Self-Publishing, Indie Publishing–There is not much difference in the two. Most people use the terms interchangeably.
But just remember, for the purpose of this blog series, we are going to use “Self-Publishing” to mean doing everything yourself or at least being in charge of everything, and “Indie Publishing” as paying a publishing house to publish your book though you are still in charge of most of it.
(Just remember that many, if not most, people (including myself) usually refer to the terms to mean the same thing. Now you are confused, right?)
There are quite a list of pros and cons of Self-Publishing as you can see.
Pros:
- You are in complete charge from start to finish.
- You get the final say on content (typos included).
- You can let your imagination design an amazing cover.
- Or you can pay someone to design that amazing cover for you.
- You edit how you want, not how someone tells you to.
- You get more money per book sold (depending on the price, I usually make $1-3 per book).
- It’s your decision to make a kindle version or not.
- If you want to create an audio book, you can go right ahead. No questions asked.
- You can change the cover if you are so inclined.
- You can make you book on sale any time you please.
- You can promote and sell your book yourself, on Amazon, to bookstores, at local events, at your family reunions, anywhere.
- You can give away kindle (or pdf) copies of your book to get reviews on GoodReads.
- If you decide you don’t want to sell your book any longer, you can un-list it.
- It won’t cost you an arm and a leg to publish a book.
- You won’t need a garage to store all the copies of your book that you had to buy.
- You can write and publish anything without getting permission from the “Publishing House.”
Cons:
- If there are mistakes, typos, and the like, you are fully responsible.
- You either have to do the layout and the cover yourself, or find someone to do them for you.
- You have to learn all about marketing.
- Your book won’t automatically be listed in the large catalogs from a publishing house.
- You won’t have a “big name” publishing logo on your book.
- Since you can publish anything, you don’t have a publishing house to tell you if something is terrible, needs a little work or if it is just right before you publish it.
- You have no one to promote your book except yourself.
- If you want a kindle copy of your book, you have to create one.
- Anyone can publish anything, good, bad or mediocre.
And there you have it. A look at the Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing. Come back next week to find out about Indie Publishing.
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