All right, hold onto your hats, people.
Things are about to get serious. (Not really. I just like to wind people up.)
Last week I saw a blog post on self-publishing by Agent Janet Reid. As with every other time Janet talks about Self-Publishing, I disagreed totally with almost everything she said. I find Janet a great source of wisdom and fantastic hints, but I think she’s completely off when it comes to self publishing. What she says simply doesn’t match up with my experience or with the experiences of most of those self-publishing around me. That’s to be expected: she’s an agent, not a self-publisher. Her expertise–and it’s a vast and immensely useful expertise–is in an entirely different area. I didn’t comment on the blog post because I didn’t want to waste my breath or annoy Janet by disagreeing with her on her blog. I simply had a bit of a chuckle and moved on.
However. I got an email this evening.
It was a nice email, a thoughtful email from another reader of Janet’s blog, mentioning the blog post and asking what I thought of it. He added that not many self-publishers had commented upon the post. He then linked to another blog post on the subject and asked my opinion on it. This is the blog post: it’s great. Thoughtful, questioning, and interesting. It brings out some fantastic points.
It made me think again about why I self-publish, what I think of the self-pub vs trade-pub question, and what battles I think are worth fighting. I’ve spoken before about why I love to self-pub: things like control of my own work, rights, and author brand; plus a (much!) better cut of the profits; my own publishing schedule (that means I can publish 4-6 times a year instead of once every 2 years); etc., etc….
But most of all it got me thinking about one thing.
In this quickly changing and vast world of publishing, I have noticed one thing happening again and again. Self-pubbed authors working hard, making it big (to either a great or decent extent), and taking a trade-publishing deal along with their self-pubbed work. Then I see the exact same thing, but in reverse: Trade-pubbed authors who have already made it big (or who have been midlist and want more) going self-pub on the side, and making it rich. So in the end, it really makes me think that the best thing to do as either a self- or trade-pubbed author is to be flexible. There’s no one way to do it, and Hybrid-pubbed authors are beginning to spring up everywhere.
So there you have it.
I’ve decided absolutely nothing. Self publishing is best for me, and I fully expect to be writing full-time within five years, but that’s not going be the path for everyone. Some authors are going to be more comfortable trade publishing. Some of us aren’t. I could do with a little less of the smug attitude and pitying glances from the direction of trade publishing, but in the end, who really cares? So long as I’m making a living, they can look down on me as much as they choose. Officially, I recommend self-publishing, but you have to go into it with your eyes open, knowing what to expect. It’s going to be a lot of work, and you may or may not succeed. On the other hand, I could say the same of trade publishing. So again, I’ve not really decided anything.