Yet Another Argument That Self-Publishing Is Superior To Traditionally Publishing

Recently I was reading a self-published book. You could tell that it had been the writer’s first book – there were many excellent sections, but there were parts that were pretty rough in a structural sense – like, long infodumps, out of character plot twists, wholly gratuitous sex scenes, the sort of things you see in new-ish writers who haven’t quite yet found their voice. Yet there was definite potential there, and I would be willing to bet that the writer in question will continue to get better with every book. Additionally, I have also read many tradpub books that were worse than this book.

The book was the first of a series that has reached its fifth volume. The series had good reviews that got better with every volume, and a pretty good Amazon sales ranking. Like, the kind of sales ranking that comes from at least a couple thousand sales a month. It seems safe to assume that the writer did indeed improve with every book.

So what would have happened, I wonder, if this writer had decided to try and traditionally publish his book? There would have been one of three potential outcomes.

OUTCOME 1: The writer sends his books to agents, who respond by ignoring his query, or issuing form rejections after twelve to twenty-four months. The writer, discouraged, tries writing an entirely different kind of book in hopes of attracting an agent’s notice, to the same result. Eventually, the writer becomes discouraged and stops writing.

OUTCOME 2: The writer, believing there is something wrong with his book that needs fixing, decides to rewrite it from the beginning. Or he takes it to a writers’ group for workshopping. Typically, a writers’ group will have people who know even less about writing than he does, so the writer will end up with a book that’s a mess, or one that is polished to bland dullness. Discouraged, the writer gives up and stops writing.

OUTCOME 3: The writer publishes with a small-press “publisher” that is a one-person shop. The publisher goes under when the owner takes the royalty money to pay for gall bladder surgery on three of her cats or spends it on paying off her credit cards, and everything dissolves into a mess of lawsuits. Discouraged by the chaos, the writer gives up and stops writing.

Pretty depressing, huh? Up until about 2009, that would have been the likely fate of our writer’s first book. But now, of course, there are different options. Such as what actually happened:

THE ACTUAL OUTCOME: The writer self-published his book. A few people read it, and some like it, some don’t. The writer, heartened by this reaction (and the little bit of money from the book sales), writes a sequel, and then another one. He gets better with every book, and grows his audience with each volume. That first book turns into an ongoing series, a series that literally would not have existed in any of the previous three scenarios.

Definitely a better outcome!

As for the first book…it doesn’t have to be perfect. Somewhere there was an audience for it, and thanks to self-publishing, the book found its audience, something that would have never happened with traditional publishing.

-JM