There are, like everything in life except tea and spring mornings, advantages and disadvantages to self-publishing. If you are new to the concept of self-publishing then I suggest you read the following arguments thoroughly in order to give yourself a really good understanding of the pros and cons, rather than skimming over it as you have been so far. I saw you.

Advantages

In the UK, currently only 1% of new authors make it past the first hurdle. 99% of manuscripts submitted to agents get rejected, and even that lucky 1% face an uphill battle getting a book deal. And even after that book deal has been signed the whole project can get canned if the marketing team don’t think they can sell enough to make money. And the author is back to square one.

Okay, so I’ve painted a rather bleak scenario, but all of the above can, and have, happened – many times. Publishers are more risk-averse than ever and the window for first timers is closing year on year, so why go through all the pain and hassle involved when you can do it yourself get your book up and running and for sale on Amazon in mere hours? The important question you need to ask yourself is: why am I writing this book? Is it for fame, for money, for a sense of achievement, to cleanse my soul, to win awards? The reason I ask this is because there are certain things that self-publishing can do for you and certain things that it can’t. Authors, I have found, tend to fall into two categories – the dream chasers and the realists. The dream chasers will submit and submit and submit their book until their rejection letters stretch to the moon, and still they won’t give up. To them, a book deal is all – it’s Monte Carlo or bust. Good luck to them. Who knows, one day they might find themselves one of the 1% brigade. These people, like many in the industry, tend to look down on self-publishing as literature’s uglier, stupider brother, and something they would never contemplate. As a result there is a 99% chance that they won't be contemplating any sales figures either.

The realists, on the other hand, range from those who believe that they can sell their book without the need of a traditional publisher to those who want to simply get a book into print for the sheer fun of it. They recognise that not being published isn’t a barrier to success but is instead a fact of life for the vast majority of would-be authors. Publishing houses would prefer to produce a book that will make money rather than one that enhances their literary output. The bean counters are in charge now, with all the hellish consequences that brings with it. Realists use self-publishing to fulfil their ambitions, and potential. They are happy enough to do everything by themselves (or hire companies to help them at various stages) and aren’t bothered by the fact that their book doesn’t come with a publishing house’s imprint on the spine. Self-published books feel just like traditionally published books anyway, and with a good cover and careful formatting they can look just like them too. Bands and artists have been self-producing their music for decades, film makers have done their own thing in order to get a foot in the door, it's just that the literary world is a little too snobbish to accept the inevitable (whilst also doing its best to kill of quality writing).

And it’s not as it self-publishers are missing out on market access. Okay so they can’t get their books in Waterstones, but there are local bookshops to try first if so required, but with Amazon on course to own a 50% market share of the entire US book business by the end of 2012, who needs bookshops? Online is where it’s at, and self-published authors are right up there with the best of them. Once you have your ISBN number you can get your book onto Amazon, and with eBooks the situation is even better – Amazon, iBookstore, Barnes and Noble...self-published authors have just as much access as the rest. Of course you have to do your own marketing and spreading of the word, but how much of a marketing kitty do you think a publishing company would have given you anyway as a firt-timer? None if there’s a new Jamie Oliver book coming out at the same time.

Advances in technology too have aided the would-be self-publisher. No longer do minimum orders in four figures apply – with print-on-demand facilities (see ‘how it works’) you can order one book or a hundred books at a time, as can your customers. Once uploaded and assigned an ISBN, an electronic copy of your book is stored by your self-publishing company who just press the button when an order comes through, either online or in a bookshop if someone requests it. To quote a certain nauseating meerkat, simples. And many services allow you to revise and tweak your book at any time too, thus ensuring that any typos you didn’t spot can be corrected even after it has been published, something traditional publishers can’t do. Many self-publishers even let you change the price whenever you want, thus allowing you to boost sales by temporarily knocking down the price. Technological advances have also ensured that self-published books look and feel ever increasingly like the real thing too. Those who I have shown copies of University of Life to have been shocked to discover it was self-published such is the quality, and it will only get better as the technology improves.

The final advantage to self-publishing is perhaps its biggest; complete autonomy. Unlike contracted authors who have to see their work battered and bent into different shapes by editors, marketing monkeys and bean counters to ensure they will reach as many customers as possible, self-publishers can write just whatever the hell they like. If you think what you’ve written will sell, or if you don’t, or if you just don’t care, you can publish it regardless and see if it flies. Of course if you are aiming for certain literary standards then you have to be a little more detailed in your checks, but that’s the beauty of self-publishing – you can put as little or as much care into it as you like and it might still sell you thousands!

Disadvantages

With all these positives then, why isn’t the entire world self-publishing? There are, of course, drawbacks to self-publishing , but the good news is that they’re not fit to buckle the advantages’ shoes.

The first argument against self-publishing is perhaps its greatest strength and actually covers most of its problems – the ‘self’ aspect. Traditionally published books will have teams of editors, typesetters, proofreaders, artworkers and salespeople to try and make sure that every single aspect of the book is as perfect as it can be. Self-published authors have to play funeral director, embalmer, hearse driver, vicar and flower arranger all themselves. This, naturally, leads to some aspect of the book often being below standard – be it the formatting, the spelling, the cover or the marketing. I’ll deal with these issues now, and more importantly how simple they are to avoid.
Correct spelling, grammar and punctuation should be the first thing on the author checklist. No matter how good your story is, if it’s full of technical errors then no one will even get past the first page. After all, you don’t keep driving a car if the brakes don’t work. Spellcheckers are included with all word processing software. Use them. Or, even better, learn the basics yourself and don’t rely on sometimes faulty computers.

Incorrect formatting is another cardinal sin. You own traditionally published book so use them – look at the margin width, the indentation, the line spacing…just replicate what’s already out there and Bob’s your uncle.
Getting the right cover is a little more tricky. I’m a good writer but I’m a shocking artist, hence why I went for a plain white cover with one drawing and text. Using freelance websites however you can hire a cover artist for relatively cheap who will do the job of an artworker at a publishing house and work with you to get a cover that fits the theme of your book and, more importantly, looks great.

Marketing however is the biggest stumbling block of all as far as self-publishing goes. Your book may be the best self-published book ever written, but the fact that marketing traditionally published books is becoming increasingly difficult means that doing the same for a self-published book, which after all doesn’t have that faux-guarantee of assured quality that comes with traditionally published works, is nigh-on impossible. There are whole websites and books dedicated to marketing self-published books and I really can’t recommend one over the other – I’d just suggest an hour or two of googling and see what you like. What I will say however is that word-of-mouth, be it face to face or on social networking sites, is the most powerful selling method, and that the problems you face area almost the exact same problems that a new traditionally published author would face. Just because you have a traditionally published book as opposed to a self-published one, doesn’t mean anyone should have heard of you.

The penultimate problem with self-publishing is not really a problem as such, but it is something to take into consideration – finances. Whilst producing a self-published book is getting cheaper (eBooks are free by and large to produce) it will still cost money. If you wish to invest in some marketing, that too will cost money. Traditionally published authors use someone else’s money, self-published authors use their own. That is pretty much the rule. Just something to bear in mind.

The stigma of self-publishing, however, is a the equal biggest problem self-publishers face. Tell someone off the street that you self-published your book and they will probably look at you blankly. Tell a publisher or published author that you have self-published your book and they will probably mentally cast you into the cesspool with all the other self-published writers they have come across. Whatever the reason for it, be it fear or loathing, most of them find self-publishing the preserve of the desperate and inadequate, seemingly forgetting the quality manuscripts that are turned away day after day because they won’t reach enough of a market whilst simultaneously signing up Brooklyn Beckham’s autobiography. To them, a self-published book isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, and the sad fact is that the publishing world is a closed circle that needs to protect itself, so this theory will never change, no matter how many previously self-published authors they sign up. That said, if your average man on the street can’t tell the difference, go and sell to him.

Conclusions

To summarise, advances in technology have brought the gap between self-publishing and traditional publishing closer than ever – a gap that will continue to close with the growth in eBook popularity. Of course those who wouldn’t be seen dead using a Lulu or a Createspace are welcome to keep pushing for that book deal, but only one out of a hundred of them will achieve it while the other ninety-nine will be missing out on book sales for every day they keep trying (and waiting). Book lovers are beginning to switch on to the fact that publishing houses are sacrificing quality for commercial value, and it won’t be long before they begin to look elsewhere for their new favourite author. I am convinced that self-publishing will be that place.