Traditional or self publishing: Which did/will you choose and why?

[CoffeeAndWrite]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this board but not to Mumsnet. I'm currently taking time out of work to be at home with my boys (2.9 years and 10 weeks old) and figured seeing as I'm at home for about 3 years, I may as well complete the two books I am currently writing and give getting them published a shot.
I always assumed I'd attempt to get traditionally published but the more I read about it, the more self-publishing appeals to me.

I'm just curious, what were the factors that ultimately led you to go down your publishing route? I'm new to the publishing aspect as I always just wrote for fun but now I've decided to give it go, I'm researching more. I'm trying to work out what I need to take into consideration before making my decision.

Also if anyone has any book recommendations about the two publishing routes, I'd be grateful! 😊

I am probably going self publishing as while I've had some interest from traditional publishers I would lose a lot of control.

However biggest thing to be aware of costs of doing it properly. I have a few professional editors as friends so they will do that for a significantly reduced cost. I can do the cover myself and have other artists and graphic designers as friends.

I will be paying for marketing though. You also really need to think about the platform you will be putting it on as some demand exclusivity and can have hidden costs etc.g kindle unlimited.

You really shouldn't be asking your friends to professionally edit your book at a reduced cost. You should value their work and pay the going rate. It's really time consuming to do a good job on a book and if you want them to put their best efforts into yours you should be paying them properly

Join the facebook groups Author Unleashed, and 20booksto50k, and all your questions will be answered by the files and experts there, BUT before you do, absorb the following advice.

It is only possible to make a profit from self-publishing if you:
(a) publish a full length good book with a great cover, several times a year in a popular genre, or
(b) write erotica or explicit romance or very violent books
AND
you work out how to become an expert in running ongoing online advertising campaigns
AND
You can afford to invest £1-5k upfront in book cover / editing / advertising costs with no guarantee thet you will recover these costs.

When you join the Fb groups above, people will be more positive than me. They will tell you that you can invest very little / write in an unpopular genre and still make a profit. This is not true.

I write in a medium popularity genre. I self-published because I could not get a book deal as my genre wasn’t fashionable enough and I didn’t want to wait years for the market to improve. An agent told me that to get a book deal you don’t need to write a particularly good book, you just need to pitch it at the exact time that publishers want that genre. You have to be lucky, basically. If I pitched erotic romance in 2011 or dystopian YA in 2012 or something with trans characters in 2019 I’d have got a book deal no problem. But I did not. (If you have a romantic fantasy book by the way 2023 is your year.)

My book has a professional genre-appropriate cover, was edited by a very senior editor from a top publisher, has numerous great reviews (average 4.9*) but I cannot sell it at a profit because adverts cost more than people are willing to pay for the book. My investment in cover art editor, ads and formatting software was £2k, plus the 100s of hours work.

I was pirated across the globe within 24 hrs of release, so you can get free copies of my work anywhere, if you don’t mind the spyware that the thieves have probably added to the book file.

So it depends what you write. I know some indie authors who make q lot of money but they all write explicit sex scenes badged as romance, or torture scenes badged as crime, or both.

Thanks. Costs are yet something I've properly looked into although I know professional editing, book covers etc are not going to be cheap. I plan on tallying it all up and seeing what my budget could be.

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. Very helpful information and I appreciate you being blunt about how difficult it is. Especially being pirated so early on, i can't imagine how frustrating that must've been.

I must admit, I don't write to market. I write what interests me. So this will definitely be one of the first things I need to look into. To find out if my books actually have a selling point.
I write historical fiction (not romance). One book is set during WWI, and the other in the gangster underworld of 1920s Brooklyn.

Oh and I'll make sure to go join those FB groups right now

I'm trad published. It was always part of the 'dream' for me, books in Waterstones, agent, bestseller lists etc (nb I'm not Times bestseller but I am USA Today bestseller). But even with all that the earnings aren't good. The majority of authors still have to have a day job.

I would definitely consider self publishing in the future in the same genre I do now (because now I already have readers) because of the money aspect, but knowing both indie and trad published authors the self publishing is a lot of work on top of actually writing.

Google David Gaughran - he has a lot of info on self-publishing and has published books on the subject.

I hadn’t even thought about pirating .