Hello, dreamers. After my initial two rejections, things have been quiet on the querying front. And that’s good; as I always say, for the first few weeks or so in querying, no news is good news. There’s always the possibility that a query will just blow an agent away and lead to an immediate full request. But with a story like mine, one that falls into a niche market, the chances of that are remote. So, for now, I wait. Still.

In case I haven’t made it clear, a large part of the query process is waiting and rejections. You wait for weeks, even months, to have your beloved novel judged by complete strangers. And as I’ve said, rejections sting, no matter how prepared you think you are for it. Every rejection hurts. How could it not? Chances are you’ve spent, at minimum, the better part of a year writing and editing your novel. It’s probably been through beta reading, which if you’re a first-time novelist means handing it to trusted and supportive friends. And they probably all loved it.

The fact is, however good or bad it is, if you’ve gone to the trouble of querying a novel it means you believe in this story. You know your audience is out there, just waiting for you to put your story in front of them. And in today’s publishing market, there’s a way to bypass the query process entirely. So, why wait?

“Going Renegade”

Today’s publishing world offers an alternative to writers wary (or weary) of the query process: self-publishing. I know several wonderful authors who ultimately abandoned querying for self-pub. Over time, I’ve come to call it “Going Renegade”, borrowing a term from Frank Herbert’s Dune, in which it referred to a Great House quitting humanity’s vast empire to go it alone in uncharted space.

I’ve touched on self-pub in these posts before. It’s important to at least acknowledge it. Over the years since the internet gave writers the ability to bypass traditional publishing, self-pub has risen from a publishing afterthought to a legitimate, respectable sector of the publishing market. While independent (“indie”) authors were once regarded as unprofessional hacks, we now live in a world where many have used self-publishing as a sort of “back door” to the publishing world. Sci-fi authors Andy Weir (The Martian, Project Hail Mary) and Hugh Howey (Silo) began as self-pub authors. And those are just the indie authors who made the switch to traditional publishing. Many more are thriving as fully-independent authors, happy and successful with neither an agent nor a publishing house.

For the modern author, self-publishing is enticing. It offers the opportunity to brush right past the whole querying process, with its physical and emotional toll, and put their book right in front of potential readers. But as with every choice facing writers as they plan out their careers, self-publishing has its advantages and its drawbacks.

The Advantages

First and foremost, the biggest advantage of self-pub is the ease of startup. It really has never been easier to publish a book. Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is the gold standard, offering a free-to-download app to convert text documents to either .kdp or the standard .epub format. They even offer a cover creator, and will produce paperbacks in addition to electronic. If you’ve got a book and a spare half hour, you can become a published author on Amazon.

And, most importantly, self-pub authors don’t need an agent. Or an editor. Or a publishing house. There’s no startup cost; neither Amazon nor Google nor Apple nor any other major self-pub market will charge anything for the right to publish a novel. Nobody’s taking any fees from the author’s earnings. Their share of their royalties is all theirs to do with as they please.

Seen in that light, self-pub sounds pretty great, right? So why don’t all authors just give the cutthroat modern publishing industry the finger and self-publish?

The Drawbacks

Whenever anything in life looks too good to be true, there are always drawbacks, and the same is true in self-publishing. And in the case of self-pub, while it’s very easy to start, it’s very, very difficult to be truly successful.

First off, it’s important to remember the term for this whole practice: “self-publishing”. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a publisher. It means you are the publisher. True, it’s extremely difficult to break into traditional publishing. But once you do, you have a team of industry professionals around you. Your agent will help you with editing and publicity. Your publishing house with pair you with a professional editor. And while today most debut authors are expected to do their part to market their book, the publisher will at least handle some of that work.

As a self-pub writer, you’re not just an author. You’re also editor, advertiser, and marketer. Indie authors should be thought of not merely as writers but as small business owners. They have to wear a lot of hats. And I guarantee there are a lot of fantastic indie authors out there who toil in obscurity simply because they’re great writers but don’t understand the ins and outs of the publishing business.

To alleviate this, serious indie authors ultimately hire others to help them. Editors, marketers, social media consultants. There are plenty of highly reputable people out there eager to lend a hand to indie authors struggling to make it. But of course, all of those people will expect to be paid for their services.

In any event, it’s understood that in today’s market, even a successful indie author who does everything right can’t expect to start making serious money until their fourth book. That means that to make it as an indie author, you’ll have to write at least three books for very little reward. And that’s where the advantages of trad-pub come in. Traditionally-published authors also tend to take several books to build an audience and gain traction. But they start making money right away, thanks to the advance paid to them by their publisher. They get that money whether their book sells well or not.

The Bottom Line

Even now, with so many wonderful indie authors making a name for themselves, it can be easy to dismiss self-pub writers. But in the end, being an indie author is no different than being a traditionally-published author: it takes a lot of time and hard work. And the indie authors I know are incredibly hard-working people. They know they have to work twice as hard to break through and make it. And for that they deserve all the credit in the world.

But just like trad-pub, it’s not for everyone. And more than anything, it should never be viewed as “the easy way”. There are no shortcuts in the publishing business. But if you work hard, and believe in your story, nothing is impossible. Keep at it. The world deserves your story. – MK