As I finish writing this new non-fiction book to help new writers learn how to Write and Publish Your First Book: A Step-By-Step Blueprint to Write, Self-Publish and Market Your Fiction or Non-Fiction Book
I’m even more excited about self-publishing than before.
Things are so much better for writers today than they used to be simply because of the freedom we have to publish the books we want to without having to deal with traditional gatekeepers.
There are challenges to overcome like, needing to figure out the formatting for your book and absorbing the costs of editing and book cover design yourself, but these are dwarfed by the positives.
Nowadays, we can push a button and get worldwide distribution.
Indie publishing isn’t for everyone, but for some writers, it’s a match made in heaven.
So today, I thought I’d write about some benefits of self-publishing that are true, at least for the foreseeable future.
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5 Benefits of Self-Publishing Your Book
There are many benefits to being an indie author. And despite the fact that you need to put up your own money for edits and book covers and that you might not get your book into as many stores as a traditional publisher, the benefits far outweigh the challenges.
1. You have full control over the entire process of your book. Your ideas, writing, your book cover design, and the timing of when you choose to publish is all up to you. A publisher isn’t going to come in and suggest changes. Even if you write something controversial, you can. You can price your work how you want to, and learn from other indie authors at which price points they’ve sold the most books. Sometimes it takes adjusting the price or even the title to appeal to the widest range of readers. It’s nice to have that freedom.
2. You can sell by any means you like. This includes digital, ebook, audio, print and rights to TV. You can even choose to be a hybrid author(self-publish and traditionally publish). There are no right or wrong paths.
3. You keep all the rights to your books or whatever format you publish in. If you choose to self publish, you have the rights and all the control over your book.
4. You can become an author whenever you want to without waiting for someone to choose you. This was partly why I waited so long. Sadly, I thought I needed someone like an agent or publisher to pick me in order for me to be good enough to write and publish a book. It took me a few years before I stopped believing that lie. If you’ve been putting off writing and publishing your book because you think your work might not be good enough, I want to encourage you to stop waiting. Choose Yourself. You are a Writer. And get your book written and published.
5. All your time and effort can go toward writing, publishing and marketing your own book instead of chasing after an agent and publisher. It is more work to do everything yourself as an indie author, but if you’re an entrepreneur at heart and can learn to be disciplined to wear all these hats, you’ll be a successful indie author.
I’ve watched indie authors who’ve been successful, in terms of personality, you need to develop some of the skills of a project manager in order to self-publish. I’ve discovered that it’s a learning curve. Everyone who chooses to self publish, needs to learn to coordinate a number of things at the same time and if you don’t keep to your plan you will not have a book at the end of it.
It’s a constant learning curve, and there have been many days when I’ve felt overwhelmed. Usually when I’m feeling like I have too many things going on at once, I try to figure out which project I need to do first and then do the other projects in the order they need to get done.
“Tie your books together in intelligent ways, create smart marketing funnels that drive your readers from one book directly into the next, and take control of the connection between you and your readers, rather than abdicating that task… In self-publishing, success comes from hard work and the accumulation of small numbers. Unlike yesterday, today’s prosperity can bloom from continuous intelligent production. For the first time in history, life as a full-time writer has become about simple math.” Johnny B. Truant Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success) (The Smarter Artist Book 1)
The good and bad news is that as an indie author, all the control is in your hands. You are responsible for your success.
So, if you’ve haven’t succeeded yet, don’t quit. Keep working. Keep producing more books.
Right now is the best time in history to be a self published author.
Keep writing.
Can you think of some other benefits to being a self-published author? I’d love to hear other benefits you think of – that I’m sure I missed – in the comments.
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#5 just doesn’t hold up. If you’re a single income household, as in no one supporting you to pay the bills, and you have another full-time career, it is virtually impossible to work on your career that pays the bills, and also write, publish, and market your work. Something is going to suffer. The full-time paycheck career can’t, because in order to write you have to have a roof over your head and your bills paid, and in order to write you need time to be creative and sit down and write, but if you’re busy marketing your book when do you have time to write, because you can’t take that away from your career job because bills. Stopping sleeping, to do marketing, will destroy both the career that pays the bills and the creativity that drives the writing, and no one is going to buy a poor quality book. So maybe that “benefit” needs to be rethought a little. It seems like a great idea, and for people who are financially supported by others I know it works, but for the self supporting, who want to put out a quality product and continue to maintain a roof over their head, traditional routes are the best bet.
You don’t have to spend hours a day marketing your book. My first novel has sold over 3,500 digital copies since it launched four months ago. I knew absolutely nothing about marketing a book, but I know a good bit about how to use social media to my advantage. I did giveaways on both digital and print copies, and used post boosts to get my book in front of my desired audience. I setup a basic website with a mailing list option, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. I would venture to say that I spend no more than one to two hours a week on my marketing. I am about to release the second book in the series and am using social media to build up excitement. Again, no more effort there than my regular daily posts. I also hold a full time job. If you don’t know how to do those things, or how to get started doing them, there are a lot of communities for indie authors. I couldn’t be more happy with the results and success I’ve had – unless, of course, I had sold 35,000 copies. 🙂
Sometimes finding 1 or 2 quiet hours a week, with no other obligations, just to sit down and write is the impossible dream. I know very little about how to use social media to my advantage, so just the ramp up there would take valuable time away from other obligations. I’m glad it works for you, but I know for me, and many others out there, it’s not a possibility. I can’t do it all, work 12-14 hour days on my career, write novels, and spend hours learning how to use social media and playing the games with fans, not unless I give up sleep, and then it all comes crashing down.
If all you have is 1 or 2 hours a week, you could try making one of those hours a ‘Power Writing Hour’ mnfriedman 🙂 I’ve been working on doing that each day. I try to get my research & ideas written down ahead of time, so that when I sit down to write, I know where the scene is going and I can just write. If you had 1 power hour/week – at 1000 words/hour – and you did that for a year, you’d have around 50,000 words. Which is the size of a book. Full size novels are between 60,000 to 80,000 words, so you could be almost at novel length too 🙂
That’s exciting PA Glaspy, that you’ve been having success with your first novel ~ how exciting! It does work, when you just start with a simple setup like you’ve done with your website, email and a couple of social media channels. Good for you, for going for it and continuing to write and self-publish. That’s awesome 😉
I agree mnfriedman, that it is more challenging to write, self-publish and market your book when you are a single income household – or even if you are the primary bread winner in the family. When I started blogging & writing my novel at the start of 2012 I was cleaning houses part-time and also teaching piano students part-time. So I had to write, between the cracks of time. But I wasn’t the primary bread winner, my husband was. But I do understand about the time issue and also the necessity of getting enough sleep. Getting the balance in all that can be tricky…
However, you might be encouraged to hear about Joanna Penn’s journey on writing and self-publishing her book and how she was able to do that while working a full-time job. Then she began to write quite a few books, and eventually became a full-time author entrepreneur. If you want to hear her story and learn her tips here’s a link: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/05/02/make-a-living-with-your-writing/
Self-publishing is too expensive.
Hi Sarah 🙂 If you wanted to, you can make self-publishing quite inexpensive. You can set up a free website with wordpress.com; you can start your email list with Mailchimp(for up to 2000 subscribers) for free; if you use Scrivener($45 USD), you can write your book and upload it(self-publish your ebook) on your own to Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, etc;
For Book covers, it will mean saving some money. I get both my ebook and Print book covers for $250 USD(some designers will even do it cheaper) and when you go to guru.com, you can get your book edited for around $100 USD or less(you just post on that site and say you would like only editors who are willing to do it for that price). So in that way, you can begin to write and self-publish your book for a reasonable price.
I guess for our family, we decided to make choices and to save money on things that weren’t really necessities 🙂 I chose to stop getting my hair done at a hair dressers, and started to get my husband to cut my hair, so I saved $40 every 2 months on that. (most of our children get their hair done by their dad too). Then we stopped going to movies once a month and instead ordered DVD’s we wanted to see, from the Library – saving us $50 a month. We only go out to eat on special occasions anymore, and that saves us around $100/month. I guess we simplified – and even though we have 2 young adults and 2 teenagers at home, we’re making it work. Of course everyone has different demands in their life, but I’ve noticed if there’s different things people can do to help save money.
I hope some of those thoughts help 🙂
Or she can be her own editor, proof copier and cover designer like me and publish through places that do P.O.D. without charging you for anything and make it virtually free!
Thanks for stopping by Mr. Seeber 🙂 It’s true you can learn to be your own cover designer for your book and you can self-edit and proof read your book too. But I have noticed for myself and from other indie authors who are successfully self-publishing their books like Ruth Ann Nordin, Joanna Penn, Monica Leonelle, Mark Dawson & others, they do recommend that you do make the book cover designs look professional – and also get another person to beta read/critique your book(another set of eyes on your manuscript looking for possible mistakes) before your upload your book onto retailers. And of course the P.O.D. option is super. It’s what I do too, and it does save a ton of money 🙂
I would love to learn to design my own book covers – I just need to take the time to do that 🙂
Well, I have my share of “critics” within the author community. They slam me for doing everything on my own and act as if I am taking the easy way out, when in fact it is the hardest path. They criticize my cover choices, my editing, my formatting and just about everything else. But I say “screw ’em” because this is all I’ve got. I live for writing fantasy, and I love it. But the things that you love don’t always love you back. My career hasn’t always turned out the way I wanted it to. I thought it would be better. I thought I would sell more books. I thought I would be more of a star. So people wonder why I still do it. They want to know why I continue to subject myself to the harsh criticism and all of the other crap. My answer is that it’s an addiction to me – like a drug. I can’t help myself; I can’t stop; I can’t not write and publish.
Sounds like you are definitely doing what you love – that is a really awesome thing! Your indie author journey sounds very similar to Ruth Ann Nordin’s, who also started out doing everything herself as she wrote her romances. That’s very inspiring, that you don’t give up and that you just keep writing and self-publishing despite the voices of the critics. Very inspiring 🙂
Thank you very much. I think that drama in my real life may even make me a better writer. With my first novel, I got into with a group of my critics (I think they were all other authors) on the Amazon ratings. It got so bad that I actually pulled it from Amazon and re-released another version of the book under a slightly different title. But, if you or anyone else wants to give me a chance or check me out, I’ll include a link to my author’s page on Facebook. If you prefer the link not be posted here, I’ll understand. I’ll put in a separate comment below.
https://www.facebook.com/clintonseeberauthor/
Too bad that you’ve had to deal with so much criticism… but perhaps you’re right – maybe it does strengthen your writing. Keep writing Mr. Seeber… follow your passion! And I’m happy to check out your books 🙂