First and foremost: WOO! GO RAMS! I am in Denver this weekend and have been proudly wearing my CSU shirt in hopes that a Buffs fan will see it.
Happy Sunday, CSU. I’ve just finished a delicious homemade pancake (thanks, Mom!) and now I’m ready to write! Today I bring you information about self publishing, something that few people know very much about. I believe it is a general consensus among many that people self-publish because their books aren’t “good enough” for traditional publishing companies. This could not be more wrong. People self-publish for all kinds of reasons, which I will elaborate on here.
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Book Rights
When you traditionally publish a book, you lose the rights to it. Authors are typically paid an advance before their book even hits the shelves. Awesome, right? Not quite. Authors don’t have any control over their book once they’ve sold it to a publishing company. They can’t decide on cover art, marketing, or release dates. There is one author whose work I absolutely adore, but she only has one book out because the next book in the trilogy is tied up in legal battle with the publishing house. The author is actually having to take legal action to buy her book back so that she can publish it herself. It is a huge mess, and her readers have been waiting for over two years to get their hands on her next book. She wants to start self-publishing so as to avoid all this trouble that some traditional publishing houses cause.
Complete Control
I don’t know about you, but there are some book covers I see and I just think: really? I never want to let someone else decide on the cover for my book. I’m someone who hates when there are photos of random models on the covers of books. I want to be able to imagine what each character looks like; I don’t want their silly model face staring back at me from the front cover. A positive of self publishing is that the author gets to choose all cover art. Some authors even create the artwork themselves. But their freedoms don’t stop at the cover. Self-published authors get to completely design the interior of the book. Sure, it’s difficult (I know from experience), but it’s also extremely liberating. Having complete control over your work is something that few people want to give up.
Supporting the Independent Industry
Self-published authors can do everything themselves, but they don’t necessarily have to. The internet has made it easy to hire graphic artists, editors, and anyone else that you would need to help make your book look great. By hiring independently, self-published authors are giving back to the community and helping to support others that are self-employed.
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Taking Back the Power
For too long traditional publishing houses have completely controlled the book market. Self- and independently published authors are completely changing that. Now we have the power. We can publish what we want, how we want, when we want.
Still not convinced that self-publishing is where it’s at? Do a Google search of Amanda Hocking. She was the first self-published author to become a millionaire. (And the traditional publishing houses originally turned her away. BIG mistake!) With businesses like CreateSpace stepping up to the publishing plate, traditional publishing houses have got a bumpy road ahead of them.
