Should You Self-Pub or Trad Pub?

A Non-Definitive Guide to Asking a Better Question

Hello!

I just got back from XOXO, basically the best conference ever, and sorry Andys, I don’t believe you when you say it’s the last one. As I look wistfully at my badge and the many stickers and buttons I collected this weekend, I fielded a question from my network. A writer asked me for direction, what path they should take. They’d queried a healthy number of agents (30+) and wanted to know if they should keep querying and traditionally publish or stop there and self-publish.

And I said: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Kidding, no. I asked them what their goals were. After a little back and forth, we got to the crux of it. They said they wanted to “do it the right way” and “get the most visibility” as well make some money off the book, if possible. These are all excellent goals, especially that last one. But they aren’t quite specific enough to lead to a solid answer. Let me explain.

Do It the Right Way

Long time readers won’t be shocked when I say there’s no do it the right way when it comes to publishing a book. What’s right? Right for who? Right for what? What the author probably meant here was do it the most widely-accepted way, but that’s not really it, either. There isn’t a right way. What defines right is whatever gets you to your goal. What’s right for you may not be right for someone else. If you’re worried what people might think of your choice, well, I can’t help you with that. (I don’t think that was this author’s issue.) So we moved on to the next goal.

Get the Most Visibility

Now we’re talking! This is a goal you can work toward! If your goal is to reach the most possible readers, you’d think the answer is traditional pub, but you might be wrong. Traditional publishers don’t have secret lists of all the readers who like quiet romance novels set in Provence. They just know all the outlets that talk about books. They can get your book into stores, which has the potential to reach more people, but think about the last time you plucked a book off the shelf IRL without having heard a single thing about it online or in the media. That kind of discovery doesn’t happen as much as it used to. Traditional publishing doesn’t have any magic powers to tell the entire reading community about your book.

If you have a sizable platform—a big social media following, a well-read blog, visibility in your industry—you might reach just as many readers as a traditional publisher would. You can reach readers directly through your email lists or social media or blog views and all the people who were going to buy your book may buy it that way.

Of course, you could use your platform and the publisher’s reach to propel you toward your goal. Maybe combined you’d be even more successful. If you don’t have a platform, a traditional publisher can get you closer to your goal in less platform-driven genres, like fiction (as opposed to say, self-help).¹ But it’s not a one is better than the other comparison. It depends on you.

Make Some Money

And here is where platform comes in the most. If you have a platform and you want the chance to make the most money you can from your book, self-publishing might be your best bet. You earn a bigger slice of the overall pie when you self-publish, but of course, you do all the work. You can earn money faster when you self-publish because you can publish basically as soon as you’re ready, and not wait for the slow machine of traditional publishing to rumble to life. It’s possible you’re in the enviable position of being so famous or your book so hot that a traditional publisher will want to give you a million dollars, but let’s be real. That’s not most of us.²

If you don’t have a platform, you can still sell your book to a traditional publisher in exchange for an advance, and that might be all the money you make on that book. That’s fine and normal! It could happen! Neither path guarantees money, but these are the things you should consider when trying to decide.

Choose Your Fighter

I started this post, and my conversation with this writer, asking what their goals were, and that’s still my best advice if you’re trying to decide which way to go with your book. But defining your goal doesn’t point to exactly the method that will get you there. There’s no guarantee you’ll reach your goal either way. Instead, defining your goal helps you decide how you want to try to get there. If you have certain resources (platform, time, knowledge, gumption) self-publishing might be the best way to go. If you don’t have those things and instead want to work with a team at a publisher, and/or to see your book in bookstores, traditional publishing might be your best bet. It’s more about what you want to do or not do that should help you decide between traditional and self-publishing, because no one’s goals are guaranteed, and every book is different.

Fun, right?

XOXOXOX,

Kate

1. Read this if you’re confused about platform:

2. If it’s you, call me.