Traditional or Independent: How Do You Want to Publish Your First Book?

After all the time and effort you’ve put into writing, and your manuscript is about done, you have to start thinking about the next step: publishing. Most of us think we can publish our books one of two ways, either traditional or independent, and both have their pros and cons. While I chose to self-publish my debut novel, Getting By, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to go. Before you make a decision, you need to carefully consider what route best suits the needs of you and your book.

Are You Okay with Letting Go?

When you sign on with a traditional publisher, the first thing you sign away with your manuscript is your rights. A publishing house can change the title, determine the cover’s look, and decide where it’s stocked on shelves despite the genre or tone you had in mind when writing.

Furthermore, they can insist on edits to the story that can completely alter your vision. There is a chance they may be willing to hear you out, or your literary agent could go to bat for you, but that’s a rarity. Thus, the loss of creative control can be a real deal breaker for many.

By self-publishing, you get to control every part of the creative process. You decide on the final product’s look and feel and how to market it. That also means you can write whatever you’d like.

No matter how neat your niche sub-genre is, traditional publishers will likely pass on your work if it’s too niche. So, if you enjoy writing dinosaur murder mystery sci-fi, then as an indie author, you can go for it!

A Certain “Guarantee”

While nothing is truly ever guaranteed in life, at least by signing with a traditional publisher, you will get paid. It doesn’t matter if your book sells gangbusters or tanks; you will get an advance on your work. And at least your book will sell, which is pretty darn cool to experience.

Once it starts selling, you could make some real money in royalties, which you begin earning once sales pay back the publisher’s advance. Unfortunately, royalties aren’t outstanding once you factor in all the fees the publisher and your literary agent take, leaving most with less than 15% in return.

What’s more, these royalty payments are infrequent once you’re earning them, coming maybe twice a year. It makes it hard to budget accordingly, pulling focus from writing your next manuscript (which all this money upfront is supposed to allow you the opportunity to do!) But because you give up so much in the backend, you pay less upfront to get your book out there.

Your publisher takes no money when they sign you yet take on all the collateral of editing your manuscript, designing the cover and layout, handling the marketing, and other incidentals, which admittedly sounds terrific.

Meanwhile, as a self-published author, if you want to edit your manuscript (and you should), a cover designed, posts created for social media, and all that, you’re either highly skilled and can do it yourself, or you’re paying others to handle it for you.

It can get expensive. That said, once your book is out there and people buy it, whether digitally or in print, 80% or even all of the money returns to you.

But there is no guarantee you’ll ever make any of the money you invested back. And speaking of which, you need somewhere to store any physical copies you print, and unless you have a spare room you can convert into a warehouse, you’re paying for storage.

In this case, the payment upfront, the guaranteed sales, and letting someone else handle all the details and storage sounds like a dream if you’re willing to accommodate, as I said above.

Who’s On Your Team?

Now, speaking of controlling your novel, at least as an independent, you can choose the people you work with, from graphic design to marketing experts. You know if you’re hiring the best people for the job of making your book stand out. But like I said, you’re likely going to pay for it.

Conversely, as I touched on, one of the biggest perks of pursuing a traditional publisher is that it comes with a built-in team. Once you sign, the publishing house will have an internal team whose entire job is to make your novel the best it can be (or at least, it should be.)

Capitalism has left a mark on the commercial trade publishing market, meaning to cut costs, publishing houses cut funding, and teams. More and more, complaints come up from published authors that they don’t feel their work is getting the attention it deserves.

That can mean sloppy editing and proofing or a phoned-in marketing plan (as an independent, you have no one to blame but yourself.)

Feeling Like You “Made It”

Imagine looking at your book on a shelf with the HarperCollins logo on the spine. I mean, they published Game of Thrones, and now they’ve published your novel. You could get a movie or a series based on it! It could become a bestseller! And that sounds incredible, right?

Getting published through a major traditional publishing house comes with substantial clout in the industry. You get a lot of reach and recognition, meaning there’s a better chance at internationally recognized awards, bestseller lists, book tours, signings, and, ideally, demand for more books.

Traditional publishing houses can make a lot of inroads to get your book on shelves and out into the world. But the thing is, you’re possibly a tiny fish in a big pond. Unless your novel becomes a smash hit, it’ll likely be replaced on the shelf at Chapters in a month by your publisher’s subsequent new release.

There’s no real loyalty to keeping your book featured unless it’s making them money. After that, it gets harder and harder to market. That’s why it’s essential to keep hustling your book because a traditional publisher won’t actually do all the marketing work for you (especially if it’s not hot early in the launch.) But still, at least it’s out there.

Getting A Seat at the Table

When you self-publish, you define the success or failure of your novel. It’s all down to your efforts. You don’t have to worry about anyone saying “No” to printing your work – you just do it. There’s no one throwing deadlines at you – you just write as much or little as you feel.

When you’re ready to sell your book, you just make it happen through some digital storefront in less than 48 hours. You have so much freedom over the journey your book takes, but you have to work hard at getting it seen.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easier with a traditional publisher. First, you need to be signed by one. Generally, that means working with a literary agent. It’s their job to help and champion you through the entire writing process and get your manuscript in front of publishing companies, so you don’t have to mail or knock on doors yourself.

While that sounds amazing, prepare yourself. Before you get that one glorious “Yes” (if ever), expect about 100 “No’s” first. Applying to publishing houses is mentally and emotionally exhausting; constantly being told that this piece of art you’ve poured your heart and soul into, that’s full of meaning and can impact someone’s life, isn’t good enough can crush you.

But let’s say you’re lucky and a publisher signs you – what happens then? You sign a contract. A convoluted maze of legalese that, thank goodness, you have a literary agent to read and sign for you.

While the contract means you get paid, it also comes with caveats. Those tight deadlines I mentioned, commitments to touring your book (whether you like it or not), and all kinds of other headaches that could become tricky to navigate depending on what you envision for your career. But hey, you’re published, right?

That means your career is set! Not so fast: Just because they signed you for one book doesn’t mean they’ll want you to write more (especially if the initial foray doesn’t go so well…).

Remember that “no guarantees” thing I mentioned? While that means there are no guarantees for you, publishers want guaranteed hits on their roster. That makes it even harder for a first-time author to break out. Even mid-range authors have difficulty getting their books published by big companies.

Finally, you must keep your wits about you because the industry constantly evolves. Your publisher folds, an agent moves to another company, new editors take over – all of it can get messy, and you, the author, can get left behind in the fallout.

“So, Jaire,” you ask, “which is better?”

Like I said, neither. As you can see, both have challenges and merits. The most important thing to consider as you start wrapping up your manuscript is: What do you want out of it? While it sucks to admit, ego plays a huge role in motivating our decisions as artists.

So you need to decide how to satisfy it. Are fame and fortune your goal? Or do you just want someone who isn’t your mom to read your book and say, “That was great,” when they finish?

Or maybe you don’t want validation at all – you only want to know your book is out there and could make a person feel some catharsis from the read. It’s up to you to decide what you’re going to write and to what end. Once you figure that out, you’ll know what type of publisher is best suited to you.

When I wrote Getting By, I was not too fond of the idea of losing creative control and having someone dictate whether my story was worthy. So here I am: Self-published with an award-winning novel and doing my best to help others learn to self-publish.

It’s been gratifying sharing my story with the world and knowing I can teach others to do the same, so this path works for me. But with my next manuscript, who knows? Maybe the traditional route will be the way to go. That’s the other thing: You can change your mind.

If you are set on self-publishing, though, please check out the free resources and the course I offer. I spent a lot of time and effort on my writing journey, so if I can make the process smoother for you, that would be amazing.

I’m on social media, or you can email me at jsims@jairesims.com if you have any other thoughts or questions about the dichotomous struggle with publishing. Either way, I wish you well on your authorial journey!