On Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing

If you’ve been online in the fantasy-sphere for any length of time, it’s likely that you’ve come across a discussion on the benefits and pitfalls of self-publishing and traditional publishing. It’s a hot topic, and sometimes these discussions can get… animated. Sometimes there’s a bit of prejudice there. I certainly know that I’ve stumbled across enough arguments on the subject that I have to suppress a wince whenever the topic comes up.

I’ve long held the opinion that both must have characteristics that appeal to different people. Writers are not monolithic. Like any subsection of people, they have different personalities, different backgrounds, different needs, and different resources. So why, then, are the arguments about self-publishing versus traditional publishing so binary?

Why is there this insistence that one has to be better than the other? Why is there so little discussion on the topic that treats it like the complex and nuanced issue it is?

There’s a lot of information out there on the subject, but it’s fragmented. Spread over a thousand webpages, a hundred ebooks, and a few dozen Reddit threads. Buried under an even bigger pile of misinformation. Even then, in everything I’ve seen… the personal experience is rarely accounted for. It’s all impersonal numbers, calculations, self-promotion, and a fair deal of worshipping/cursing of the Amazon algorithm. On top of that, these things generally seem to be very geared towards the self-publishing experience.

Considering all of that, I came into this article with a few goals:

• To show that the “us against them” attitude is idiotic
• To shed light on the experiences of both avenues, hopefully with more of a human touch than some of the other articles out there on this subject
• To explore why an author would choose one avenue over another, considering their personal circumstances and goals
• To have a common resource to link to in the event that this damnable argument rears its ugly head again
• To present the information in such a way that both writers and non-writers can understand it

Now, I’m not an author. I’m a blogger. I have no strong biases either way, and have a number of friendly acquaintances on both sides of this so-called “divide”. These kind folks were lovely enough to let me quiz them on a few things related to their publishing method of choice, and it’s their answers that will make up the bones of this article. I’m just the guy assembling the skeleton.

So keeping that in mind, let’s get started.

I’ll kick us off with some background information on what the terms “self-publishing” and “traditional publishing” actually mean and what they involve. This will be beginner’s stuff, so anyone who is already clued-up on the subject should feel free to skip ahead.

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What is Self-Publishing /Traditional Publishing?

To put it in the simplest possible way, traditionally published books are those which have been published by a publishing house — think of the likes of Tor, Del Rey, Gollancz, and Orbit as examples of science fiction and fantasy publishers. You’ll often hear of an author being published by “the Big 5“, who are the biggest publishing companies in the United States. Each of the publishers I mentioned above are actually “imprints” of the Big 5, as is visualised in this handy flowchart. It’s not uncommon for a publisher to be an imprint of an imprint of an imprint, and a few of the Big 5 have several SF/F imprints. It gets… complicated. (And as any blogger will tell you, it can make it very difficult to find the correct publicity contact.)

Conversely, self-publishing is fairly simple when considered at a high level. Self-published books are those which the author has published themselves.

In practice, this means that the authors of traditionally published books don’t have to financially contribute to the publishing process. The publishing house is responsible for editing, layout, proofreading, cover art & design, printing of hard-copies, distribution, and marketing. The level of marketing can vary, but we’ll get into that later.

The authors of self-published books, on the other hand, have to pay for everything. They have to source freelance editors, proof-readers, artists, and graphic designers… Or they can try to do all of the above themselves. In a sense, they are forced to treat their writing like a business. A business that can have very steep start-up costs, in terms of both money and time. Even just the purchasing of ISBNs can get a little pricey.

You might be wondering why anyone would bother self-publishing at all, in that case. Why pay all that money when you can get somebody else to front the costs? Well, it’s not that simple. If it was, there wouldn’t be any need for this article in the first place.

For one thing, publishers don’t just publish anything. There’s a process to go through, which generally involves getting an agent to submit a book to them on your behalf. Some publishers — such as Angry Robot and Tor.com — do occasionally accept direct submissions (and some publishers occasionally run competitions with publication as the prize) but this is not the norm.

Agents are industry professionals who will try to sell an author’s book to publishers and handle the negotiation of contractual details (among other things) in exchange for a cut of whatever the author earns. No good agent will ask for a fee up front. Instead, an author will “query” an agent with a cover letter and a partial manuscript. An agent may then request a full manuscript, and if they like it, offer to represent the author.

But agents get a lot of submissions (which are often collectively and affectionately referred to as a “slush pile”), and only a very few authors make it to representation. Even then, only some of those authors will manage to land a contract for their book.

So it’s often not so simple as deciding between self-publishing and traditional publishing. You can’t decide to become traditionally published, you can only decide to attempt it, and very, very few authors will make it to traditional publication. For those that don’t… Sometimes self-publishing is the only option.

Which isn’t to say that self-publishing doesn’t have benefits of its own. Not all of the “good books” are traditionally published, and self-publishing shouldn’t be thought of as just the leftovers. As someone who has read many amazing self-published books, I can categorically state that this kind of “opinion” is not only wrong, but also grossly offensive. The fact that it has become more common for traditional publishers to acquire the rights for previously self-published books should be evidence enough that this argument is both dated and rooted in ignorance. Although, of course, there are authors who will choose to self-publish even when offered a contract by a traditional publisher.

For one thing, self-published authors make a significantly higher percentage per sale. If we solely consider ebooks for a second, while self-published books can often have a royalty rate of 35-70% of the sale price, traditionally published books can get as little as 25% or less — if anything at all — of the publisher’s take (referred to as “net” royalties). This can drop further to around 10-15% of the cover price (referred to as “list” royalties) for hardcovers and 5-7.5% for paperbacks.

The reason for this is that many publishing houses pay their authors an “advance”. This is generally a lump sum (sometimes paid in installments with conditions) that the author will receive up front, and can be anything between 4 to 7 figures depending on the book, the author, and the author’s sales history. The median advance for a larger publisher is apparently in the low 5 figures. The author won’t receive any royalties from sales of their book until the book has made the publisher enough money — calculated using the author’s initial royalty rate — to “earn out” their advance.

To give a simplified and completely hypothetical example… Let’s assume an author has an advance of $10,000, an ebook royalty rate of 25%, and their books sell at an average of $10. The agent should take 15% ($1,500) of that advance, but the author still needs to earn back the full $10,000. The author then gets 25% of the publisher’s take, which can vary, but I’ve been told it’s usually around 70% of the listed price (which works out to $7 in this case). So the author actually only sees 17.5% of that $10 (equivalent to 25% of the $7), which is $1.75 per sale.

The author would then need to sell around 5,715 copies of their book to earn out their $10,000 advance. Only after they earn out would they start to see that $1.75 per sale, but at this point they have to pay their agent 15%, which brings that down to $1.49 per sale. To give context for that 5,715 number, keep in mind that the majority of traditionally published books only sell a couple thousand copies over their lifetime. (Note: this link gives a bunch of average sales figures for various different kinds of books.)

So to sum up, a traditionally-published author should generally see 85% of their advance, and 85% of 25% of 70% (which works out to 14.9%) of the ebook sales price after earning out. It’s also worth noting that agent’s fees can be a tax deductible business expense depending on jurisdiction. I know I said that this example would be simplified, but publishing is wild.

It is also worth noting that those traditionally published authors that do very well may be able to take advantage of escalators. These are essentially rewards for selling a whole lot of books, which comes in the form of increased royalty percentages. So an author who makes 10% on each hardcover sold (after earning out their advance) might find themselves earning 12.5% after passing a certain sales threshold, and then 15% after passing a second sales threshold, and so on. The specifics of this will be detailed in the author’s contract with the publisher.

However, an author “earning out” is unfortunately not as common as you’d hope. 7 out of 10 authors do not earn out their advances, and there are very few authors who sell enough books to ever have to care about meeting their escalator thresholds.

With this in mind, many self-published authors feel they have a better chance at earning more money with their higher royalty rates.

Similar to the previous example, if a self-published author is selling their book at $10 with a 70% royalty rate (making $7.00 per sale), then they need “only” sell ~1429 books to make $10,000. If they were to sell the 5,715 books that our hypothetical traditionally published author needs to sell to earn out their $10,000 advance, they would make $40,005.

(Note: Amazon only allows a royalty percentage of 70% for ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, so the above example has been rounded up by $0.01 for simplicity.)

This is a very simplified example, not taking into account things like the different royalty rates for paperbacks/ebooks/audiobooks, discount sales, and agreements with vendors. But it’s useful to illustrate a point: self-published authors can make significantly more than a traditionally published author with equivalent sales numbers. With the caveat that self-publishing involves an initial investment (to pay for cover art, editing etc.) which must be earned back, and might also involve recurring costs such as advertising.

Of course, it’s easier said than done to sell that many books as a self-published author, especially a newer author who hasn’t yet managed to build their platform. The SFWA estimates that the average self-published print book only sells 250 copies over the course of its lifetime. Traditionally published authors have the benefit of their publisher’s existing platform and connections to build from. Self-publishers have to put in a lot more work to build all of that from scratch. One of the authors I spoke to put it in the following way:

A self-published author starts their trek in a teeming swamp far below the peak of the great Publishing mountain. A traditionally published author gets helicoptered in at Base Camp half way up.

It should be clear at this point that there are a number of pros and cons for each publishing avenue — only a few of which I’ve touched on so far. We’ll look at these in more detail in the following section, where several authors detail how their circumstances and goals informed their decisions of which path to take.

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Why Self-Publishing /Traditional Publishing?

I stated before that writers are not monolithic, and that different people will look for different things in publishing. When researching for this article, I asked a number of authors why they decided to opt for the publishing approach that they did. While there were some common themes in their responses, there was also a noticeable variety in their experiences.

Additionally, it became quickly apparent that this was not a subject that could be boiled down into just one question. There are countless variables in place here, and a number of topics to touch on.

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The Business Side

One topic that arose in a number of the discussions I had with the authors was the business side of publishing. While this is something mostly handled by the publisher in traditional publishing, self-published authors generally require a bit of business savvy (or a whole lot of luck) to succeed. These added responsibilities don’t appeal to everyone. As one traditionally published author very succinctly put it:

I want to write stories, not run a business.

Which is fair. Not everyone has the time, money, or inclination to dedicate to the business side of self-publishing. Some people have day jobs, children, or any number of other things to demand their attention.

Another trad-pubbed author noted that they deal with many of the aspects of self-publishing while running a company of theirs, and that when it came to their books:

I wanted to be the author and not the publisher.

Two other authors went into a bit more detail:

I’m not a marketeer, a PR, an editor, an artist, or a cover designer, and if you’re going to self-publish with any hope of success you need to either be or pay for all of those things.

I know myself. I’m not someone who knows or understand marketing. I’m terribly organised, I lose things, I forget things. I am, in essence, all the things that make a bad business person and you need to be able to do all those things to self publish. I just don’t want to, I want to use the (very limited) amount of energy I have to write. I’m interested in the act of writing, I never look at sales figures or anything like that. I write, I enjoy that and I want to be able to focus on just that. Nothing sucks the life out of something quicker for me than it becoming “work”.

These kinds of reservations are not unfounded. When asked about the learning curve of the business side of self-publishing, one self-pubbed author described it as “near-impossibly steep” without the guidance of the community and the sharing of experiences (more on that later). Another went a little further:

So much has changed, and continues to change. What is rock solid truth and conventional wisdom today could be consigned to the dustbin in a couple of years. Anyone getting started should of course do their research. But they should take nothing as gospel. Too many people proclaim the Truth of self-publishing (and traditional as well). How things Must Be Done. Fuck all that. Put your work out there. Make inevitable mistakes. Learn from and correct them, without ego. Put the next one out there. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

But then, there are those who aren’t frightened by this sort of thing. Even a few of them who enjoy it. Being able to control every aspect of your book — from how it’s printed, to how it’s priced, and who it’s marketed to — is something that some writers relish.

I researched all the facets of self publishing, and the business side of things just wasn’t that scary to me given it’s what I do everyday (just a different market).

One hybrid author (a term for someone who has experience with both traditional and self-publishing) noted that while traditional publishing offers a great advantage in terms of reach, “Self-publishing wins on every other level”. They continued:

As a refugee from the corporate world, I’ve long held that you can only be as successful as your team: you lift them up, and they lift you. And the best way to ensure that is to be the person assembling that team. (…) The key difference is my level of personal control over the process from start to finish, and that’s something a writer like me may thrive on, while a “I just want to write the book and focus on my art, and let someone else handle all the business parts” writer might loathe. Neither approach is inherently wrong.

As you can see, there are a range of opinions here, and they all differ based on the skills and predispositions of the people behind them. Some people would very much prefer not to ever look at their sales dashboard, let alone devise a business plan, whereas others thrive when given that level of control. What is “right” for one person may not be a good fit for another.

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The Finances

We’ve established that the higher royalty rates of self-publishing means that an author has the potential to make a lot more money per sale. However, I’ve also mentioned the issue of the start-up costs of self-publishing. The website Become A Writer Today estimates that it costs around $2,180 to self-publish a 40,000 word book. That’s a lot of money to spend on something that might not work out, and in a genre like fantasy, we could easily be looking at triple that word-count. Hell, I know people who have spent over $2,000 on cover design and layout alone.

This ties into a bit of a sensitive subject… A lot of the conversations and articles about self-publishing come with a fair bit of assumed privilege (mostly financial) and survivorship bias. Just because one person had a spare few thousand dollars to throw at a publishing attempt and happened to be successful doesn’t mean that another person has that money to spare, or that things would work out for them even if they did. It’s often said that writers need to gamble on themselves, but for some people the gamble simply isn’t worth it. They may not have the same financial luxuries as others, or they may have a family or children to provide for.

To put out a decent self published book you need to fund it, you need an editor and you need a cover artist and someone to format it for you. All that costs and it was money I just didn’t have available if my family wanted to eat when I was writing my first books. So it wasn’t an option.

But there are self-published authors out there who manage to make stuff work on a budget. I know authors who have spent less than $500 getting their book to publication, and I know authors who have spent next to no money at all, but have made things work through sheer determination, sweat, and blood. Some have called in favours from friends, and some have worked their fingers to the bone learning how to do everything on their own.

Oh, brotherman, I had no money. Not for editors, and certainly not for cover artists. It’s really only in the last two years I could afford any sort of help. I just didn’t let that stop me. (…) I still do all my own covers, though I am looking for an artist. I stopped self editing, though, because my eyes aren’t what they were.

There are those who might scoff at this sort of DIY approach, but you have to admire the work that these authors put in to master the eclectic set of skills that self-publishing requires. Editors, cover artists/designers, and other related professionals are obviously very good at what they do and deserve to be fairly compensated for their skills and experience. Unfortunately, not everyone is in a position to afford the services that they offer.

Learning how to do everything yourself will teach you fairly quickly to appreciate the work of agents, editors and marketing teams.

This is one of the reasons that traditional publishing is so attractive to certain people — the publisher provides a pre-assembled team of industry professionals at no cost to the author. For some, this is the only viable option. They might not have the finances or the energy to put together a team, or to shoulder those additional burdens beyond the writing of the book.

And so, again, the finances of publishing is something that comes down to individual personalities and circumstances. Some people might not have the money or the contacts that self-publishing requires. Some might be attracted to the relative financial security of an advance, and to the certainty of that payment. But others might be in a position where they can shoulder the additional work and financial overhead, and they might feel that they’ll sell enough books to offset these costs with the higher royalties of self-publishing. Everyone is different and everyone has a different path, all of which are valid.

But please keep in mind that for most writers, publishing isn’t the money-making machine you might think it is. The median earnings of a “professional” author — defined in this instance as someone who has spent more than half their working life writing — is around £11,000. Considering all authors, that falls to £4,000. There are award-winning, best-selling authors out there who still have to work day jobs, or who can only afford to write full-time thanks to contributions from fans via services like Patreon. Which, by the way, is an excellent way to support your favourite authors if you have the means to do so.

Of course, the best way to support an author, traditional or self-published, is to buy their books.

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The Community

While speaking to the authors who talked with me about this article, I found it interesting to note that both traditionally and self-published authors made mention of the benefits of community and support networks. Among the many differences between the two publishing avenues, this seemed to be a commonality. It’s often said that it “takes a village” to publish a book, and this is often true no matter how the book gets published.

For traditionally published authors, this can include their editors, agents, cover artists, publicity team, or other authors.

For self-published authors, this can include… basically all of those same things, though probably minus the agent and publicists.

But even then, the self-published community (particularly in fantasy) is tremendously supportive. There are authors who will exchange editing passes of each others books to keep the costs down, freelance editors who will offer discounted rates to self-published authors within their circles, and a number of bloggers who will go out of their way to read and review great self-published books. A great example of the latter is Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, where a team of 10 blogging groups commit to finding their favourite stories out of a list of 300 books every year.

There are also a number of smaller communities where self-published authors will share advice on all of that nasty, complicated business stuff I spoke of earlier. An author I spoke to believed that the persistence and learning-curve that self-publishing necessitates was inextricably linked to the support provided by a community:

Community is indispensable to the art of being a self-pubbed author. I have found indie authors to be generous to a fault with their time and knowledge. Further, they cheer your successes and commiserate when your launches flop. Whether it’s foundational forums like Writer’s Cafe on KBoards, the writing/blogging community on Twitter, or the personal groups one creates over time, I would argue that the odds of having a successful long-term career as an indie author are immeasurably increased by finding one’s community.

Due to the opaque nature of traditional publishing, it’s harder to find something concrete to point to as an example of community. A lot of the support there happens behind closed doors, be that with agents and editors talking authors out of a breakdown, group efforts to break through writer’s block, or even with the blurbing of books. But the support is there. You’ll see glimpses of it in supportive tweets, shout-outs in interviews, and in the hugs and jokes shared at cons.

Community is not something that is exclusive to either publishing avenue. It’s not even exclusive to those that go through the publishing process. Every writer, every publishing professional, every blogger, and every reader is all part of the same, wonderful community. Sure, there might be a few bad eggs here and there who might think they have “transcended” the genre or something similarly ridiculous, but most people are better than that. In my experience, the fantasy community is incredibly welcoming and supportive. Long may it continue.

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The Deadlines and Timelines

The difference in turnaround time between traditional and self-publishing is perhaps one of the starkest contrasts between the two avenues. A traditionally published book can release over a year after it was first written, whereas a self-published book can be released within a few months, depending on the editing/proofreading process. This can be a major deal-breaker for an author, depending on their circumstances and goals.

I wasn’t willing to spend three plus years querying. Time is a big factor for me, even now: trad publishing is slow. And since I’m only a part-time writer, I have to be able to be flexible with when I write and how much I produce.

Time can have an affect in a number of ways. The number of free hours an author has available to write, the time it takes an author to complete a book, the time it takes to query agents, the time it takes for a book to actually get released… all of these could be important considerations for an author, to varying degrees.

In my case, I had a finite amount of time to prove that this was possible. I was between careers and putting money into this venture, and I really couldn’t afford the years it might take to get an agent and a publishing deal.

The timeframes for these things are not universal, either. Different people will take different amounts of time to find an agent (which can take months or years, if it happens at all), or to familiarise themselves with all the business know-how that they’d need to self-publish. It’s up to the author to determine which of those time investments are worth it.

As so much of this depends on the individual, it was interesting to note the variety of opinions on the matter. One author suggested that due to other time-commitments, they wouldn’t have had the time to dedicate to the hustle of self-publishing if they had gone that route. However, another author suggested that the traditional publishing system is unforgiving on those with little time to spare:

It’s definitely a system set up for people who are full time writers. Which is why I think we see so many authors with other jobs talking about late nights or early mornings and the intense stress of deadlines.

Deadlines are another potential concern. While the only deadlines in self-publishing are those which are self-imposed, traditional publishing comes with a number of deadlines for each book — one for each stage of the editing process. For someone who has slowly and carefully crafted their first novel over the course of years, a two-week copy edit deadline can be quite a culture shock. Then there’s the pressure of finishing the next book on time…

After years of writing on your own timescale, being told a publisher wants the next book by X date is a huge shock to the system. It’s really stressful.

Different people handle deadlines in different ways. Some people may feel that tight deadlines cause them to stress or feel creatively chained. Others might feel that the continuation of their series would better served as a concept, rather than a written story. Others still are able to work well under pressure, whether calmly or in a barely-constrained panic, and see deadlines as just another thing that has to be dealt with.

Deadlines are just part of the job. With the licensed tie-in work I do they can sometimes be brutal, when books have to be timed to release alongside new products, but it’s just something you have to train yourself to do. It’s no different to being on a time crunch in a day job like project management or game development.

With original fiction it’s usually the opposite: you sell a book and get given a release date that’s probably 18 months away, but there’s a good reason for that. Development edits followed by line edits followed by copy edits and proofreading all take time if they’re going to be done properly. Cover art and design take time, and ARCs need to be out months before release date so you have quotes and reviews in hand before it hits the general public. As I said, the big publishers know what they’re doing and there’s a reason for why they do things the way they do.

The timelines in traditional publishing can be hard to wrap your head around at first. It’s not uncommon for an author to be in the middle of writing the third book of a trilogy while the first book is being released. When two eerily similar books release within a year or two of each other, it’s likely that neither author had an inkling that the other existed while writing, and that both books were going through different stages of the publishing process at the same time.

Traditionally published books are more or less locked into this lengthy process, with a release schedule that is generally around a year between releases (though occasionally some authors will release with only a 6-month gap). Self-published authors, on the other hand, can be more experimental. For instance, Ben Galley’s Chasing Graves trilogy was released over the course of 3 months. This release schedule flexibility can give an author an advantage when it comes to adapting to the ever-changing landscape of Amazon rankings, especially when it comes to riding the latest genre trends.

One indie author wondered why traditional publishing houses hadn’t yet adopted some of the business practices of self-published authors, and adapted to allow for a higher throughput of completed novels:

I don’t feel like some kind of traditional publishing reject—it’s really not for everyone. At the same time, I feel like it should be. Too many good authors are turned away, and based on the rising number of indie ebook sales it seems like publishers COULD be putting out a higher volume of titles by simply operating a little more like indies and beating us at our own game. I would love that future. Learning AMS ads and other business/marketing activities really isn’t as fun as writing, and having a professional team would be awesome. Perhaps publishing will learn to adapt to the changing audience and be in a better position to serve authors who just want to be able to write books and deliver them to an audience. Until then, I’m sticking with indie so I can release books on a decent timeline and build my audience.

While this sounds like a simple suggestion on the face of it, the reality is likely far more complicated. The workload for professionals in traditional publishing can be tremendously heavy, to the extent that the work often spills over into the weekend (likely unpaid). As it stands, much of the marketing/advertising budget of an imprint may be focused on only a few books a year. Increasing the workload of the marketing department would mean that each release would receive even less attention. However, this is not to say that more experimental publishing imprints won’t appear in the future.

While the timelines may differ, one thing is a constant: being an author necessitates a huge time commitment. Traditionally published and self-published authors will spend that time in somewhat different ways, so on some level it comes down to how they’d prefer to spend it. However, while a self-published author is likely to spend more time handling the marketing aspects of their book, it’s important to recognise that every author is to some level responsible for the promotion of their own book, marketing team or not.

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The Stigma of Self-publishing

Okay. Right. Deep Breath. Let’s talk about the stigma of self-publishing.

There is a very pervasive belief that all self-published books are bad. A number of people believe that they are full of typos, grammatical errors, and inconsistencies. There are even more people who believe that traditionally published books are just inherently better, since they have been vetted by “gatekeepers” — which in this instance can refer to anyone from agents, to first-readers, to editors.

This leads to a general feeling in some circles that self-published books are not worth reading. It can result in some very nasty things said about self-published authors, and one particular insult that seems to pop up a lot is the suggestion that these authors have to “whore” their books to get sales. Let’s not get into how insulting that is to marketers and publicists.

Many of the articles that seek to defend self-publishing from these accusations take a “no true Scotsman” approach. They suggest that a book can’t really be considered self-published — or at least “professionally self-published” — unless it has been professionally edited or proofread, has a professionally-created cover, etc.

In the interest of being objective, I’m going to be brutally honest. A significant number of self-published books are terrible. If you’ve ever tried to sort an Amazon search by “recently-published”, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If you’ve ran a blog that accepts review requests, you’ll no doubt have had the occasional rudely-phrased request — complete with atrocious blurb — from an author whose ego is inversely proportional to their talent.

But you can’t paint an entire group of people with the same brush. If you know where to look and what to look for, you can find any number of fantastic self-published novels written by fantastic, friendly, and intelligent people. While much is made of the “gatekeepers” of traditional publishing, self-publishing has gatekeepers of its own. There are competitions like the SPFBO, bloggers and reviewers who will review self-published books on their websites/Goodreads, and the authors themselves will often promote other great books on their social media.

While the existence of these books is going some way to lessen the stigma of self-publishing, it unfortunately still exists to some degree. From Guardian articles claiming that self-publishing is a “terrible idea for serious novelists”, to claims that self-published books are somehow responsible for decline of ebook sales in the United States. There are a lot of bad takes out there, with more appearing every other day.

This prejudice can manifest during events such as conventions, where successful veteran indie authors can slip under the radar whilst debuting traditional authors are given a lot more recognition and opportunities. I’ve also heard reports of how self-published authors can be snubbed by “cliques” at cons, but in light of some recent conversations on the subject, this may be a universal experience. Self-published books are also far less likely to earn consideration for the more prestigious awards.

Prejudice can also manifest in more subtle ways, many of which can occur accidentally. As there are many books which have been self-published following an unsuccessful attempt to break into traditional publishing, the idea that trad-pub gatekeepers function as a “quality filter” is seen as offensive by some. While there may be some truth to it, when taken in a certain way, there are many reasons for a book not to be picked up by an agent or publisher. Editors are not able to purchase every book that they’d like to, and so the rejection of a book is not necessarily indicative of its quality.

There is a more sensitive situation that often arises and is often the cause of tension. When a traditionally published author is publicly discussing their publishing or financial situation and neglects to consider/mention self-publishing as an option, this can be viewed almost like a form of erasure, which some take issue with. However, as this article has hopefully explained, there are a number of reasons why self-publishing might not be a valid option for everyone. The “calling out” of traditionally published authors in these situations can therefore cause offence in the opposite direction, as it often occurs without knowledge of the author’s personal situation and circumstances. Put bluntly, it’s rude to jump into the replies of someone you’ve never met to offer unsolicited career advice.

The stigma of self-publishing is unfortunate, and in many cases unfair. The tensions that arise with the topic are so often avoidable. Much of it comes down to human decency: don’t make generalisations, be mindful of the circumstances of others, and recognise and challenge your subconscious prejudices.

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The Creative Control

Whenever these conversations arise, much is made of the creative control of self-publishing. You’ll often hear that self-published authors have much more freedom to do whatever they want with their book, whether that’s in terms of content, cover art, release schedule, or pretty much anything else. In contrast, the narrative concerning traditional publishing can sometimes portray their authors as creatively chained and tied-up by bureaucracy.

The truth lies somewhere in there, buried by a bit of bias. Self-published authors can pretty much do whatever they want with their book. They can kill off their main character in Act 2, replace them with a vegetable, and there’s no-one who can stop them taking that to publication. More seriously, they have free reign to experiment with their storytelling, and can take some narrative risks that traditional publishing houses may not be too comfortable with.

For some authors, being able to write exactly what they want without being second-guessed by someone with a level of authority over their book is a major plus. There are authors with books that may be a bit unusual or outside the norm, and they may wish for the freedom to write without compromising on their vision. Which is a perfectly valid attitude to have.

You can do whatever you like, no one is going to impede on your creative vision.

However, this is not to say that a traditionally published author will have to compromise on their vision. While an editor may request that certain changes be made to a manuscript, often these changes are in service to the author’s vision, rather than working against it. There is a reason why you’ll often find authors claiming that their editors are “miracle workers” or similar in their acknowledgements. Different authors may also have different scope for experimentation, based on a number of factors such as trust, track record, sales history, etc.

It’s a cooperative thing with usually some give and take. An author can always say no, but in my experience good editors make a book a slicker, more polished, and better version of itself, and they are worth their weight in gold. That said, should something affect the publisher, or should an editor really push for changes to the book, it could cause a lot of issues.

At the end of the day, a traditionally published author won’t have the same level of control as a self-published author. This is not necessarily a negative, due to the talent and expertise that traditional publishing professionals bring to the table, but it is a relevant consideration for some authors. Depending on the writer, surrendering control of certain aspects of their book could be a deal-breaker, or it could provide them with the kind of accountability and support that will help them flourish.

I guess it depends how much you want to keep total control of your work – with a Big 5 you’ll most likely not have any say in your cover art, for example, but these people know what they’re doing and all of mine has been wonderful. Ditto with professional edits. If you get the opportunity to go trad, you have to view publishing as a team sport not a solo endeavor, but that suits me down to the ground.

Another thing to consider is that there are certain genres/subgenres which traditional publishers tend to shy away from. These can include genres which are more “niche”, those that perhaps haven’t sold well historically, or newer, emerging subgenres that may present a bit of a risk.

I was also told by a few agents that my genre was on its way down. Not out, necessarily, but cooling.

Perhaps the most prominent example at the time of writing is LitRPG. While there are some indie publishers (such as Portal Books) that specialise in the genre, the majority of successful LitRPG titles in the past few years have been self-published. The lack of traditionally published LitRPG books is something I’ve seen commented on numerous times over the last few years.

But while the publishing houses may have their reasons for shying away, genres like LitRPG and Urban Fantasy still have very voracious readerships. Even if the size of their audience is comparatively small, many self-published authors have been well-placed to find success by stepping up to fill this demand. Though, of course, success isn’t always quite as easy as just releasing a book in the right genre.

Creative control doesn’t only extend to the content of a book. It can refer to all aspects of the book, such as the cover, title, format, audiobook narration, and more. One of the authors I spoke to for this article actually narrates their own audiobooks, which is something that is generally considered a bad idea. However, they were able to deliver a quality product and have found some success with their books as a result.

I had been told several times by industry professionals that narrating my own audiobooks would be dangerous and potentially foolish. And while in retrospect they were probably right on average, I scraped together just enough self-confidence to believe I could pull it off. Luckily it worked and turned out to be a huge boon for my career. We’re all looking for ways to set ourselves apart, and the novelty of self-narration slips my books into a much smaller pool than I would have been in otherwise. And every shred of evidence I’ve gathered since tells me that it’s extremely unlikely I would have been allowed that kind of gamble with a traditional publisher and agent who (quite rightly) have their own reputations to think about.

While success stories like these show that such things can be done, it’s important to recognise that these creative risks and gambles aren’t a sure thing. They wouldn’t be called “risks” if there wasn’t an element of risk to them. For instance, while self-narration done well can be a selling point, self-narration done badly can actively turn people away from a book, and this also applies to self-made covers, self-editing, etc.

With full creative control, you have to really know what you’re doing, have the money to hire people who know what they’re doing, or have an incredible streak of luck. This is another place where the learning curve of self-publishing comes into play. Not everyone will have the time or inclination to learn how to oversee all these different aspects of publishing. Some people might, and those people can sometimes thrive. Once again, it depends on the individual.

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The Reach and The Marketing

Perhaps the most commonly-cited advantage for traditional publishing is reach. For all the advantages of self-publishing, it is far, far harder to get your book into the amount of bookstores that a larger traditional publisher can. Brick and mortar bookstores may not have the importance they once did when it comes to making a book a success, but it’s hard to deny that seeing your book on bookstore or library shelf offers a sense of validation.

The greatest advantage of traditional publishing is reach. A traditional publisher can get you through doors that are hard to open on your own; for instance, [one of my books] got a (very lovely) pre-release booklist review and a lot of library placement, neither of which my self-published titles receive.

Distribution of physical books is only one aspect of a traditional publisher’s reach. Larger publishers will also have mailing lists of readers they can advertise to, lists of bloggers and journals to contact for early reviews, and contacts with authors to provide blurbs. They will often have stands at larger conventions, where they might give away ARCs or otherwise advertise recent releases. They can also advertise on social media platforms that will in most cases have higher follower numbers than the author might have. They may pay for some Amazon/Facebook advertising too, but this isn’t something I’ve been able to confirm.

If you have the marketing machine of a large traditional publisher behind you, chances are that you’ll sell much more books than if you tried to handle all of that advertising yourself. The question is whether you will get that marketing push or not.

A common complaint among traditionally published authors is that their books were not marketed enough, particularly their backlist. It might not be fair, but it’s a sad fact of the business that not all books are marketed equally. Recent releases — particularly those by debuts or big name authors — will take the lion’s share of the marketing for most publishers. There are several reasons for this: publishers have budgets, marketing/publicity/sales departments only have so much time to work with, and it makes financial sense to push the books that offer a greater chance of financial return. But for an author with a book that isn’t selling as well as expected… It can be disheartening to feel that the publisher isn’t doing much to try and turn those fortunes around.

This isn’t to say that advertising is any more of a sunshine-and-rainbows subject for self-published authors. Advertising has a reputation for being a pay-to-play game, where you only stand a good chance of winning if you sink a whole lot of money or time into it. Even then, it’s far from a guarantee.

Effective marketing, without having the time to spend on it everyday, is really challenging. Facebook and Amazon ads become an arms race where authors are competing against each other and driving up the cost per click and driving down the effectiveness of those ads. And getting lasting attention against the releases of the big publishers is really difficult if not completely impossible.

For self-published authors who don’t have the time or money to advertise their book, publishing can feel like screaming into the void. It is near-impossible to release a book and have it take off without advertising it in some form. People need to know that a book exists before they buy it. Even then, they need to be convinced to buy that book in particular, rather than one of the millions of other books out there. This will obviously depend on many factors, such as covers, blurb, title, genre, etc., but advertising is the most direct way to tell someone to read your book.

If there’s one thing that most authors will agree on, though, it’s that advertising can be a huge pain in the ass.

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The Setbacks and the Small Print

Even with all of the things discussed so far, it would be negligent of me if I didn’t acknowledge some of the more negative experiences of publishing. While the speculative fiction community is largely a welcoming place, it has its fair share of drama and bad experiences. Publishing, whether traditional or self, is a business. Business is driven by money, and money tends to make people behave in less than friendly ways. In the worst cases, people can be exploited.

The ChiZine Publications scandal is perhaps the most public and recent example of this (at the time of writing). I won’t claim to know the ins and outs of this particular drama, but sites like Writer Beware and File770 have documented claims by authors that the Canadian indie press had been withholding royalty payments and offering exploitative contract terms.

Stories like this about small presses are uncommon, but they do pop up from time to time. This has unfortunately led to distrust in some quarters towards small presses as a whole, which is unfair to those publishers who operate in a professional manner. Many of the authors I’ve spoken to from such presses have had nothing but kind things to say about their publisher. But it would be irresponsible not to note that more unprofessional small presses exist, and unfortunately one of the authors I spoke to had some experience with this:

Turns out [the owner] was maybe not so good with the money. By which I mean nobody knows what the fuck he did with the money.

The Big 5 publishers don’t tend to be prone to scandals that are quite so colourful, but I have been made aware of several items of “small print” within the contracts they offer which can cause some issues.

The biggest of these is probably the non-compete clause. For those not aware, a non-compete clause is essentially an agreed upon term during which the author will not release any other books which might “compete” with the book to be released by the publisher. The inclusion of these clauses in publishing contracts is standard practice, but the strictness of them can vary wildly depending on the wording in the contract. I’m aware of at least one case where an author is “forbidden” to write in the same genre until the copyright of their book expires — which generally means 50-70 years after their death. Whether this is legally enforceable or just a scare tactic is besides the point, as it could cost the author a court case to find out.

The majority of non-competes are not quite so dramatic, but they can still be a deal-breaker for many authors (especially those who are more prolific). From what I’ve been led to understand, the standard term is a few months (I’ve heard anywhere from 2 to 12) either side of the publisher’s release. This may seem reasonable on the face of things, but remember that for a full-time author releasing a trilogy one book per year with a 12-month non-compete… that’s essentially a 4-year period during which the author cannot release any other books in the same genre. Or any other books at all, depending on the wording of the contract. For those for whom writing is a sole source of income, this non-compete would make them entirely reliant upon their advance and royalties (if any) for that period of time. Depending on the size of the advance, this can mean that the author could be earning under the living wage.

Another quirk of small print I’ve been made aware of is an additional clause which states that the contracted book will be the author’s next release. As a book can sometimes be published up to two years after the contract is initially signed, this effectively tacks on a few extra months to the beginning of the non-compete.

Now, a good agent will negotiate with the publisher to try and cut down the length of a non-compete if that’s what the author wants. This is where a degree of trust between author and agent is essential, because the agent doesn’t get paid until the author signs the deal. If the author walks away, the agent gets nothing. The agent therefore needs to be willing to walk away when the author wants to, even if it’s in their own interest to convince the author to sign the deal anyway. Unfortunately, there are some agents out there that will gaslight their authors into believing that the boilerplate terms cannot be changed, even if this runs contrary to testimonials from other authors at the same publisher.

It is also important to keep in mind that while many agents are damned good at their job, there is only so much wiggle-room that a publisher will agree to. For instance, contracts with the Big 5 now necessitate the signing over of audio rights, and this seems to be non-negotiable. For those who find audiobooks very lucrative — such as Michael J Sullivan, who has written many pieces on the subject — this can be a dealbreaker. For others, it’s a price they’re willing to pay.

There are a few other common traps in the small print that I’ve been made aware of. This includes signing over the rights to TV/Movies/Comics/etc, or even signing over the rights to the author’s own world, such that they can never write tie-in fiction without the permission of the publisher. It includes setting escalators for each edition of a book, meaning that even if an author theoretically meets their escalator sales threshold of X books sold, this doesn’t count because those sales are spread out over different ISBNs, which are treated separately as per the contract. It also includes very difficult-to-meet reversion thresholds, meaning that the publisher might only need to sell a few copies of a book a year in order to maintain the rights to it.

What all of the above boils down to is: READ YOUR CONTRACT!

Read it even if you have an agent. If they don’t know what your sticking points are, they won’t be able to fight your corner on those issues.

Traditional publishing may not necessitate much financial outlay on your part, but that doesn’t mean that it comes free. The deal is that you sacrifice your right to a bunch of different things — control, royalties, rights — in exchange for what the publisher offers you in terms of editing, layout, marketing, artwork, etc. The author will have to decide what is worth sacrificing and what isn’t, and it is likely that some compromise will have to be made. It’s up to the author to determine whether that compromise is worth it. For many, it is. For others, there will be sticking points. As always, it depends on their circumstances and goals.

A final thing to mention about traditional publishing is that sometimes unfortunate changes in circumstances can mean that the editor who initially purchased a book or series can be replaced. This can happen for many reasons, such as illness, a change in employer, or an unfathomable sacking months after winning a prestigious award. Publishing can be weird.

From what I’ve gathered and what I’ve been told, a change in editor can sometimes be a cause for alarm. Your editor is essentially the champion of your book at a publisher, and there is no guarantee that a replacement editor will have the same enthusiasm for the book. A few of the authors who spoke to me of a change in editor related negative experiences, and those have all since moved on from those publishers. However, I’ve also been made aware of a few occasions where authors have had positive experiences with a change in editor, and in these cases the publisher has gone out of their way to assure the author that they are still valued.

But while I’ve spent a lot of time talking about traditional publishing, self-publishing has its fair share of pitfalls. The most obvious is that it is very easy to get lost in the shuffle as a self-published book. Marketing can be hard and it can be expensive. There are countless self-published authors who have poured their time, money, and effort into a book, only to have it released to crickets.

I’ve already laboured the point about the start-up costs of self-publishing, but it really can get expensive. I know more authors who have made a loss than have made a profit, and some of those are the most talented writers I know. While it may for the most part be a pay-to-play game, there is no guarantee that you’ll ever make more money than you’ll spend. Again, this is where community and the sharing of experiences, knowledge, and business strategies is so important.

There is also the point that self-published authors are almost completely at the mercy of Amazon. Jeff Bezos is one of the richest men in the world, and while he might have provided indie authors with some tools that allow them to compete against traditionally published books for now, there’s nothing to say that he won’t change the playing field to something that might earn him even more money. Amazon effectively have a monopoly on the publishing market right now, and no matter how many writers depend on their platform to make a living, Amazon will always do what’s best for Amazon. If the US government decided tomorrow that Amazon had to pay a few Billion in outstanding tax, there’s nothing stopping them from recouping some of that money by rejigging their royalty percentages.

I don’t mean to scaremonger. There has been nothing to suggest that Amazon would do any such thing or that they’d have any reason to. However, they have made drastic changes to payment schemes on their Kindle Unlimited platform before, which had a profound impact on the earnings of authors who had come to rely on it.

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The Rest

Although I’ve tried my best to account for as much as I possibly could in this article, there are so many nuances and complications to this subject that it’s impossible to fully encapsulate everything in one post. There are a few things that I haven’t really touched on that I’d like to, and we’ll get into those in this section.

The first of these is the validation that traditional publishing offers. After spending so much time and brainpower on writing a book, it’s only natural to crave some validation that all of that time and effort was worth it. Everyone likes to hear that they’re good at something, and having multiple professionals confirm that your work is “good” is not a trivial thing.

I’m always full of doubt, always thinking it could be better or different or…or just something. So having someone whose job it is to look at [my] writing and go ‘this is good’ matters to me. I want that.

While self-publishing can offer some validation in the form of positive reviews from readers, many traditionally published authors note a sense of achievement that comes from agents, editors, and publishers telling them that their book is good enough to represent/buy/sell.

Validation too is massive. I was a successful self publisher. People knew my books. (…) I still didn’t feel it was enough my job (partly because I wasn’t bringing in much money) to claim needed work time, or to talk to other creatives like we were on the same level. Having to believe in myself as a self publisher was a daily struggle needing its own support network. Having a trad contract has taken away much of the need for that.

But it’s not only publishers that can throw money behind a book. Crowd-funding services such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo have been a huge part of the self-publishing scene for many years now, and allow for fans of an author to crowdfund for things such as editing, cover art, interior art, and more. In recent times, indie authors such as Dyrk Ashton and Phil Tucker have made use of Kickstarter to successfully fund hardback copies of their books — something which is generally considered infeasible for anyone but traditional publishers given the finances involved.

Crowd-funding has also become a vital part of self-publishing in the field of tabletop games, although one author noted to me that this has significant differences to the crowd-funding of fiction. While tabletop games might involve doing a large Kickstarter to make some initial profit, with minimal marketing afterwards, marketing and reviews are much more important in the world of fiction.

Publishing isn’t a binary industry, either. While much of the talk of this article has focused on traditional and self-publishing, there are other ways for writers to get their stories out there. If you’ve been following us here at The Fantasy Inn for any length of time, you’ll know that we love to promote audio dramas and web serials. These are often funded by websites such as Patreon, and there are creators out there who make thousands of dollars per month. As previously mentioned, there are also many authors who have Patreon accounts, where they will sometimes offer exclusive content or short stories in exchange for the support of their patrons. As these fan-funded content approaches rise in popularity, it will be interesting to see how they will evolve in the future, or how/if the publishing industry will adapt to accommodate them.

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Conclusions

We’ve touched on a lot of stuff in this article, and heard the perspectives of many people on both sides of the fence. Hopefully by this point you will have realised that traditional publishing and self-publishing are very different beasts that require different skill sets and personalities.

It’s not a case of “us against them”. That’s a tired argument that has been done to death. There are perfectly good reasons for either avenue, and different people will be more suited to one avenue than another based on a variety of factors, some of which we’ve explored. It is unlikely that either approach will be “ideal” for any given writer, and so the pros and cons of each should be weighed up (with individual circumstances in mind) before a decision is made either way.

It’s impossible to touch on everything, of course, but I hope this article will help to open a constructive dialogue on a topic that for too long has been overshadowed by ridiculous animosity. Are there areas in which both approaches could be improved? Of course. But it’s possible to discuss these in a reasonable and civilised way, without resorting to aggression or point-scoring. Perhaps a more objective discussion of the subject will actually prove to be beneficial in pushing any changes that are needed, who knows.

In the interest of keeping this dialogue open, I’m going to consider this article as something of a “first draft”. This is a topic which is continually evolving as the publishing landscape changes, and taking this into account, as well as any feedback I receive, I hope to be able to revise this article in the future.

I hope you’ve found this informative!

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Thank yous

I’ve put a frankly ridiculous amount of work into this article, but I’ve written nothing here that wasn’t taught to me by all of the authors I’ve spoken with. Thank you, all of you, for all of your time and patience! Thank you also to all of my blogmates and friends who volunteered for the mammoth task of proofreading this beast. I owe you one.

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Changelog

• 21/11/19 — I’ve been made aware of a few cases where a traditionally-published author has had a positive experience with a change in editor, and have edited the relevant paragraph to account for that.
• 21/11/19 — Fixed clumsy bracket that made it seem like Angry Robot and Tor.com specifically were the publishers to run competitions for publication.
• 22/11/19 — Jeff Bezos is no longer the richest man in the world.
• 23/11/19 — Fixed wording regarding number of authors who earn out.
• 25/11/19 — Updated royalty examples to use net royalties instead of list royalties, as per feedback.