People ask me all the time if I'm going to ever self-publish my books, or e-publish them. I'm wondering if anyone thinks that it's worth it to self-publish them (either online or in print)? Do you think that one day exclusively e-publishing will take over the industry?
You need to distinguish between e-pubbing and self-pubbing. Almost all books today get an e-version. I don't know if they'll ever take over, but they're a solid chunk of the market. And of course there are e-first or e-only publishers, usually in niche markets. Self-pubbing is totally different. You can self-pub an e-book or a print book (although it's hard to get distribution for the print book). Which are you talking about?
I think it depends on why you want to self-publish in the first place. Few would ever hear of your book unless you promote the heck out of it, and even then it might not be successful. I've self-published one book anyway and I don't regret it, despite the fact that almost no one's heard of it. What's the difference anyway, if it stays on my laptop and no one hears of it, or if it goes on amazon and few hears of it? At least out on Amazon, I can say I've got a book out, people can download it if they want, I can say I'm published, and even a few readers is more readers than I'd get if it stayed on my laptop lol. Now, while even through traditional publishing, your book might still not take off, there's definitely a far higher chance of it taking off and people hearing about you. There's of course also the reputation that comes with being recognised by a paying publisher. So if you want to make writing novels into a career and make a name for yourself, traditional publishing is probably the better route, unless you're a super talented businessman with the skill, resources and stamina to do your own promotion via self-publishing. But most writers are just writers, and few are writers and businesspeople combined. And then still others go for self-publishing cus their book falls in a niche market where no agent would ever look at it cus the market's just too small, others do it because they want to give copies away to friends and family, and still others do it because they don't want to wait indefinitely for the possiblity of an agent and then publisher snapping the MS up. And still others do it because they prefer to have total control over their book-babies. All these are legitimate reasons and there're pros and cons in both. I think all that matters is that you know what they are on both sides and choose the option that fulfills what you want for your book. PS. of course, just because you've self-pubbed once doesn't mean you can't trad-pub the next. It's not like you gotta choose one road and it's a road of no return lol. Personally I think having a combination of self and trad-pubbed books would be the best I've self-pubbed once, but I still would like to trad-pub another book at some point
I've done both traditional publishing and self-publishing. What I've really noticed is how much the traditional publishing helped with the self-publishing. Let's start with the assumption that all of my books are of roughly the same quality. There are going to be ups and downs, probably, but I don't think there are dramatic fluctuations. Reviews are comparable, certainly. So, one of the self-published books was in my 'home genre', the place where I've done most of my traditional publishing. It sold fairly well. Not as many copies moved as most of my traditionally published books, but because I get a larger cut of the proceeds, the income has been comparable. The other self-pubbed book was in a new genre with a new pen name. It sold dismally. Like, under a hundred copies. And I spent more time on promo for it than I ever have for any other book. My conclusions are that it's REALLY hard to get attention for a self-pubbed book without something else going on. The book in my home genre was discoverable because people knew my name through my trade published books. The book in another genre with another pseudonym? How could people find it and pull it out from all the OTHER self-pubbed books? So, if possible, I'd recommend starting with trade publishing. Then if you want to mess around with self-pub, you've got a name to help you do it.
