The Perils of Self-Publishing

When I started writing my book I was with an agent. But half way through, when the goal posts for getting a publisher kept moving, I had a change of heart. At this time my agent was telling me that once I had finished my book, and it had been accepted by a publisher, it would take at least six months, probably a year to be published. A friend of mine told me about a colleague of his who had been self-publishing his music books. I started doing some research.

The more I looked into self-publishing the more advantages I saw. The main one is that as an author you are far more in control of your book. Let’s break that down:

• You can choose your own title
• You can choose the price you want to sell it at
• You can choose the cover (or even design it)
• You control the content
• You can update it whenever you like
• You can choose to publish an eBook or paperback or both
• Paperbacks are ‘print on demand’ so you don’t need a large expensive print run or storage and delivery logistics

One author I was talking to was bemoaning the fact that his publisher dictated the price of his book. He thought they had priced it too high for his market / audience. Also he had no ability to discount the price if he wanted to. He had to fight to get the title he wanted and the cover. The only reason he succeeded was because he already had a successful book published with them and this was the second in the series. He was not allowed to reuse sections of text from his book, say for a course or an article. It’s as if it had stopped being his book]. Another author I know had a paperback in print and wanted to turn it into an eBook. His publisher refused, and there is nothing he can do.

Often the contract with the publisher insists that you have to buy a few hundred books yourself when it’s published. As a self-published author all I have to do is buy one copy of my paperback and send it to the British Library.

Now there are some downsides. The marketing and publicity are down to you (unless you pay someone to do it for you). You don’t get as much “guidance” on how to make your book popular. Also, unless you have some very good friends, no one is going to tell you your writing style is terrible.

Those are downsides, but where are the perils?

I don’t think the perils lie with self-publishing. I think the perils lie with the traditional publishers and agents. Their business models are being disrupted by new digital and print technology. Traditional publishers don’t have the monopoly on publishing anymore. Self-publishing bypasses them. And if all you need an agent for is to get to a traditional publisher, and you don’t use a traditional publisher, then you don’t need an agent.

So what can agents do? Perhaps they should change tack and help authors to complete their book and to self-publish? Their role has changed from promoting a book proposal to promoting a finished book anyway.

And what can publishers do? Perhaps they could look for successful self-published books and make the author an offer to re-publish under their brand? That way they get a completed book that has been market tested. It’s already happening isn't it DanWarburton?