Demystifying the Decision between Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing
Why I Chose to Self-Publish My Debut Novel
I have a lot of well-meaning friends that often ask me why I’m not publishing through a traditional publisher. I take these questions as a compliment—they believe in me and assume (or know, because they’ve read it) that my book is great, so why wouldn’t a well-known publisher want to publish it? Unfortunately, writing a great book that many readers will enjoy does not guarantee you’ll get a traditional book deal—there is a lot more to it than that.
In this blog post I’ll explain how the traditional publishing process works, how the independent (or “indie”) publishing process works, the benefits and drawbacks of each, and in my case, why I’m choosing to self-publish. I’ve accumulated this knowledge over many months and lots of research, and I hope it’s helpful to authors weighing the same decision right now.
The five main reasons I’m self-publishing my debut, Morning Glory Girl, are:
It’s faster, allowing me to get my book to readers this year!
I have more creative control over the content, length and cover.
I don’t have to wait up to 18 months or more to find out a large publisher doesn’t actually want to publish my book.
I have to market anyway, as traditional publishers expect this, so I may as well do it for myself!
Indie publishing is a path to traditional publishing in the future—a lot of those well-known authors you see on the Barnes & Noble table started by taking a chance on themselves and self-publishing.
The Traditional Publishing Process
With very limited exceptions, an author must have an agent to get a book deal with a traditional publisher like Simon & Schuster or Penguin Random House. These large publishers will not consider manuscripts from unagented authors.
Getting an agent: For an author to get an agent, the author must write and edit their entire book, put together a query package with the summary, pitch, their author background, and sample pages, and send those to agents at literary agencies. Some points to consider when seeking an agent:
Most agents have specific tastes and specific requests for the genre and tropes they are looking for. I’ve seen things as specific as: a twist on a best friends’ brother’s romance set in a small town in the South. I’ve seen agencies say they are only accepting submissions from certain types of authors. If your book isn’t exactly what the agent is looking for at this time, then it’s an automatic rejection.
I’ve seen statistics from literary agents online that certain agencies receive 1,000-3,000 queries a month, and the entire agency only takes on 1-2 new authors per month.
I’ve seen more stories than I can count about authors querying hundreds of agents over a 3-12 month period, receiving all rejections, and then shelving their book and writing a new book and starting all over again.
An agent may take 8 weeks or more to request your full manuscript if they are interested. After that, most agencies I’ve researched ask for 3 months to review the full manuscript. Then they make an offer to represent you, ask you to revise the book and re-submit, or they reject it.
After getting an offer from an agent: If you get an offer of representation from an agent, that’s amazing! Now you and your agent will edit your book as needed, maybe for a month, or several months, and then your agent will submit your book to editors at the big publishers for consideration. This is called being “on submission” or “on sub.” Things that can happen on sub:
The sad truth is, books can ‘die on sub’, meaning your agent loved your book, but the publishers nevertheless do not offer you a book deal. I saw a stat recently that an editor at a big publisher that used to receive around 600 submissions per year now receives about 1200, and they only acquire about 4 new books per year. I’ve heard stories of authors being “on sub” for up to 8 months and then giving up, shelving the book that got them their agent, and writing the next book. Also, your agent might drop you at this point and then you have to query again and find a new one.
OR, your agent lands you a book deal with a big publisher, incredible! I think this is when an author can actually let out their breath and celebrate. It may be at least a year or longer before the book is actually published, but you have the deal in hand and likely a monetary advance so that is amazing. The book will have a professional cover, professional editing, and be sold in bookstores throughout the world.
Main Drawbacks of Traditional Publishing
Competition: As outlined above, it is extremely competitive. Sometimes you just cannot find an agent that is looking for your exact type of book. As most agent rejection letters state, it is highly subjective and not necessarily an indicator of the quality of the book.
Uncertainty: An author could be in the “querying trenches” trying to get an agent for up to a year. Even if they get an agent, the book could ‘die on sub,’ after up to eight months of waiting. In case you didn’t do the math, this all means a traditional deal could take up to two years or more from when the author finishes the book to when it is released, or finally rejected and shelved forever.
Timing: This process is very slow, sometimes resulting in books not being published until years after they were written.
Creative Control: Once you sign a contract with a publisher, you sign over a lot of your creative rights. For example, choice of cover and edits the publisher might insist on.
You still have to Market Yourself: If you’re thinking, this is all worth it because then at least I won’t have to do all the marketing myself and I’ll sell lots of books. Unfortunately, the big publisher will do some marketing for you, but most authors I follow online that have these traditional deals hustle just as much as everyone else to promote themselves. This is simply an expectation these days with social media, so a traditional deal does not mean you don’t have to do your own marketing.
It’s hard to earn out your advance: Another unfortunate truth: a lot of traditionally published books don’t sell enough copies to earn out their advance - meaning the author keeps their advance but never gets any additional royalties.
Lower royalties: Traditionally published authors get around 10-15% of the book’s price as royalties, whereas indie authors could get between 35%-70%.
Main Benefits of Traditional Publishing
Validation of your Work: If you can convince an agent and a big publisher to put their own finances on the line (for your agent, it’s opportunity cost because they only make money if you do, for your publisher, it’s fronting the editing and printing and marketing costs), then that means discerning book industry professionals love your book, think it’s amazing, and think many readers will buy it and love it. This stamp of approval from the industry goes a long way in getting readers to read your book, and it’s just an incredible accomplishment in and of itself.
Low Cost: The author doesn’t have to pay for services like editing, cover design, certain marketing, or print costs—this is all paid for by the publisher.
More sales: On average (there are always exceptions), traditionally published authors have more sales (I saw a statistic that the average is 3,000 copies). Some indie published authors only sell a few hundred copies (or less). But there are also indie published authors who sell tens of thousands of copies, so who is to say?
Independent Publishing Process
Nowadays authors can publish their books independently with print on demand and ebook distributors. The most popular is Amazon’s Kindle KDP self-publishing service. An author simply creates an account, uploads a PDF of their book, uploads a cover (print & ebook versions), sets the price, and clicks publish. I could publish Morning Glory Girl now and you could be reading it on your Kindle almost immediately, or order a print copy that Amazon will print and ship within 2-3 days. Other popular self-publishing distributors include Ingram Spark (where almost all brick & mortar bookstores order their books) and Barnes & Noble.
What goes into indie publishing: Write a great book, edit it, have early readers read it and provide feedback, hire editors to comment on everything from story structure to grammar and formatting at the author’s own expense (this costs hundreds to a few thousand dollars, by the way), hire a cover designer (or make your own cover), file a copyright registration, format your book, and market, market, market to find readers. Someone once told me being an indie author is the same thing as opening your own small business and that is absolutely true. It is a ton of work but you have complete control over whether your book gets out into the world, what the story is, how the cover looks, and everything else about it, and I think that’s amazing.
Key benefits of Indie Publishing
Creative Control: Indie authors have final say on the content of their novel, the cover, the blurb, the length, everything.
Certainty: Indie authors have the final say over whether their book gets published. If you’ve written something you love and want to get it into readers’ hands no matter what, then you can make that dream a reality by self-publishing.
Timing: Indie authors get to decide their release date! They don’t have to wait 6-18 months or more for a publication date set by their publisher.
Higher royalties: As mentioned above, indie authors typically make more $ per book sold than traditionally published authors.
Path to traditional publishing: Indie authors that gain a loyal following are often picked up by agents and big publishers after their indie published book becomes popular. Many popular authors, especially in the romance genre, were self-published before they got their big book deals, including: Colleen Hoover; Carissa Broadbent; Penn Cole; Raven Kennedy; Lucy Score; Elsie Silver; Andy Weir (“The Martian” was originally self-published); Lisa Genova (“Still Alice”); Olivie Blake (“The Atlas Six”); Callie Hart (recent blockbuster “Quicksilver”); and more.
Drawbacks of Self-Publishing
Expense: You’ll want your book to be as polished and professional as possible to meet readers’ expectations. For most indie authors this means spending anywhere from $500 - $5,000 on editing services, $200 - $1000 on a professional book cover, and a number of other costs like an author website, ISBN numbers, copyright registration, writing and formatting computer programs, and advertising and marketing costs. This is all out of pocket and a lot of indie authors do not even make their money back from book sales.
Marketing: Indie authors have to do all of their own marketing, or hire marketing firms to help. This means many hours spent on marketing materials and building a community of interested readers. However, keep in mind traditionally published authors must do this, too.
Limits on Reach: Some book stores won’t carry indie published books, and some people won’t read indie published books because they assume they aren’t good. Personally, I read both indie and traditionally published books and rarely see a quality difference. The indie authors I know work really hard and spend a lot of their limited budgets on editors to ensure the quality is just as good as traditionally published books.
It’s a business: Even if you can afford to hire marketing help and a PA, self-publishing is opening a small business where your book is your product. This takes time away from writing to build a business around your book.
So, Why am I self-publishing Morning Glory Girl?
I am so proud of this story that I literally cannot imagine not putting it out into the world in some capacity. I can’t shelve it, because I know there are readers out there that need it, whether because it makes them smile, or laugh, or fall in love, recognize their value, work through their burnout, heal their relationship with their sibling, or quit their job and move to an island where life is slower (joking on the last one, but not really…).
Morning Glory Girl has been read by a dozen early readers and I’ve gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback—readers love my characters, the story, the Martha’s Vineyard setting, the growth my main character achieves by the end, and have called the male main character a new favorite book boyfriend. This response makes me confident that if I can hustle on the marketing front and get this book in the hands of my ideal readers, it will have an impact.
If you’re an aspiring author reading this and you’ve gotten rejection after rejection from agents like I have, I hope this article helps you take the rejection with a grain of salt. There are a lot of authors who would never consider self-publishing, and if they can’t get a book deal with a big publisher, then their book will never see the light of day. I personally can’t live with that outcome, and I cannot sit for up to two years on a complete book I love, that early readers love, that will be professionally edited three times over, and that’s a summer coming-of-age & romance story that could be in readers’ hands by summer if I only believe in it. So, that is why I’m self-publishing.
Morning Glory Girl releases on June 20, 2025!
Sign up for my Newsletter on the Newsletter tab for more blog posts like this one, and to stay updated on Morning Glory Girl and my other planned novels.
