Top 10 Reasons to self publish your book

Top 10 Reasons to self publish your book

Ok, so you’ve seen the self-published books making the bestsellers list, and you are thinking hard about publishing your own book. Here are 10 reasons why people go with self-publishing. These reasons are ever changing, keep in mind. The whole of publishing is in transition, so people are choosing self-publishing, for many reasons. These are the top 10 reason why over the years people have decided to go it alone.

1. You have exhausted all your other publishing options.
What this comes down to is that you have hit the street for a couple years and you simply can’t find a publisher or an agent. You are out of options, but you will not give up. There are many famous stories of writers finally getting fed up with the publishing industry and doing it themselves. It was rare in the past, but becoming a little more frequent these days.

2. Impatients
Simply put these writers can’t wait to see their work in print. They just finished their novel. They look at the return times of agents and publishers, and they don’t want to wait, so bing they do on their own. It’s not the best way, I don’t think. Or I should say it’s not the best reason. Having publishers and agents at least look at your book is a pretty good idea. They do have a whole promotions apparatus in place to help you sell books, if and when they decide it is worth the trouble.

3.Wanting complete control
Some writers don’t like the idea of edits. They just don’t want editors going through their work and changing it. They don’t want to spend time in rewrites, and they especially do not want people telling them how or what to write.

4. Poetry
Yes, Whitman self-published his book, and it is hard to say that he should have gone with a traditional publisher. Whitman had complete control over his image and his book. He presented himself as the quintessential American poet, and it it stuck. Poetry is extremely popular but books of poetry generally do not sell very well. Many poets simply say they will never make a million dollars anyway and just go with self-publishing.

5. Obscure Genre
Sometimes when you are writing in a very unique genre or when your subject matter is so obscure few are interested, people self-publish. If you are writing a book about Ethiopian poets from 1981-1992, you might be looking at self-publishing as an option.

6. People who can do infomercials
If you already have a large audience to promote your book to, or you have an infomercial empire, you can easily get away with self-publishing a bestselling book yourself. Infomercial megastars used to be the only self-published authors on the bestsellers list.

7. Collections and anthologies.
If you have a literary website, and that website published stories and poetry, you pretty much have to go the self-publishing route. A traditional publisher doesn’t usually look at these kinds of books, and besides you can earn your maximum from doing it yourself.

8. Republishing out of print books
People who already have a successful publishing career will many times self-publish a book when it goes out of print. People already know the book, and people are looking to buy it. Reprints are a usual self-published book.

9. Experts
Much like the infomercial people, this group of writers already have an audience. If they self-publish their book they can make more money. They may have spent 15 years building shelves, and even though they are the expert, their expertise is unwanted or not valued by the publishing industry.

10. Personal Family Memoirs
People who write the history of their family, gemology, or even just stories about their family for family members, many times will self-publish.