It’s not so certain that the reverse is true… once a publisher holds the rights to your book, you no longer have control unless there’s some kind of expiration date on the contract and the rights revert back to you. I’d say if you do go the traditional publishing route, make sure you aggressively negotiate your contract so that if the publisher loses interest in keeping your book in print, or loses interest in keeping it in stores, that you can cut your losses with them, get your book back and shop it elsewhere or publish it yourself.

I don’t think sweating a little to put the book out yourself is too great of a tradeoff, considering you do it right and get an ISBN, get listed in Books In Print so that you can at least create the opportunity to be carried in major chains—which is difficult to do if you don’t have a UPC, barcode, or ISBN.

The biggest problem with most self-published books is that they don’t have these things, they’re seldom better than a book you printed and bound yourself in your own home. While a product is a product, I think if you plan to self-publish you have to be willing to do everything a real publisher would do, if not more because it’s your book and in your interests to promote it. That said, it’s in your interest to promote it whether you self-publish or are published by a publishing house.

That brings me to my final point, which is this; If you’re going to have to bust your butt, hit the pavement and promote your book either way, then what are you paying the publisher 75% for? Hiring a printer?

Traditional publishers are for the people who want to use the existing infrastructure, and not have to deal with the hassle of doing things themselves. I think the only real question in deciding to self-publish or not is to ask yourself whether you’d enjoy doing the work or not?

It’s my product, literally a piece of me—so I don’t mind doing the work.

I guess podcasts and podiobooks don’t give a big payday upfront, but there are donation mechanisms in place.  I for one always donate when I grab content that is freely available and like it.  Nothing is more infuriating when I go pay $8 for a paperback and end up tossing it after 50 pages.

Also I think alot of the authors taking advantage of online avenues to get their work out there do so with an expectation that (a) folks will buy their books as you point out, but only if there is a book out there to buy, and/or (b) if they are an unpublished author, that someone will notice them.

Take Scott Lynch for example, and the Lies of Locke Lamora.  That started out as something that was put online a little at a time until someone read it, liked it and offered him a book deal.

I think I may be dragging my comments off in a different direction than your original post though, so off I go…

./Michael

What about LuLu – I have no direct exp with them myself but their business model is a good one, I think they split 80/20 with authors (80 going to the author) with no upfront costs. 

These days I think the world of podcasts, podiobooks and POD houses like LuLu are better alternatives than “traditional” brick & mortar Vanity Presses.

If you get a chance, Fred, would you ming looking in your moderation or spam folder for a trackback?  I was hoping that linking to your article would leave one in lieu of a full comment, but that doesn’t seem to have happened for some reason.

True, a lot of self-published authors are hacks…but then again, a lot, and I mean a lot, of published authors are hacks. I can’t tell you how many poorly edited, contrived novels, I’ve slogged through.