The first question you’ll be faced with once you decide to write that book that you’ve been thinking about for so long is whether or not you want to get it traditional published or self-published. This question isn’t even one that you’ll just think about once and be done with it, no siree bob. It’s a question that will remain on your mind like a circus-trained monkey who also happens to be professional wrestler, constantly on your back, gnawing at you. Indeed, I struggled with the decision between going traditional or indie several times during the genesis of The Zaragoza Chronicles: Beginnings, and even tried to jump ship after publication, which I don’t recommend unless you’re a masochist like me. Before going into more detail about my ever-reliable indecisiveness, I’ll go into the nitty-gritty details of each publishing route and hopefully by the end of it, you’ll be in a better position to decide which method works best for you.
Self- Published (Independent/Indie)
The big-boy publishers literally have hundreds of years of experience on their belt which has garnered them plenty of clout and influence. However, as we all know, the bigger they are, they harder they fall, and the advent of all-in-one self-publishing firms like Amazon KDP has chipped into the considerable gap of resources that the publishing houses possessed. In fact, it has never been a better time to become an indie author. Anyone who’s even remotely familiar with the word bureaucracy inherently understands that bigger isn’t necessarily always better, and this saying is especially true for traditional publishers. The fact is, these companies have become so bloated that their established systems make it harder for authors to sell books, and what may have worked 15-20 years ago, is no longer viable in todays market. The biggest ships often turn the slowest and traditional publishers are behemoths. They have been known to ignore trends and continue with business as usual, partying like it’s literally still 1999. I say all of this because even though indie publishing is a scary beast in of itself, one of the biggest advantages you possess is retaining all control over your book, enabling you to have what those fat cats could only dream of: flexibility, or the ability to be agile, responding to changes in the market like an urban cat. That flexibility allows indie authors to be in control of the following.
Benefits of Publishing Independently
1. Book Pricing
The ability to control the price of your book is priceless pun intended. Publishers are a business and in order to turn a profit, they often will overprice your book to make their money back. If you rather be on top of your own pricing, as well as reaping the maximum royalty from your baby, self-publish.
If you’re not already a bigshot author, don’t expect people to purchase an overpriced book. The main way indie authors can stay competitive is with their pricing. Furthermore, with the ability to offer limited time discounts around holidays, the world suddenly becomes your oyster when it comes to creative book marketing based on dynamic pricing.
2. Digital Book Options
Another way indie authors can flex their creative muscles is with digital book options. Some publishers won’t even allow authors to have the eBook file of their own book! Can you believe that nonsense? Why is it necessary to possess different eBook formats you may wonder? Well because different retail sites use different formats, and when it comes to the distribution of your book, you’ll want it in as many hands as possible. Furthermore, eBook pricing is a major part of a book launch strategy. Adjusting your eBook price by offering discount promotions and days when your book is free is an excellent way to gain momentum for your book.
3. Book Updates
Some traditional publishers have hard and fast rules when it comes to updating your book. Often not allowing you to update your book until you reach a certain amount of sales. If you are a non-fiction author, this severely impacts your ability to stay on top of your subject, diminishing your relevance. If you are a novelist, this hinders your ability to re-release a backlisted series that did well before and could likely do well again if the storyline and concept are popular once more.
4. Amazon Optimization
As you all probably already know, Amazon is probably the biggest fish in the game when it comes to marketing and selling your book all in the same place. Unlike traditionally published authors though, indie authors have full control of their presence on Amazon. This allows indie authors to directly manage their own discoverability and book marketing, especially when Amazon constantly updates their categories and keywords. Getting your traditional publisher to do the same can sometimes be analogous to getting a root canal, not pretty.
5. Book Marketing
This one might be surprising but publishers offer close to nothing with the marketing of their author’s titles. They use the majority of their budget on less than 1 percent of their authors.
Though, most authors don’t realize this, or refuse to realize it until they grasp that their publisher pretty much left them out to dry. By being an indie author, you know straight-away that the lion’s share of marketing will come from you, so you learn, adapt, and overcome. Indie or not, you must be responsible for the marketing of your book, gaining those skills that are invaluable to the craft.
However, as any fledgling business under control of the Mafia can attest to, there is some comfort in having that protection, and the same holds true for authors who decide to traditionally publish.
Benefits of Publishing Traditionally
- You want your main focus to be the writing process. Writers write, right? And when you partner with a traditional publisher you can rest assured knowing that you have a team of professionals who will strive to make your book a success. You’ll be assigned an editor, marketer, publicist, cover designer, and others who will help you on your path. This frees up a significant amount of time for you, the writer. Allowing you to focus on what got you to the table in the first place, your writing.
- You want to be paid before your book is released. You’re probably aware of an advance, which is when authors receive a portion of their payment upon signing their contract. Authors can negotiate this amount and do not have to repay this amount if a book doesn’t earn as much as it intended to, pretty much making it guaranteed money. Even better, as your book sales increases with every book you publish, so will your advances.
- You’re willing to wait years for the book to be published. If you’re in no hurry to publish your book, getting traditionally published might be the best route for you. Indeed, the entire publishing process: from querying potential agents, to signing a contract with a publisher could take years if it even happens at all. Most authors (myself included) receive countless rejection letters, before finally obtaining an agent, so if time is on your side, you may prefer being traditionally published.
- You want to see your books in print. One of the biggest advantages of being traditionally published is the built-in relationships these companies usually have with booksellers. Making it much easier to get physical copies of your book on bookstore shelves. If this has always been a dream of yours, working with a traditional publisher might be your best bet.
- You like the idea of traveling to promote your book. There isn’t many greater feelings than being able to travel and meet up with your readers. If the idea of book tours sound right up your alley, then getting traditionally published would be the best way to go. Many publishing contracts leave you responsible to regularly engage in this type of activity, and the book tours are usually paid by the publisher.
- You want access to traditional awards and media. If the glitz and glam of traditional awards and media tickles your fancy, then obtaining a publisher could be the train you need to catch. As mentioned earlier, you’ll be assigned a publicity team with deep connections and an even deeper knowledge of the industry hopefully. These publicists are there to spread the word about your book and schedule interviews with the media, enabling you to have a better chance to being considered for literary awards. These opportunities are also available to indie authors, though the bonus to being traditionally published is that you aren’t the person seeking all these opportunities out for yourself.
Now with all that being said, there are some things that you should do regardless that will aid in your success no matter how you decide to publish that future bestseller.
Build an Author’s Platform
- No matter which publishing route you pursue, you’ll want to have an engaged author platform first. If you’re an indie author, this isn’t even optional, but even if you seek to be traditionally published, agents and publishers will definitely view you more favorably for a professional and engaged author platform. It only makes sense/cents. If a publisher is going to invest money on you, they want that investment to become less risky and a robust author platform can help with that.
Draw Up a Marketing Plan
- If you really want publishers, agents, or anyone to take you seriously, you’ll need to have a plan. More specifically, you’ll need to have a marketing plan once your book is published. Don’t be shy to spill your guts on how you’ll utilize that massive IG following you have to market your book and how you’ll reach out to influential book bloggers. If you’re feeling super creative, you can even do things that are more out-of-the-box like creating your own YouTube channel to build a list of email subscribers and keep them engaged with original content. This may sound like a lot of work, but through all of this, you demonstrate that you have a professional and collaborative attitude that will have publishers swooning over you.
All that glitters ain’t gold though, and if you want to pursue these strategies, you have to be aware of something.
I wish someone told me this, but building an online audience out of thin-air isn’t easy and if you’re a novelist, well, I hope you a strong belief system, because it won’t be easy, not even remotely. The path is a bit easier if you’re a non-fiction author, where you can start a blog about what you write about in order to hopefully get discovered by people searching for your topic on the web. When those people discover your blog articles, they’ll hopefully want to learn more about you and your expertise, leading them to purchase your book. However, if you’re a novelist, you’ll have to be more creative still.
- Publish Independently First!
This final point might sound like heresy if your plan is to be traditionally published, but just hear me out for a sec will ya? The second best way of gaining the attention you want from agents and publishers aside from your book being amazing, is to show that you have the ability to reach your potential readers. The best way to reach your potential readers? Self-publish! I know, I know it defeats the purpose of wanting to being traditionally published if you end up self-publishing anyway, but if you’ve already shown that you can put out a good book and have it reach your intended audience, then you make it that much easier for potential agents and publishers to take you seriously. If you’ve followed all the advice thus far by, establishing your author platform and have a rock-solid marketing plan, by the time you pitch your book that has garnered positive reviews and sales, the agents will be then asking you to please sign with them. If all goes well, you probably won’t have to reach out at all, and agents may instead be approaching you, eating out of the palms of your hands!
Now, back to that story about being a masochist. I ran the gamble and decided to look for agents after I already self-published The Zaragoza Chronicles: Beginnings. A fool-hardy decision indeed. No matter which path you decide to embark on the most important thing is sticking to it! Give it a fair shake before you decide to do anything remotely close to what I did, trust me, it’ll only save you heartbreak! After acquiring several positive reviews from both critics and readers alike, I thought my debut novel was on the fast lane for fictional stardom, but there’s one key thing to remember, agents aren’t your readers. They won’t or even want to understand why you wrote your book/novel in the way you did, and will only feign interest if it’s something they can market, something they can sell, something familiar, but distinct enough, quite the juggling act if you ask me.
Not only that, but agents often only review the first 5-10 pages of your manuscript, and the first 3 chapters if you’re lucky. If you’re anything like me and wrote a sci-fi tinged thriller that evolves into a supernatural-adventure story, agents won’t have the time to evaluate your story as a whole. Don’t get me wrong though, if you want to go down the traditional path, don’t see this as an impediment and instead view it as a challenge to write the best book you can and make sure that it only takes the first few pages for anyone to realize that. All in all, for my second novel, I plan to have it traditionally published for the fact that it has always been a dream to be traditionally published. For how outdated the system is, being traditionally published not only gives you the privilege to say that your book was published by a publisher who probably published one of your favorite novels, but also because traditionally published authors still gain exclusive access and notoriety in some spaces that just aren’t available to indie authors. No matter what you do, do it well, do it with your heart, and all will be well, trust me! 😉
If this is your first time on Ajaxwrites.com, welcome! I hope I see you again soon and I hope that the force remains with you, always.
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