Why Self-publishing?

Hey!

In my second year of university, I got to choose specific modules - mostly based on how fun or interesting they sounded. There wasn't much else there to influence your choices. One particular module that stood out was one on Self-publishing. I had briefly heard of it before through online courses but it was always glossed over and I hadn't managed to properly sit down and research it myself.

When the time came around, I entered the class for our first session and was completely thrown by what I learnt. Self-publishing is exactly as it sounds: DIY Publishing. It just requires you to do all the work a publisher would do yourself. To me, it sounded like hell.

On second thought though, it sounded like freedom. It would mean that I could make all the creative decisions on my work, rather than having a publisher dictate 'what would sell best.' This is where I began to see what the draws were to both options.

With publishing, you have two options (technically three, but that's a discussion for another time).

• Option #1: find an agent and wrestle them into helping pitch your work to a publisher.
• Option #2: Self-publish (The one where you do all the legwork)

🔍What's the difference?

There are pros and cons to both, it is just about deciding what best suits you. While "traditional" publishing may get your novel to a wider audience, it also means that not only do you make less of a profit but you have to be approved by them so they can predetermine whether your book will sell. In contrast, Self-publishing doesn't have that barrier and works especially well if you have a pre-established fan base.

An example of this is someone who is famous on social media. If you have a large following already, you can then self-publish and market to the people who already look towards you and the work you produce. This can act as a springboard to getting your work into the larger sphere through trending lists on websites such as Amazon.

Even if you don't have an established audience, you can still look towards Self-publishing as a viable option. Not only can you get your work on E-book platforms without having to deal with the distribution costs that physical books entail, but using these websites with trending lists to leverage your work can still be successful.

✍️Publishing in practice

My favourite example of this is the author Evan Winters. His novel, titled "The Rage of Dragons," was initially self-published. He utilised strategies such as SEO and social media in order to get his book discovered. This led to his book gaining enough traction that a major publishing house picking it up so that it could get to even more readers.

Of course, I was going to use a case study that relates to Fantasy Fiction - I am a bit of a Fantasy nerd myself.

Self-publishing is a brilliant tool that lets you get your work out to the world without having barriers like traditional publishing. However, as I previously mentioned, it comes with its downsides too - just make sure to take the time and care to make your work stand out from the rest.

That's all from me today,
Fin :)