You’ve written a book, or are in the middle of your first draft, and you’ve started thinking about your publishing options. Should you try to get a traditional publishing deal, or would self-publishing make more sense for you and your book?

Over the past decade, publishing has changed. Fifteen years ago, traditional publishing was the only option if you wanted to publish a credible, high-quality book. However, self-publishing technologies have progressed and there are more creative freelancers and experienced publishing services companies today. The result? Self-publishing has become a far more popular and accepted method for bringing a professional book into the world.

So in the self-publishing vs. traditional publishing debate, which should you choose? What are the advantage and disadvantages of each, and how do you weigh them up to ensure you’re making the right decision for your book?

In this article I’ll give an overview of each of your publishing options and the pros and cons of each so you can make the right publishing choice for you.

Understanding the publishing landscape

What is self-publishing and how is it different from getting a traditional publishing deal? Before we get into the pros and cons, here’s a quick outline to ensure we’re all on the same page.

What is traditional publishing?

In traditional publishing, you complete a draft of your book and start submitting it to publishing houses, usually through a literary agent who then submits to publishing houses on your behalf.

Your book, proposal or query letter then gets reviewed by an acquisitions editor, to decide whether or not they want to publish it.

If they do, the publishing house will buy the rights to the book and pay you an advance to help support you while you work with your editor on edits and revisions. They'll coordinate the publishing process and cover the expenses involved.

Once the book is released (usually about two years later), they pay you a royalty of 10-15% of sales once the book has sold enough copies to pay back your advance.

What is self-publishing?

There are a lot of variations on self-publishing, including:

What makes it self-publishing is the money. In traditional publishing, the publisher pays all of the expenses and makes their money back through sales of the book. In self-publishing, the author pays all of the publishing expenses, but then gets to keep the profits from all book sales.

Note: There are some companies that charge at both ends – first a fee to publish your book, and then a cut from book sales. This is often called Hybrid Publishing. The reason a traditional publisher takes the lion’s share of the profits is because they have fronted all of the financial costs involved in publishing the book. When you self-publish, you take on the risk and then benefit from the rewards. A hybrid publisher lands somewhere in the middle, charging up front but also taking a cut of profits.

Self-publishing vs. traditional publishing: The breakdown

The truth is that there are eight major aspects to consider when choosing the right publishing model for you. These are credibility, cost, profit, time-frames, distribution, marketing support, the quality of your publishing team, and creative control.

Which model you choose will depend on the importance you place on each of these factors.

1) The credibility of different publishing models

Traditional publishing

If you’ve been picked up by a publishing house, you can argue that you gain an instant credibility boost. The industry has decided to invest their time and expertise into you and your book so you must have written something worthwhile. If you’re worried about whether what you’ve written is any good, this can be very validating.

There are also a number of literary prizes that are only open to traditionally published authors. You’re more likely to receive critical acclaim for your book (assuming it’s a good one) as a traditionally-published author than as a self-published or independent author.

Having said that, think about your target readers before pinning too much on the credibility that comes from literary prizes. If your book is professionally produced, readers won't know whether or not it was published by a traditional publishing house. And if they did, would they care?

More and more, readers care only about the quality of your book and its content. And if you publish a high-quality book that adhere's to professional standards, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a self-published or a traditionally published one.

Self-publishing

Today, anyone can write and self-publish a book. And because there are a number of authors out there publishing bad books, they can bring down the reputation of self-published books as a whole. Simply put, their content doesn’t give value and their books don’t look professional.

Fortunately, the number of great self-published books in the market is going up every day, which means any stigma against self-published has dropped and really only exists among elite literary types today.

However, this makes it even more important to invest in making your book look, read and feel like it was professionally published – your credibility’s at stake.

2) The cost of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing

3) How much will you make? Publishing profits