Pros And Cons Of Self-Publishing

Self-publishing is one of the most preferred ways to publish for budding authors of today. Its ease of use and functionality allows even the most technologically naïve individual to get through with publishing in a couple of days.

However, with all of its glories, self-publishing does bring some of the challenges hitherto unseen in more traditional forms of publishing. Authors need to prepare themselves by properly identifying and understanding the challenges they are likely to face. Check out how you can exploit the one of the most popular self-publishing platforms.

Here are some of the pros and cons of self-publishing.

Pros Of Self-Publishing

1. Faster Publishing

With self-publishing platforms online,you can publish your work in a very short time ranging from a few hours to a couple of days. In contrast, traditional publishing houses take as long as 6 to 18 months to get a book published. The faster publishing process can give you more exposure and help you make some quick money.

Quick and effective marketing through social media also plays an integral role in the quick success of self-published work.

2. Publish Your Pure Idea

With self-publishing, you have the final say on how your book looks and how much it sells for.

Therefore, you have a much larger creative control.

In case of traditional publishers, your work needs to go through editors, designers, in-house marketing experts that can curb your control substantially.

3. Better Income Per Sale

As a self-published author, you are often rewarded with better royalties by most of the publishing platform as it saves them a lot of work and manpower.

However, publishing houses take away a large chunk from your royalties giving you about 15% of the sales value in contrast to the 70% sales value that you get from self-publishing.

Cons Of Self-Publishing

1. Lack Of Editorial Support

Editors and proofreaders play a vital role in furbishing your story by smoothening structural issues and typos. With self-publishing you do not have an editorial team holding your back.

Instead you need to hire editors from a trusted party and arrange for a professional designer for the cover and other design aspects.

2. Marketing Challenge

In-house publishers are a great help as far as marketing is concerned. They can arrange for marketing your book with their experienced marketing teams. Since, you and the publisher are on the same team here, the publisher leaves no stone unturned to help your book reach the targeted audience. Books published by reputed publishers often have a better outreach. In addition, publishers can arrange for external reviewers and also arrange for better media coverage bringing more attention to your work.

On the other hand, with self-publishing you need to take care of the marketing challenges yourself. You can either hire a marketing team to do so or try it yourself with social media outreach given you already have a good rapport in such platforms. Certain strategies like sending free copy to reviewers and readers can help you accumulate more reviews and bring attention to your work.