Self-Publishing Vs Traditional Publishing (Take Two)

As an author, the biggest dream we have is to have our work in the hands of the masses. We want others to not only read our work, but be inspired, their lives changed, their hearts warmed. Actually, for myself, I just want to know someone, anyone has read my book and enjoyed it. One of the greatest joys for my writing career thus far was finding out I had sold copies of my paranormal romance, A Repeating Life, in the UK.

So, which revenue is best for an aspiring author: traditionally using a literary agent, or self-publishing through the many resources available? There is absolutely no way for me to include all the information I found on the web in one blog...at least not without making it ten pages long. Therefore, this subject will be broken down into a few Mondays.

To start, let's look at some of the success stories. The first one who pops in my head is the infamous Joe Konrath. Mr. Konrath was traditionally published for many years before opting for self-publishing. He has been known to sell 18,000 books in one month. He broke the chains from his publisher and went off on his own. Obviously, this is an exception, not the norm, but can you imagine selling this many copies of your work without having to share your income with several others?

Another seriously noted author is Amanda Hocking. In her early twenties, she wrote a couple of books, self-published them, and - voila - she's rich and successful. Okay, that's not quite how it happened. In Ms. Hocking's situation, she continuously worked on new books, reached out for review, and constantly put out new books. Eventually, all of her hard work paid off. But, as she says here, it a whole lot of work. Of course, with a traditional publishing house you'll still be doing a lot of marketing for yourself, but not nearly as much as when you self-publishing. You do all of your own marketing, your edit all of your own work or pay someone to do it for you (way smarter than relying on your own eyes), you make your own cover art (again, pay someone else to do it unless you're a graphic art graduate), format your book for both e-book and paperback, etc, etc, etc. I think I personally spend more time on everything but writing most days.

It needs to be said that Amanda Hocking recently signed a four book deal with St. Martins recently. You can read about it here.

There are many other success stories through self-publishing, but obviously way more through traditional publishing. I am in no way pushing for one more than the other. You need to find what works best for you. Would I go traditional if I was offered a decent contract through one of the big houses? Hell yeah! But I refuse to sit around and wait for fate to come to me...I'm beating on her door demanding some attention!!!!

Do I have anything important to say?

I woke up in the mood to blog, then realized, there's nothing truly important enough to denote a chunk of space to blurb about. There's more a swarm of ideas and thoughts running through my head this morning.

For one thing, my self-published e-book is doing fairly well so far. Granted, it's not yet available on Nook and other such appliances, but it will be shipped to B&N, Apple and others sometime this week. Therefore, though I told you all it was already available, it won't actually be available for download until sometime next week.

I've been researching marketing and promotional ideas at an exhausting rate lately. My back is aching from all the hours I've sat in front of the computer, but I think I'm finding some really great resources.

One blog I found interesting was by Amanda Hocking. In this link I've provided she details (in her own way) how she came about her self-published success. Strangely enough, she's now being represented by Steven Axelrod of The Axelrod Group. I wasn't aware she had planned on signing with an agency, but I also don't know her personally, nor do I make it my business to keep track of everyone else's decisions.

I've also found a great download by John Kremer titled 50+ Ways to Tweet. This has been a little more work than I had anticipated, but I've found some very interesting people, or I guess that would be Tweeple, as well as some interesting links and nuggets of info.

Of course, Writer's Digest is a wonderful community of writers from every genre who hold a wealth of information for all writers. I've made some awesome friends from that site, and even found my writer's group by going there.

That's all I can think of this morning with such low amounts of coffee in my system, but if you can think of anything I didn't post, feel free to link us all to it!

Until next time, Happy Writing!