Pros and Cons of Indie Publishing

Yesterday I tackled traditional publishing, so it's time now to kick the ol' pigskin down toward the indie publishing goalpost. Slap on a helmet and some kneepads. Here we go . . .

The Pros of Independent Publishing

You da boss man.
You call all the shots, from the cover design to the price. Go ahead and parade around in crown, oh king of the publishing realm.

You own the timetable.
You want to put your book out next week? Go for it. You don't have to wait for a marketing department to meet.

There's no one to tell you no.
Goodbye rejection. There's no one to tell you that your book isn't good enough.

Profit.
The money is all yours. You don't have to share it with anyone. Okay, that's a lie because Uncle Sam will still have his palm out, but the rest is yours.

A sense of accomplishment.
Putting together a book from start to finish is a feather in your cap because it's not a small thing. You get it done and you feel like a champion.

The Cons of Independent Publishing

You bear all the risk.
If that book doesn't sell, you're the one who takes the hit, right in the pocketbook, depending of course on how much you put into this little venture in the first place. And speaking of that, to put out a serious product, you need to invest some cashola in editing and cover design.

There are more decisions to make than you realize.
Where's the best deal on a cover design? How do you know what the best design is? What's an isbn? Where are my socks? These and a bajillion other questions relentlessly pound you over the head.

Formatting can be a headache.
There's a trick to formatting for Kindle and Nook and iphones and whatever other electronic devices are out there. Don't ask me how to do it. I passed that hot potato off to someone else.

Marketing is all on your shoulders.
You are the marketing team. Yeah, so you got your book on Amazon, you and 3 million other titles. How is a reader going to find your book? How are you going to get your book in front of readers?

Quality is all yours, baby.
I cannot emphasize this enough . . . perfection is key. Do NOT put out a book that you will be ashamed of years down the road, one with a schlocky cover and typos galore.

The last thing I want to mention about independent publishing is that very likely you're not going to sell more than a hundred or so copies of your one and only book on the market. Indie publishing is a numbers game, meaning the more books you produce, the more you will sell, especially if you do a series and the first book is put out there for free. If you're not planning on whipping out a book every three or four months, then you might want to rethink the whole indie scene.

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