Self-Publishing: A Trend Doomed to Fail
With internet access and remote capability nowadays, more and more authors are turning to self-publishing to get their work out. With companies like Amazon making the influence of Indie authors easily accessible, some writers may feel that the days of traditional publishing are history — but they don’t realize the problem with this growing trend and how it may affect their work in the future. Is working alone really the best possible solution when it comes to publishing?
Why Self-Publish?
There are many benefits to being an Indie author — for one, you have complete, creative control over your work with no interference from an outside party trying to fiddle with your idea. You can also gain more royalties by not having to share your product with the company that bought it, and you won’t have to take the time to find agents and companies. This vision seems ideal to beginner writers who wish to make (and keep) the money from their book. However, self-publishing can actually result in less money when the book does not have a company pushing for it, advertising for it, editing it to make sure it is a book that will sell. Traditional publishing will ultimately take more time, but in that time you will reap more rewards if your book is chosen to be published.
Traditional Publishing: The Benefits are Worth the Wait
Companies that have established themselves have a reputation for selling quality literature, and therefore have more people waiting to buy from them. This is the first place that book stores go to fill their stock. Buyers will be looking at companies before they look at Indie publishers, and if your book is in that company, you will have a better chance of being bought than you would selling your own product. Major authors that have established themselves by name go through the route of traditional publishing, and have been rejected many times to get where they are now — because they took the time to push themselves forward into publishing rather than selling their book online, they were able to make a name of themselves and put out many more books that would sell based on their name alone.
Better Authors Don’t Self-Publish
It is a rarity to find a best-selling author who self-published their work. With millions of books being sold every day, if you ask anyone who their favorite author is they will most likely pull from a hat of names that everybody knows — authors with multiple books published already who have established themselves above the rest based on popularity alone. Traditional publishing allowed these authors to achieve fame and fortune by marketing their books and their name and leaving readers wondering what they will write next. If any of these authors had self-published and remained Indie writers, it is more likely than not that no one would have ever heard of them except for a few obscure readers who came across the book somewhere and happened to pick it up / purchase it online.
Is Creative Control for the Best?
While many self-publishers may argue that it is best to retain creative control of their own work, it is not a guarantee that these books are without error and couldn’t use a little extra something to really make them best-sellers. When it’s your work, your book that you spent months writing and poured your heart and soul into, you will view it without error and sneer at any changes editors suggest you make to it. However, the editors of these companies have major experience working with authors and changing books for the better. There are books sold online that not only contain grammatical errors, but misinformation as well as plot holes and other content errors that a professional team of editors would have caught. Traditional publishers provide you with the best team available to assure that your work will not flop because of an error or a plot that could use some tweaking.
There’s Credibility in your Company
These companies have a name and a reputation for themselves and not only do book buyers trust them, but readers do as well. They have a fan-following and credibility and most importantly: influence. When a reader is walking through a book store they are going to see the company’s logo on the book and know that it has potential based on that alone. It is these companies that help books to win prestigious awards and get themselves on best-seller lists. The average reader is more likely to be walking through a major bookstore like Barnes & Noble than they are to be scrolling through random book topics online or in an old Indie bookstore that is on its way out of business. While the money you make online may be immediate, it certainly will not be infinite.
Not Sure How to do it on your Own? Not a Problem!
If finding an agent and finding a publisher seems difficult, there are websites like Publishizer that work with you to help you get published so that the strain of choosing whether to go traditional or to self-publish will be an easier decision to make. Publishizer recommends traditional publishing as opposed to self-publishing due to the success rate, credibility, and influence of traditional companies.
The Better Path to Better Sales
If your writing is more of a hobby than a goal, then self-publishing may be the best path for you. But if you’re serious about writing and getting published, then finding a traditional publisher to work with you and help you succeed will guarantee you a better position in the industry as well as with your wallet. So if you are looking for a path that leads to a career, going the route of traditional publishing will grant you better opportunities and a better success rate. The time spent doing it the traditional way will buy you better results.
