Going Indie

Why I didn't wait for a book deal to publish

May 13, 2024

“Do you think a publisher would want my book?”

I get this question from students and clients more often than any other. And if there’s one question I could convince writers never to ask again, it would be this one.

Let’s break this down:

Why are you asking this question this way? Why is the decision resting with the publisher about whether the book is wanted?

Because even in 2024, people still believe an outside authority gets to decide whether you’re allowed to be a writer or not.

This simply isn’t true. In fact, it never was true, but we’ve all been collectively invested in the myth that publishers decide who gets to be a writer. They don’t.

Follow me on a short tangent…

A note on the history of self-publishing

We’re all guilty of assuming the way things have operated the past few decades is the way they’ve always been. Yes, major publishing houses — often referred to as the Big Five in the US — have been a huge force behind the books that get published in the US and UK markets. But if we look back further, we can see that independent publishing has been part of the picture for way longer than our current version of it has.

The assumption many people have is that “great” writers, the ones whose names we’ve heard of, were all published by large presses, but this isn’t always the case.

Virgina Woolf founded The Hogarth Press in 1917 with her husband, Leonard. They ran it independently, publishing members of the Bloomsbury Group, until Virgina’s death. The press continued under Leonard’s leadership until 1946. Through a series of acquisitions, it is ironically as of 2011 an imprint of Penguin, a long ways off from its indie roots.

We’d likely refer to this as a small press model today, as the Woolfs published books for authors beyond Virginia. However, there was no stigma or sense of this being a sacrifice for those who released books with them. Apparently, running the press was an enjoyable second profession for Virginia when she was stuck in her own writing.

More scandalous is Anaïs Nin, who self-published nearly half of the works of fiction she produced in her lifetime. It’s hard to say if the controversy around Nin was because of the sexually explosive content she included, her widely contested diary, or her personal life, in which she was a bigamist who conducted countless affairs throughout her life.

As an article in the Guardian1 quipped,

“The idea that Nin could be widely regarded as an inspirational figure – rather than a fraud or, as one memorable headline called her, “a monster of self-centeredness whose artistic pretensions now seem grotesque” – would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.”

Nin wrote books, including a novel that alluded to her having an incestuous affair with her own father, that the publishers of her day (and ours I suspect) were unwilling to publish. The fact that her lover, Henry Miller, was able to find homes for books about gallivanting around Paris, including scenes about the numerous prostitutes he slept with, reminds us that publishers were more likely to censor women than men, but that’s a topic for another rant.

What does this mean for writers today?

My hope is that reading this post will prompt you to start asking a more empowered question about publishing your work:

What is my goal for this book, and how can I best achieve that?

What the boom of independent publishing has given us in the last few decades is a choice: do I want to work with a traditional publishing house, or do I want to go my own way?2

Working with a traditional publisher has a lot of advantages, despite what many posts bemoaning the publishing industry recently have said.

If you work with a larger publishing house you will most likely get:

An advance payment (these can be tiny (4 figures) and in rare cases enormous (7 figures))
Editorial services
Proofreading
Cover design
Marketing and PR
Distribution in bookshops
Eligibility for numerous awards that are only open to traditionally published books

These are some lovely perks, but they depend on the priorities you have.

There is one key thing a traditional publisher can not give you: a speedy process

If you sold a book to a traditional house today(May 2024), it’s unlikely that the book would hit shelves before early 2026. Working through editing, proofreading, and production takes time, not to mention the fact that big houses have a lot of titles coming out, so you have to wait your turn, accepting the pub date the press chooses.

What matters most to you?

Publishing independently means you have more up-front costs, especially if you choose to work with the following support (which I highly recommend).

Editor
Proofreader
Cover designer
Book formatting

Book production costs aren’t always financial, either. While I pay an editor to proofread my manuscript and a designer to create my book covers, I format the manuscript myself.

This meant I had to purchase software, which I had to learn how to use. If I hadn’t chosen that route, I’d be paying for formatting to make the book look right in its final form. These costs, and the time required can add up.

So why did I choose this route?

When reflecting on my priorities for Writing through Fear, I knew a 2026 (or later) release didn’t fit my goals. I’d spent the past few years teaching students and watching how fear choked writers up as they worked to finish their books. This book was made to help people get their books written and I didn’t want to wait to share the lessons and strategies I’ve learned.

If my book didn’t come out, no one could benefit from it.

I decided that releasing sooner was more important to me than the cache of a big press logo on the spine of my book. Being able to finish the manuscript, have it professionally edited, and put it out with a beautiful cover in less than six months clinched it for me.

As a writing coach and teacher, I wanted this material in readers’ hands. And, as a small business owner, I wanted to fully own the intellectual property inside this book and keep all the earnings it generates. Getting a book deal with a publisher means selling the rights to the content and how it appears in other forms.

Most advances from publishers are small, and you don’t see another penny until that advance has been earned out through sales. By putting this book out myself, the only number I need to hit is the cost to produce the book. Once I’ve reached that number, everything else I earn is profit.

While traditional publishers have robust marketing teams and can sell a lot of books by placing them in bookshops, I’ve also been building an audience for nearly ten years via The Secret Library podcast, so I’m comfortable marketing myself.

Make sure you reflect on your priorities and goals for your book rather than making a snap judgment, or letting the outside world decide for you.

Indie vs. Traditional is no longer a forever choice.

Finally, as you ponder how you want to publish your writing, remember this isn’t a fork in the road that marks you forever. Whereas in the past, publishing a book yourself was associated with a stigma, this is no longer the case.

Multiple books have begun their lives as indie titles, only to get picked up by bigger presses later. Fifty Shades of Grey was indie published in 2011. A year later, Vintage bought the rights and make a fortune with the title, which has since been translated into over fifty languages. The Martian had a huge readership as a serial on Andy Weir’s blog before it was re-published traditionally and became a film starring Matt Damon.

These are big-name examples, but I hear other hybrid-publishing stories all the time. Secret Library Podcast guest

Scott Carney

negotiated to keep the audio rights for his bestselling book What Doesn’t Kill Us, narrating and releasing it independently (and keeping all the proceeds).

Kern Carter

, from Season 10 of The Secret Library podcast, published two novels independently and applied all the lessons from those books to negotiate multiple traditional deals with Scholastic and Penguin several years later. (One of these books just came out —> get it here)

Libbie Hawker writes historical fiction and publishes some series independently and some traditionally.

In addition, you can choose to republish your own book independently if it goes out of print with the traditional publisher, should you be able to get the rights to revert to you.

My thoughts going forward

For me, publishing nonfiction independently was the right choice for me, based on speed and ongoing control of the book.

As I work on finishing my mystery novel this summer, I am pondering submitting to agents to see if there is a match with a traditional house I’d be happy with. If not, I have no hesitation about putting it out myself after querying.

What questions do you have about indie versus traditional? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments below.