Trad Versus Self: Deathmatch
Pros and Cons for Each Publishing Modality
Lancasters and Yorks. Hatfields and McCoys. Adolf and Rudolf Dassler. Authors who self-publish and authors who publish traditionally. Name a rivalry more ancient and contentious, I’ll wait. I’m just kidding, the self-publishing one is not at all ancient. But it is ever so contentious.
Self-publishing isn’t new new but the ease and availability of it is new. Self-publishing was once the province of the well-to-do because it used to be that you couldn’t actually do any of the work your . . . self.
To be clear, “self publish” does not mean that you do all the publication work yourself. It just means that the publication part is done independently, without the sponsorship of a publisher. Many self-publishing authors outsource parts of their production process to professionals, like editing, typesetting, proofreading, cover design, printing, and distribution. (For more on the differences between self, trad, and hybrid publishing, see Choose Your Own Publishing Adventure.)
But back in the day—before electronic distribution of books and, further, before the advent of the personal computer and desktop publishing software—you essentially had to pay a publisher to produce your book, or else start a publishing company yourself, if you wanted to self publish. You couldn’t hop on Fiverr and hire an editor. There was no KDP to quickly publish an e-book. Everything had to be at minimum typeset, printed, and bound and then delivered either to you for you to distribute, or to a warehouse for third-party distribution.
Before the rise of print-on-demand technology, which made short runs financially viable, self-publishing also meant you had to pay for an offset minimum press run, meaning you had to pay for printing 1,000 or more copies of your book. Even if you were certain to sell them all, this represented a lot of capital up front to self-publish. Today you can do it for free if you want to.
Personal computers, desktop publishing software, print-on-demand tech, and electronic book distribution have joined together and formed Self-Publishing Voltron and today self-publishing is as easy as uploading your manuscript, filling in some metadata, and clicking a button. That’s just the ground floor, there’s a lot more you can do if you want to make your publication more widely available or more polished, but that’s the bar to entry: Have a manuscript, publish a manuscript.
The rise in popularity of self-publishing has created this contentious environment I referenced above wherein (some) traditionally published authors view self-publishing as a second-tier publication strategy for authors who weren’t “good enough” to cut it in trad. Self-publishing authors (again, some), on the other hand, see trad publishing as a scam for suckers, in which one offers up their manuscript to a corporation to share profits while offering little value in return, ultimately expecting the author to do much of the publishing legwork.
Who is right? Which mode of publishing is better? Which one turns out amazing publications and which one is for the losers who can’t hack it? My answer will not surprise you.
Neither publishing path is objectively better than the other. They both have their own pros and cons, their unique benefits and challenges. Whether to self-publish or to publish traditionally is a decision that writers should make after carefully weighing both sides and making an informed choice. For readers, those who don’t write to publish and don’t intend to, it can’t hurt to cultivate an understanding of trad- and self-publishing to help you select books you’ll enjoy reading. Just because a book is self published doesn’t mean it’s poorly edited or badly written, and just because a book is published by a Big Five publishing house doesn’t mean it will be good.
The balance of this article will cover five area of major difference between self and trad publishing for you to consider as you weigh your choices.
Access
Starting with the most obvious: Nobody is gatekeeping self publishing. You don’t need to convince an agent, an editor, and a publishing committee to take a chance on your book. No querying, no submissions, and most important: No rejections. Nobody standing between you and publication.
For a lot of writers, the above feels like a clear check mark in the “pro” column for self-publishing. Zero bar to access can only be a good thing, right? And the other areas below are the places where we’ll balance the scales with some cons? Not exactly.
Rejections are brutal. I don’t mind telling you this from personal experience. Every author has to decide for themself whether to put themself through the submission/rejection wringer or not. But you can learn something incredibly valuable in those querying trenches: Whether your manuscript is ready for prime time or not.
It’s hard to submit your manuscript and subject it to someone else’s judgment, but when you publish you do the same thing: You submit it to the judgment of the readers. If you publish, your work is going to be judged (unless no one reads it at all). I urge you not to think that you can skip querying or submissions and go right to self-publication in order to skip over the part where your work is judged. You’re actually just skipping to the part where your work is judged.
Querying agents and submitting to editors, even if you receive rejections across the board, can provide valuable insight into what’s working in your manuscript and what isn’t. What if you query agents and receive nothing but radio silence? No feedback is still feedback.
There are pros and cons for both the bar to accessing traditional publishing and the lack of that access bar for self publishing. With self publishing, you can jump right in and no one will tell you “no” or tell you to go back and polish your work some more. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing.
Timeline
Self publishing is fast compared to traditional publishing. Let’s say I have my manuscript complete and polished to the best of my ability. I could self-publish it on KDP faster than you can read to the end of this article. Or I could start querying agents this morning and, even if everything comes up Catherine, not see my book published for 2 to 3 years.
What’s the hold up? I think I’m going to write about this in depth on Thursday (or then again, maybe I won’t?) but all the steps of trad publishing take time: Securing an agent. Implementing the revisions your agent suggests. Submitting to editors. Implementing the revisions the editor wants. Waiting on the pub committee to decide whether to sign your book. Development. Editing. Composition. Design. Proofs. Bluelines. Printing. Shipping. Waiting for the embargo date.
Self publishing, on the other hand, can take as much or as little time as you want. If you want to have editors, typesetters, designers, proofreaders, and other professionals work on your book before you publish, that will take time—but not necessarily as much time as if you worked with a traditional publisher. For one thing, you can find freelance talent who is available to work on your schedule (someone can’t start your edits for three months? Find someone else). For another thing, you can just—omit steps, if you feel like it. Proofreading feels redundant after copyediting and you’re getting impatient? Skip it if you want to. No one can tell you that you can’t.
Regardless, a moderately motivated author self publishing will almost certainly move faster than a traditional publisher. If you want your book out yesterday—or at least ASAP—self publishing will get you to market quicker.
Creative Control
No bones about it: If you want to maintain total creative control of your book, self publishing is where it’s at. Nobody is going to bulldoze your vision. No one will second-guess your choices, demand changes, or veto your decisions.
Veto? “But I’m the author, don’t I have the final say even in a traditional publishing setting?” No. Depends on what’s in your contract but—no. At the end of the day, most publishers will simply part ways with an author if they can’t reach a creative compromise that everyone can live with. However, many contracts dictate that the publisher has the final say on things like the cover of the book.
A publisher might want you to make changes that affect your vision for the book. And not just for things like cover design—what if the publisher thinks you should revise your title? What if they want you to use a different pen name? (It happened to JK Rowling.) Can you live with having less than complete creative control over your book?
As with access, above, creative control is a murky topic. Ask yourself as objectively as you can: Should authors have full creative control over their book? In whose best interest is it if they do? The book’s best interest? Almost never.
Publishers don’t request changes because they like to jerk authors around or exercise their godlike contractual powers. Publishers request changes to make the book the best it can be—in terms of editorial quality, marketability, sales potential, and sometimes awards eligibility. Publishers want authors to be happy with their publishing experience and with the final outcome—the book—but publishing is a business. They’re in the business of selling books.
If it’s important to you to maintain complete creative control over your book and to have the final say in all the editorial, production, and marketing choices, then self publishing is the way to go. If you are open to collaborating with others to polish and perfect your book, you can do that with either trad or self publishing.
Securing Editorial (and Other) Services
If you publish traditionally, editorial services will be provided by your publisher. This means they secure the resources, pay for them, manage the scheduling, and are responsible for problems that may arise. Copyeditor broke her arm and can’t finish the job? (Full disclosure: I broke my arm one time and had to back out of two copyediting projects.) Publisher has to figure out how to pay for work completed and secure another resource to finish the job. Binder broke at the printer? Listen, the binder breaks down every year in December. I don’t know why but it does. Trad publishing? They have a guy to deal with that.
If you are self publishing, you not only get to decide which services you want to avail yourself of and which you want to skip, but you are also on the hook for the things the publisher would normally do: Yes, paying for the services is a big one, but also vetting the provider, managing the work schedule, ensuring you get the deliverables and managing the recourse process if you don’t get what you paid for, and so on, and so forth.
I’ll echo what I said above in terms of creative control: Do you have an editor in mind you’re just dying to work with? A cover designer whose work you’ve set your heart on for your cover? You probably will not be able to make those things happen in a traditional publishing setting. Publishers all have their stable of in-house and freelance resources they work with and it’s not as simple as putting someone’s name on a list to add new providers. I don’t know if you draft a lot of independent contractor agreements and statements of work at your job but it’s a whole thing; plus the due diligence of making sure the freelancer is legitimate and likely to deliver.
Frankly, I see a lot of discussion about how with self publishing the author has to pay for editing (if they want editing) and that’s a hurdle and a challenge, and it is. But that discourse overlooks additional challenges like—how to make sure the editor you hire is actually going to edit your text and not just run it through Grammarly and send it back? How can you be sure they’ll do a good job? How can you verify their experience and testimonials? What do you do if you pay a deposit and the contractor ghosts you? Or delivers a poor excuse for an edit?
If you’re up for the challenge of managing your own editorial services (and marketing and printing services, and so on, if you choose to go those routes), then self publishing is an option. Likewise, if you don’t intend to use those services—if you choose to forgo editing, proofreading, and so on, and publish your manuscript without them—self publishing is a fine option. Under a traditional publishing model, all that is managed for you and someone else foots the bill.
Distribution and Availability
Finally: Where do you envision your book being available, and how do you intend to ensure that it will be available in those venues?
When you picture your book out in the wild, do you envision it on the shelf in a Barnes & Noble? Maybe on a display table curated by a bookseller right at the front of the store? How about in your local library? For sale at Costco? Or at the airport in a Hudson News? As a rule—there are exceptions!—those things are out of range for authors who self publish.
When self publishing, there are choices for what platform or provider you use to distribute your book. KDP, for instance, is essentially a distributor. You publish your book on KDP and it is available, in electronic format and paperback, on Amazon. If you publish with Ingram Spark, they can make your book available to a wider range of venues, including Amazon but also including other major booksellers.
The keyword is available. They make your book available for Barnes & Noble to pick up and carry. That does not mean Barnes & Noble will pick up and carry your book.
Libraries and big-box bookstores will generally only carry titles from established publishers. Bookstores will only consider titles with a return policy (see Not So Many Happy Returns). In short that means, if you self publish, physical copies of your title are not likely to be carried in bookstores.
Other distribution partners, including BookBaby and Lulu, are available, but I personally think of Amazon and Ingram as the major players in this space—that is, the space of distribution partners for self published books. If you publish traditionally, your publisher will take care of warehousing and distribution and will be responsible for selling your book to retailers like B&N, Books-a-Million, Costco, and so on.
Why do I keep mentioning Costco? Listen, every publisher—I don’t care who you are—wants to make a Costco sale. If your book is on sale at Costco you don’t need to read Shelf Life. You already made it. You graduated. Why is Costco the bigtime? Sorry. I’m out of space. Another day, maybe.
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