Why I Self-Publish

When I was writing Stephanie's Story, I thought I thought I wanted to go with the traditional route. I looked into some different publishers, one of which wanted to publish my book for the low, low cost of $8,000 (and I had been told not to pay a dime to a publishing house) and another's contract just didn't sound very good. I had heard of self-publishing from other authors and decided that that would be the best route at the time. So, I started saving my money while I finished writing the book and published it a few months later.

I think the main reason I decided to self-publish was because I didn't feel comfortable signing away the rights to my books. When you sign a contract with a publishing house, it's a very hard process to get the rights back if you come to the conclusion that your current publisher is not a good fit for you. With self-publishing, if I found a better option, it would be no problem at all to make the switch from one publisher to another. In fact, I've already done this with no issues thus far. I also like that it is D.I.Y. I feel like I have more control over the final project.

One part of self-publishing that most look at as a downside is that you don't get all the distribution opportunities traditional publishing offers. It's true that when you self-publish, you won't see your books on the shelves of major retail stores. Yet with some self-publishing companies, you can get your books listed on bigger outlets. The publisher I use, Createspace, is owned by Amazon. That means when I publish my books, they are automatically listed for sale on the Amazon website. The books bought online ship from an Amazon warehouse, and Amazon takes a cut of the royalties made from each sale. Createspace also links you with the publisher Kindle Direct Publishing (also owned by Amazon) which will publish Kindle editions of your book. Createspace strictly publishes physical books, and KDP strictly publishes e-books. You can choose to only publish one or the other, but it really is a good idea to publish both.

I feel that at this time, self-publishing is the best option for me. That's not to say that I think traditional publishing is bad, or that I would never use traditional publishing. If I were to find a publishing house that offered a contract to me that I felt comfortable with and would be better for myself as well as my books, I would sign over. But at this point in time, self-publishing just seems to be a better fit for me. It's working. My books are in print and available for people to read. That's what's most important to me. 

-Miranda Atchley