Strengths and Weaknesses of Self-Publishing

Book proofreading services UK, as well as editing and proofreading services, can play an essential role in helping you to get your book published. As is well-known, many of the world’s most notable fiction and non-fiction authors, including the author of the famous Harry Potter series, routinely make use of professional editing and proofreading services.

Once you have your edited and proofread book in your hands, however, the process of becoming a book author is not yet finished. In particular, you need to decide how to publish your book and make it available for the general public to purchase, read, and enjoy. Here, there are two choices:

·         Self-publishing

·         Traditional publishing

Traditional publishing is well-known to be a difficult area to enter, and this is especially true for unpublished authors. That’s to say, if you haven’t yet secured a book agent, and if you’ve never published a book before (whether with a traditional publishing house or via the self-publishing route), traditional publishing is not always the best option.

This article is aimed at new authors who are debating which route to take: self-publishing or traditional publishing. Assuming that you’re now in a position to publish your professionally edited and enhanced by book proofreading services, this article presents the strengths and weaknesses of self-publishing to help you decide whether it’s a good route of choice, for you.

 

Strengths of self-publishing

1. Independence

When authors work with traditional publishing houses, they invariably lose creative control over their work. For example, publishers typically reserve the right to choose a title for the book, the marketing angle, and the cover art, as well as to have their in-house editors chop it up and rearrange it in any way they see fit.

Of course, these are all highly significant aspects of your book that you yourself may want to control. For this reason, the independence that comes with self-publishing your book through, for example, Amazon may be much-welcomed. It can empower you to take control of these key aspects of your book, ensuring that your work is not manhandled by a publisher.

 

2. Higher royalties

After a traditional publishing house has invested a sizeable sum of money in editing services and, marketing, in selling your book, they need to make that money somehow. This is usually done in the form of renting authors only between 5% and 25% of the funds earned from the sales of the book.

However, if you opt for the self-publishing route, you can fetch royalties as high as 70%. As a case in point, if you sell your book on Amazon between 2.99 USD or 9.99 USD, you can receive a royalty of 70%, with Amazon taking a cut of 30%. This is significantly lower than the 80% cut your publisher might end up taking.

 

Weaknesses of self-publishing

1. You have to do everything

When publishers sign you onto a contract, they give you access to professional editors, marketers, cover designers, and typesetters. However, if you opt for self-publishing, you’ll have to do all of this yourself or hire freelancers to work with. The learning curve can be steep, as with any new skill.

 

2. Print distribution difficulties

If you decide to self-publish your book, especially as a brand-new author with no track record, you’re likely to have a difficult time getting the print versions of your book into bookstores. By contrast, the sales teams within traditional publishing houses usually have strong links with bookstores, and so that serves as a much more direct path into print distribution.