In 2016, here on Go Teen Writers, I wrote a series called #WeWriteBooks. I spent the majority of that year, sharing with you all my process of creating a book from concept to completion. You can find a list of those writing posts by clicking here.
Being a visual learner, I try never to teach anything without providing a visual example or mentor text. So, I decided to make use of the origin story idea I’d developed when I sold my Safe Lands dystopian trilogy. That idea was called Thirst. Every week, as I shared each step of my writing process here, I also wrote a first-draft chapter of Thirst over on my author blog. The chapters are still there. You can find them those chapters by clicking here.
It was because of that process of blogging my first draft that I realized Thirst needed to be two books instead of one. In the end, I set it aside because I had other projects on my plate. But when 2018 came around and I realized that my decision to attend grad school would mean I wouldn’t have as much time to write, I decided to indie publish the Thirst Duology. Book one was in really good shape. I could polish that and release it, then take my time fixing up book two. Easy peasy, right?
Heh heh.
Yeah. It took me two years to finish writing Hunger, which came out two weeks ago. (Hooray!)
First of all, no book is easy to write. I’m sure you all have heard the quote, “Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.” Well, I have a really bad habit of forgetting this bit of wisdom. Over and over! You’d think I’d remember after twenty-some books. But no. I get so caught up in the “plan” that I forget the work it will take and how emotionally attached I will get to my characters. Every time!
I have published quite a few books. About half of them were traditionally published. The other half, indie. And I can tell you a few things in hindsight that you may find useful to your own writing journey. Before I share the pros and cons of each type of publishing, I want to say a few things about writers.
Writers are human. And just like every other human on the planet, we have our moments with the “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” mentality. Even when we’ve been on both sides of the fence. Even when we know better! We get caught up in the pros and we’re so happy. Then we get caught up in the cons and we’re so miserable. When we’re happy, life is good. But when we’re miserable, we look for things to blame. And far too often, we blame the grass we’re standing in. “It’s because I’m working with publishers who have all the control. I should just go indie where I get to decide what’s best for my writing.” Or, “It’s because I am not cut out for indie. If only I could find the right publisher.”
Here is the truth: Writing books is hard work, whether you publish indie or traditionally. It’s just plain hard work.
Indie publishing is not easier. It’s different.
Traditional publishing is not easier. It’s different.
You can be successful at both.
You can be unsuccessful at both.
That’s just the way it is when you’re an artist. So, you really have to love writing to keep at it because there will be plenty of days where you are miserable and feel like you should quit.
So, that’s my pep talk. I wrote it for myself because I’ll never stop needing to hear it, no matter how many books I write. The reminder tethers me back to reality and reminds me of what I know, what I’ve been through, and what it will take if I want to keep going.
That said, here are my pros and cons for indie and traditional publishing. This list is by no means exhaustive.
Traditional Publishing Pros
-You are usually paid an advance against royalties. Ninety percent of the time you’ll never earn out, but your advance is still usually more than you’d make indie publishing. It’s very nice to get a paycheck.
-There is a feeling of validation and accomplishment that comes with traditional publishing. Your book made it past the gatekeepers!
-You don’t have to worry about the cover, the editing, the proofreading, or how your book will get into stores and be distributed. The publisher will take care of all that.
-You have a team of professional people working with you to put out the best book possible. It’s nice not to have to go it alone.
-If you’re working with a bigger publisher, they will likely do some marketing, advertising, and publicity for your book release, and they’ll pay for it, too. You can partner with them to make as big of a splash for your book as possible.
-Your publisher might send you on a book tour or, more likely, to trade conventions like BookExpo America or the American Library Association conference. What’s even cooler is your publisher will usually set up a book signing and give away advance reader copies to bookstore owners, buyers, and book reviewers. It’s pretty fun and doesn’t cost you a dime.
-You have a better chance at major book awards when you are traditionally published. And if you final for a book award, your publisher might offer to fly you to the award ceremony.
-Once you’ve worked with a publisher for a few books, you can earn the right to sell them books off ideas, rather than writing the full manuscript first. This is pretty cool, though it can also be stressful since deadlines can seriously curtail your creativity if you don’t give yourself enough time to finish the book.
-You have the potential to break out as an author, though you have no control over this. James Scott Bell calls it a lottery at this point. But it’s possible.
Traditional Publishing Cons
-You give up your rights to creative control of your book when you sign a contract. You might disagree with some of the decisions your publisher makes for your book. The title, cover art, and even to a certain degree, the editing, is ultimately the publisher’s final decision. If you have an agent, they will fight for you, but if you fight too much, you could be labeled a difficult author, which might make it hard for you to sell your next book.
-You might get paired with an editor who has a different vision for your book than you do. It can be very hard to end up with a final book that is nothing like the book you set out to write.
-You don’t have any control over how your publisher decides to market your book.
-You don’t get to decide if your book will be published in audio or large print or translated in to foreign languages.
-It takes a long time for your book to come out—often at least two years from when you sign your contract until your book is available for sale. That’s a long time to wait.
-You’re going to earn very low royalty rates on your book. Your publisher gave you an advance, and as I mentioned before, that’s all many authors make on their books.
-If you did manage to earn out your advance and have royalties coming to you, traditional publishers only pay you two, three, or four times a year. Quarterly is usually the norm, but one of my publishers pays twice a year. That’s a long time to wait if you’re counting on that income to pay bills.
-Your publisher might not enter your book in any book awards. You might need to do that yourself.
-Your contract might limit what you can write next.
-If your new, and sometimes even if you’re not new but midlist, you could be a low priority author for your publishing house. You can get stuck here, and it can be almost impossible to get out. Authors who are labeled mid-list authors don’t get as much advertising dollars or attention as A-list authors. Your publisher sees you as stable and reliable, but it can be hard to break out to the next level.
-Your publisher might push you for tight deadlines, especially with sequels. These deadlines might not give you the time you’d like to make your book the best it could be. You might have to settle for mediocre, just to meet your deadline.
-If your book doesn’t sell well—even if your book is amazing—your publisher will blame you, though they might never say it. But publishing is a business, and the numbers don’t’ lie. The next time your editor tries to sell your new book, they’ll have to convince the publishing board to continue to publish you, and that becomes increasingly difficult if your sales have been mediocre.
-If your sales have been mediocre, it’s also difficult to move to a different publisher because they ask to see your sales numbers for previous books when considering your new book.
Indie Publishing Pros
-You get to decide everything about your book. Title, content, release date, audio, large print. It’s all up to you. You’re the CEO of your publishing business, and you have the power to choose anything you want.
-You can be strategic about your book release so that it best benefits you and your book.
-You can write your whole series and take all the time you need to get it perfect before you publish.
-You can release your book whenever you want—release sequels slowly or quickly.
-You can choose your own advertising campaigns. You can experiment and find out what works for your book and what doesn’t.
-You can genre hop, if you want. You don’t have to publish the same type of book for the same audience.
-You set your own budget for your book. You can hire the best of the best. You can also choose not to pay for anything. You “can” make your own cover and edit your own book. I don’t recommend it, but you “can.”
-You can decide whether to publish only with Amazon and take advantage of their higher royalty rates for those who publish exclusively with them. Or you can publish wide, putting your books with many online retailers.
-You will earn a higher royalty rate on your book sales that you would with a traditional house.
-You will get paid monthly from most online retailers, as long as you’re making enough income.
Indie Publishing Cons
-You have to pay for everything: the cover, the editing, the proofreading, and any marketing and publicity events you decide to have like a cover reveal, a blog tour, a release party, and so on. It can get expensive.
-You are the only person responsible for selling your book. You have to do all the jobs, or hire people to do them. If you don’t, no one will know your book exists.
-If you hire someone who does mediocre work, you risk putting out a mediocre product.
-If you’re an introvert, it can be doubly hard to put yourself out there to ask people to help with your cover reveal or to ask for people to review your book.
-If you’re not great at social media or even writing blog posts or newsletters, it could be difficult for you to build a following.
-Publishing for different audiences can be challenging. You might need a penname, which means double the amount of work for everything you do, business-wise, like website, social media, advertising, publicity, and marketing.
-There is little to no prestige. Yes, there are indie book awards, but there are so many more indie authors out there. You’ll be a tiny fish in the ocean.
-The work never stops. You can choose to take a break, but then your sales will dip. To continue to have success, you have to continue to work and market and get yourself out there. It’s a never-ending cycle that can become exhausting.
It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it?
At Go Teen Writers, our advice to all you young, pre-published writers is always to wait and be patient. To write, write, write. To learn the craft. To learn to edit. To go to conferences. To submit your story to agents and editors. Then wait. And while you wait, write something new.
It sounds easy, but if you’ve been through that process, you know it’s slow-moving, emotional, and can be hard on the heart. However, the more you write, the better you get at telling stories. The better your chance of getting published by a traditional, royalty-paying publisher. And if you ultimately choose to self-publish, the better chance you’ll have of becoming a successful indie author.
Traditional and indie publishing both are really hard work, but if you love telling stories—if you can’t not tell stories—both are SO worth the wait!
Tell me, how has your writing been lately? Are you encouraged? Discouraged? Do you have any thoughts to share on traditional or indie publishing? Did I leave anything off my lists? Do you have any questions?
Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms, and the author of several young adult fantasy novels including the Blood of Kings trilogy. She loves teaching about writing. She blogs at goteenwriters.com and also posts writing videos on her YouTube channel and on Instagram. Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. She grew up in Alaska without running water or electricity and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. Find Jill online at jillwilliamson.com or on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
This is a great list, Jill, and you make so many good points. I feel this way about drafting and editing too. When I’m drafting, it’s easy to think, “I just want to be editing!” And when I’m editing, I think, “I’d love to be creating again, not just fixing things!” It’s easy to romanticize parts of the process and overlook the hard things, just like with publishing!
Yeah, I think it’s like that with pretty much everything in life! “I wish my kids were little again.” Ahh, life, anyway. And we authors are well-practiced at using our imaginations to romanticize all of the “what ifs” we can dream up! LOL
This is exactly what I was thinking about recently and this list was so helpful!
I’m still not sure which direction I want to go, but I’m going to keep telling stories until I decide. 🙂
Thank you for all the things to think about!!
You’re welcome, Alana. I’m glad the post was timely!
If I ever get published, I think I’d want to go the Traditional Publishing way. The *only* thing I kind of worry about, is if the publishing house wants to use a cover that doesn’t really fit into how I see my own story. I’m an artist, so I think alot about that sort of thing.
If you traditional publish a novel with illustrations (besides the cover), does the publishing house have say over how the illustrations look and who draws them too? Or can the author do the illustrations themselves?
(I’m sort of wondering if I might want to draw illustrations for certain of my stories… I think some of my stories might need them to get the right picture across.)
Another question: Have you ever had it where the editor tries to change your characters or settings into something unrecognizable? Does that happen?
It is hard when you don’t love your cover. And it’s really hard when your cover is completely wrong and the publisher won’t change it. That has never happened to me. The one time I had a cover that was completely wrong, when I explained why the cover they had designed didn’t work, they made a new one. I have found that publishers are reasonable about these things. They want your book to succeed. They’ve invested a lot of money in it. So they are usually on your side. As to illustrations, you have to be extremely talented to have your illustrations in your books. If I were you and you wanted black and white illustrations in a novel, I would do those drawings and insert them into the manuscript with captions, just how they might appear in the final book. Better to have them in there as part of the initial experience you give the editor who would buy your book than to try and talk them into using illustrations later on. Most editors would be up front right away about whether or not they’d use them. All of the maps in my books (except one) have been mine, and the one that wasn’t mine was one I paid someone to create. My publishers were happy to include them because they were professional and clear. I don’t think there is ever one set answer to this question. I think it depends on the publisher, the editor, your book, and a host of other things. For example, if your book is long and pushing the limit on a word count for your genre, the publisher won’t want to add an extra ten or more pages of images since it will raise the cost to produce. If your word count is lower, that won’t matter. The illustrations also need to match the genre you’ve written. I’ve only ever seen illustrations in middle grade novels and chapter books, so if you’re writing for young adults or adults, the publisher might worry that illustrations will make the book seem too young. Things like that.
I’ve never had an editor try and change my characters pr settings in such a way, no. They have pointed out when they felt I had a character behaving in a way that was unlike them or inconsistencies in my settings. And those are good things. I’ve been very fortunate with my editors. I do know that some authors have had negative experiences, but most the authors I know still seek traditional publishing, even after a poor experience with an editor.
This was a very helpful article, thank you!
You’re welcome, Joy!
Amazing post! As of now, my goal is to be traditionally published. My grandpa got a book indie published, and he took me into his office and we talked about publishing for a while. He explained how he designed his cover and a bunch of other stuff. It was really interesting, but I feel like I would be pretty clueless when it came to that sort of thing. I’m grateful that traditional publishing houses typically handle things like designing the cover and marketing the book. Thanks again for this post!
How fun that your grandfather told you all about his indie publishing experiences, Riya! What a fun resource to have nearby. It is very nice that traditional publishers take care of all the things–and there are plenty of things, too.
Thanks, Jill, for these great tips. As a just-barely teenager with one indie-published book on Amazon, I can definitely relate to the pros and cons of indie publishing. The costs, the advertising, and doing everything on my own are the biggest downsides I experienced. However, I like being my own “boss,” and publishers might have wanted to change the story and then it wouldn’t have turned out how I wanted it to. Plus, since the book I published is the first in the series, publishers would push me for deadlines, and to be honest, school takes up most of my time. I did have three other manuscripts ready to go before I began self-publishing the first one, but then I realized the other three stories didn’t go with the first one anymore, with all the changes, and the plots suddenly seemed really dull. I really thought I had the whole series laid out, but maybe it was just a vague idea in my head. Any advice for the author of a middle grade mystery series-in-progress? What does the sequel kind of determine for the layouts, plots, and timelines of the books following it?
Ahh, this is a tough thing, Tracy. This happens to all authors, so know that right away. We write a book. We think we know where we’re going next. Then, once we’re on the finished side of that book, everything has changed. Ug. It’s stressful, that’s for sure. First, it’s okay to throw our your original sequel ideas. Or even save them for a different story someday. You need to ask yourself, “What is the big story I’m trying to tell with this series? How many books do I need to tell it?” Then see if you can make some loose plans. I have plotted out many series in advance, and they never ever behave for me. I think that is because I’m a hybrid author. I outline a loose skeleton, then seat-of-the-pants write the whole book. And things happen that I didn’t plan. And often that breaks where I was planning to go. But I have friends who are full-on outline authors, and they are perfectly capable of sticking exactly to their outlines. So, that part just depends on your and your story. All that to say, I STILL plot out my series in advance and always will, even if things change. The reason is, I want to be able to plant things in the earlier books, and if I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t do that very well. And that’s one of my favorite parts of writing. I wrote a post on how I plot a series in advance. Have you seen this post? It’s from a few years ago, and no, I haven’t finished writing this yet, so I can’t tell you how well I stuck to my plan, but perhaps it will give you some inspiration for planning out the rest of your series. I hope so! Here is the link: https://goteenwriters.com/2018/05/16/10-tips-for-planning-a-series-in-advance/
Hello Jill! These were very interesting tips. Whenever I thought of being published I never thought of the differences in publishers, so this post gave me a lot to think about.
I’m so glad, Trixie! It’s good to know what your options are. 🙂