When you write a book that you want to send out into the world there is something you need to figure out first: do you want to traditionally publish or self-publish? There are pros and cons to both. Since I’m self-publishing I thought I would share my top five reasons for why I choose to self-publish over traditional.
1. No Querying
Oh my goodness, did I hate querying! I think I did a total of ten before I decided it just wasn’t for me. I hated how much time it took to put them together and to have to wait 6 – 8 weeks for a response. I do think if I were to query now I’ve learned a lot and I would be able to pitch my book a lot better. Even so, I’d rather use that time and see results than wait around for a response (or it’s a real possibility you never get a response).
2. Full Control
I hated the idea of turning my book “baby” over to someone else. I control every aspect of what happens with it. I don’t have to worry about a cover being forced on me, or a chapter being cut. I get to choose what happens. At the same time this is a lot of pressure, the success of my book is fully dependent on me and the work I put into it.
3. Profits
I’ll definitely rake in more without having to worry about financing a traditional publisher. From my research, if you traditionally publish you usually rake in about 10-20% profits from your books, while self-publishing can be 40-70%.
4. Community
The indie author community is the best! It’s been all worth it just for the new friendships I’ve made! The support is amazing and I can’t wait to meet even more people who are aspiring to be an author! I truly believe in #authorsupportingauthors
5. Legacy
Also, I don’t know … I just really LOVE the idea of publishing my book myself. I’ll learn tons, be able to help others, and hopefully put out a quality product that I’m proud of. This will help me grow not only as an author but as a person as well.
These are my reasons for following the self-publishing path. How about you? Are you self-publishing or traditionally publishing? Why did you pick the one over the other? Feel free to comment below or send me a message!
A.M. McPherson 
You cannot even imagine how much I agree!
The query thing annoys me the most. What I see a lot is them saying that they won’t open any attachments. Whut?!?!?
And they post a list of what they not want to see.
Then there is the waiting time to eventually never hear from them. They can’t honestly be that busy.
So yeah, you summed up my latest frustrations perfectly 🙂
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Yes! Each agent asks for something different. So it’s not like you can come up with one query layout and send it to multiple agents. It’s so time consuming!
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