Drawbacks to Self-Publishing

March 21, 2022 admin One comment

Drawbacks to Self-Publishing

Paperbacks

Are there any drawbacks to self-publishing?

When working with mainstream publishers you write the book and the publisher controls everything: the editing, book design and formatting, ISBN, cover design, and publicity.

These days, though, the author has to be very involved with the marketing. The publisher handles the distribution and gets your book into bookshops and libraries. You wait for your royalties.

Benefits of a mainstream publisher

The benefits of producing a book with a mainstream publisher are:

the prestige you get
there is nothing upfront to pay
publisher takes care of everything
all being well, your book will be successfully distributed

BUT

you have to get accepted by a publisher
the publishing process is time consuming
there are complicated contracts
low royalty rates, and
limited creative control

Control

With self-publishing you are the one in control. You are the publisher.

It’s your responsibility to get your book edited, to get an ISBN, prepare the manuscript for publication, the cover design, the formatting, and the marketing.

Costs

The upfront costs of doing your own publishing are higher.

You will pay for services like editing, cover design and formatting. With traditional publishing these services are done by the publisher but when you self-publish the upfront costs rest with you – the author/publisher.

Team of professionals

team of professionals

When self-publishing you may need to create your own team of professionals to handle those aspects of publishing that you find hard, too difficult, or that you don’t want to do.

If your market is bookshops and libraries you will need to choose a platform like IngramSpark to get your book into libraries and bookstores. IngramSpark is set up to provide trade discounts and to work in with bookshops and libraries. This is not so easy with Amazon.

The choice is yours. If you go with a mainstream publisher – congratulations!

The drawback to self-publishing is that you have to do all the work of publishing yourself. If you don’t want to do it all yourself you will need to pay to get a team of people to help you do it.

On the one hand this could be seen as a drawback or a disadvantage. On the other hand, you may like the challenge of having your own publishing house. The benefits are: