Should I Self Publish My Novel?

There are many opinions out there regarding whether to self-publish. I’ll give you mine in a few moments.

Some authors only want to self-publish. They have absolutely no interest in acquiring a literary agent or working with a traditional publisher. They want to keep complete control of the content and cover of their book, and do not want to share royalties with an agent and a publisher.

Other authors refuse to self-publish under any circumstances because they believe it will take them as much time to promote and sell their book as it did to write it, and they’d rather be writing than promoting. They’d prefer to see their work go unpublished than have to deal with the hassle of trying to sell a book that won’t end up in bookstores.

Then there are those who are willing to self-publish, but only as a last resort. They choose to expend every effort possible to find an interested literary agent or publisher, and then self-publish only after all those efforts have failed. 

While authors who have chosen from day one to self-publish do have control of their book and do not have to share much in the way of profits with a publisher, they can be lacking what is arguably the single most powerful element of book selling – distribution. They are responsible for getting the word out about their book and will probably never benefit from having their book on a traditional bookstore shelf.

This strategy may work occasionally for a non-fiction author who has already made a name for herself and has established a great platform, but I would not recommend it for a first-time novelist. It’s very difficult to get a novel known when you don’t have a publisher, which is why most self-published novels struggle to reach the 100 mark in books sold.

Authors who decide to never self-publish under any circumstances, due to the volume of work involved in getting a book known and sold, also do themselves a disservice, in my opinion. They spend a year or two pouring their hearts and souls into writing what they believe is a good novel, and then go on to their next book when they can’t convince a literary agent to take a chance on the first one.

That’s sad to me. That much effort deserves some kind of tangible reward, and personally I’d rather self-publish a novel that doesn’t sell many copies than I would put countless hours of work into something that never sees the light of day.     

So, if you’re going to self-publish your novel, how will you go about doing it? There are many online resources to help you with this. For Bamboo Harvester, I decided to self-publish through Kindle Direct Publishing, an Amazon publishing arm. It’s free and easy – although it takes a while to properly format your book – and the author keeps approximately 70 percent of his royalties. The downside is that the book is only available in digital form, and there are still many readers who prefer to hold a physical book in their hands.

Another option is to use CreateSpace, also an Amazon publishing arm, which can provide physical copies of your book. Of course, there’s an expense with the physical copies, so you have to decide how to price your book so that you can make a profit. Ideally, you want your self-published book in both digital and physical formats.

One more thing about self-publishing. There are companies out there that do this type of thing for you. Outskirts Press and AuthorHouse come to mind immediately, but I’m sure you can find others. Before you get involved with one of those companies, I suggest you do your research, including reading reviews from authors who have worked with them. I have read many such reviews, and a vast majority of them are far from favorable.

To sum up, I totally understand it when authors say they don’t want to deal with the trouble of self-publishing, and I agree that novelists should first seek literary agents to represent them. But if that fails, I strongly recommend that you self-publish. If you’re willing to put work into it, you might be able to generate some positive publicity for your novel. Then, if it takes off, the tables will be turned and you’ll have literary agents knocking on your door to represent you.