here’s an article to help you with that decision.

• Purchase ISBN – Many distributors will give you a free ISBN. Do not use it! Spend the money to order your own ISBN through Bowker, or use the one provided by your one-stop shop, who ordered it from Bowker. You will need a number for every version of your book, including paperback, hardback, and audio book. Why is this important? It’s simple. You can have a publishing name on your book instead of having it look self-published. Trust me, this adds something to your book. Doing so will ensure that you can use more than one printer or distributor. You’ll be better able to “go wide.” If you use KDP’s free ISBN, you are stuck with just Amazon. Do not shackle yourself.

• Price points – You want to make sure your price points match those in the market. Do not price your book too low, or people may think your book isn’t worth a read. At the same time, do not price it so high that you price it right out of the market. 

• Category – Believe it or not, the category you place your book in on Amazon can predict your book’s success. The key is to choose a category that matches your content while going deep. If you are writing a book about the best business practices for freelance content writers, you could choose business as your category, but if you go deeper by looking for a subcategory having to do with running a writing business, your book will be seen by the right people.

• Upload files – Here’s the big moment! Upload your files. You’ve done it! You are now a published author. Tell people, then take yourself out for a special dinner. Congratulations!

It has been a joy for me to write this series of articles to help you on your publishing path. If you have any questions or would like any help, don’t hesitate to contact me at harshmanservices.com. I love helping new authors achieve success, and I would love to hear from you! 

Sincerely, Jennifer Harshman.