Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing: Pros and Cons

Since I’m almost finished with my first book(yey!), I have been wondering how I would like to bring it out to the rest of the world(after lots of rounds of editing of course)

To help me with that I decided to make a pro and cons list about both Self-publishing and Traditional publishing. 

But first a little explanation about both of them.

Self-publishing is a way for authors to get their work published without using a traditional book publisher. In some ways it is even better than traditional publishing, but it has downsides, too. Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author without the involvement of an established publisher.

Now what Is Traditional Publishing? Traditional publishing means that your book is published by an established publishing house , with a team of professional people to take care of the book design, sales, marketing, and various other processes of the publishing world. It takes a few steps to get published, the process is longer than you would with self publishing. 

You have to query a literary agent, who might or might not ask for a partial or full manuscript. If they like it they will pitch your book to a publisher and so on… 

Pros of self publishing:

You get faster exposure: You decide when to publish, hence the faster exposure. 

You have all the greater creative control : ​​One of the benefits of going the self-publishing route is the ability to retain full control over your own book. You don’t have anybody telling you what you can and cannot do.

Better royalties(which explains for itself really)

Less waiting: With self-publishing, the amount of time between the completed manuscript and the finished, sellable product can be less than a week.

Cons

less editorial help: you have to hire someone yourself to help with the editorial side publishing. Or do it yourself.

Less visibility/no marketing help: You don’t have a team who is doing the marketing for you. You have to promote and sell your own book. 

Bookstores will not stock your book, it is hard to convince bookstores to stock your book. It will mostly be online sells

and now for Traditional publishing

The Pros:

The publisher takes care of everything.

Your book will get a place in a bookstore: This is because most traditional publishers have a good distribution network or a deal with certain bookstore chains. 

You pay nothing, since they make money when you do. (actually sell the book)

It brings a status: It is a kind of a validation when you are signed by a publishing house. A recognition by other authors too perhaps.

Cons: 

It can be time consuming. With all the querying and trying to get a literary agent to notice you. Even after a deal is signed it can take up to a year or two to actually get published. 

Royalty rates are lower.

Limited creative control: you would probably not have a lot of creative control. For example;  title, cover design or how it’s edited.

To be honest, I made this mostly for myself but if it helps someone else in their decision on how to publish their book, I will be happy I could help in any way.

As of now, I am leaning more to self publishing my book, I considered the pros and cons and this is what seems best for me at this moment. I suck at marketing but I’m sure I will find a way.

I like having some or a lot of creative control and I want to try and see how far I can get on my own and with some help from others. 

I know there will be a lot of challenges but I hope I can share them with you on here or any other of my social platforms.

And who knows when my book is actually finished I might lean more towards Traditional. We’ll see what will happen in time.

Got any questions? Just let me know and I will try to get into it asap.

Thanks for reading and hope this helps!