Before I answer these, here’s a little bit of my own background: the manuscript of my novel, Tell A Thousand Lies, was shortlisted for the 2012 Tibor Jones South Asia Award. I also had a traditional publishing contract. However, I chose to decline that contract in order to self-publish.
I talk about some of the pros and cons of self-publishing below.
Pros
Word Count
Books are sometimes rejected by traditional publishers because they are not a certain word count. Why word count matters – when you buy a Harlequin romance, for example, you do so with a certain expectation. You expect to read a medium-sized book with the word count averaging 60,000. Aside from reader expectation, the word count cannot go much lower because the name of the author and the book’s title have to be visible on the spine of the book when the books are stacked in a bookstore (reducing the word count will reduce spine thickness). It cannot go too much higher in certain genres because readers don’t expect it. But, regardless of genre, bigger books are more expensive to ship. This is one reason traditionally produced books are rarely over 100,000 words. If you have 120,000 words, for example, you will be expected to trim it down. Now, there is a difference between tightening your writing by deleting unnecessary words, and cutting out sections of your book because it doesn’t fit a certain word count. In self-publishing, and with ebooks in particular, you do not have to force an artificial word count on your book. On Amazon the minimum word count is 2500 words, and the maximum – well, that’s up to you.
Book cover
The design of the book cover can often be contentious because traditionally authors may have little input on which cover gets used. A lot of writers who held bad covers responsible for their dismal sales waited till their rights reverted back, then commissioned new covers and self-published on Amazon and other places. Many of these authors have gone on to do spectacularly well.
If you choose to self-publish, it is critical that you get a professional cover because, like it or not, books do get judged by their covers. I talk more about this in my “Self-publishing basics” post on my blog.
Price
ebooks by traditional publishers are often priced high. On Amazon, self-published books are almost always under $5. A lot of readers will not buy anything priced over $5 (in the UK/US markets. I talk about this because you cannot afford to ignore those markets if you want to see significant sales). I first priced Tell A Thousand Lies at $2.99. When sales picked up, I increased it to $3.99, where it is selling quite well. For The Mosquito and the Teapot (a book my children wrote and illustrated), I set the price at 99 cents. So, in essence, you have to experiment and see what the market will bear. Self-publishing gives you that control.
Genre
A lot of well written books are rejected for not fitting within a pre-defined genre. Self-publishing is a wonderful option for such books.
Royalties
High royalties – up to 70% – is by far the biggest advantage. There are a lot of mid-list authors who do not appear on any bestseller lists, but are making a comfortable living from self-publishing. Royalties from traditional presses are a lot lower. Note that you get these royalties only if self-publish yourself, without the use of middlemen. Whoever opens up an account on Amazon, smashwords.com etc. and uploads the book is considered the publisher. If you do it yourself, you are considered the publisher and have access to your sales information and all your royalties. If you use a middleman, or if you traditionally publish, that entity is the publisher. There have been allegations of underreporting of sales with middleman (aka self-publishing companies), so use them at your own risk. A few traditional presses have set up vanity publishing divisions. While it might seem like they are backing your self-published book, nothing can be farther from the truth. You can get the same services they offer – book cover design, ebook formatting, and editing for a fraction of that price by using competent freelancers. And, despite their promises, vanity publishers do not do any marketing or promotion. You should either go with a proper traditional publisher or self-publish – stay away from everyone else.
For the traditionally published, ebook royalties seem to be settling at 25%. This isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. If the publisher uploads the book to Amazon, they get 70% royalties. Your share, as author, would be 25% of that 70%. There is another caveat. The 70% royalties are for markets like the US and the UK. For India, the royalties Amazon gives you are 35%. When you compute 25% of 35%, your royalties don’t add up to much at all. And if you have a literary agent, they take a 15-20% cut of the money you get.
Rights
Traditional publishers used to have ‘reversion clauses’ in their contract. What this meant was that if the book wasn’t selling according to some pre-determined criterion, the rights would revert back to the author. A lot of authors took back their rights, repackaged their books and made a lot of money off their ‘backlist’ books.
Now traditional publishers are making it almost impossible to get your rights back. This is called ‘rights grab.’ They are rewording contracts to hold on to these rights in perpetuity. So what this means is that even if your book isn’t selling well, and the reasons could be many – bad cover design, lack of promotion by the publisher – you will never get your rights back.
Cons
Awards
There are few awards that accept self-published books in India. In the West, this is changing because of activism from entities like the UK-based ALLi - the Alliance of Independent Authors (of which I’m a member).
Stigma
There is still a stigma attached to self-publishing, though this is getting better in the West.
Distribution
If you want physical (paper) copies of your book, you can use reputable places like pothi.com and Cinnamon Teal, but if you’d like to see your book in stores, you’re out of luck. I recently came across a new company which promises to help with distribution by putting self-published books in bookstores. But the cost, at Rs. 50,000, doesn’t really justify the expense because I cannot see how you’d ever make that money back.
Marketing and Promotion
There is a common misperception that you can hand over your book to a traditional publisher and sit back, and the publisher will handle the marketing and promotion. If you’re Chetan Bhagat, sure. Everyone else – whether published traditionally or not – has to put in the time. So, this isn’t really a con of self-publishing, it is a con of being published.
Sales
People often ask me if they will make money from self-publishing.
There are no guarantees in life, and certainly not in publishing. Even traditional publishers, despite their years of experience, cannot predict what determines a bestseller. Having said that, if your book makes it big, it can be quite lucrative. You can do your part by making your book as professional as possible. For Tell A Thousand Lies, I had beta-readers read the book and give me feedback. After I fixed those, I hired a professional editor. After I incorporated those changes, I got others to proof-read my book. I also commissioned a professional, Manoj Vijayan, to design a cover for my book.
For me the pros clearly outweighed the cons, making self-publishing the right choice for me. Do your homework before jumping in. There are many ways to great scammed. Protect yourself. If you need help with self-publishing, check out my post at http://rasanaatreya.wordpress.com/self-publishing-basics.
About the Author :
Rasana Atreya is the author of Amazon bestseller Tell A Thousand Lies. She is also the mother of six-year old author Aamani Gurajada, and eleven year old Sunaad Gurajada, who designed the cover of the book and illustrated it. Their book is called The Mosquito and the Teapot.
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