Haven’t started self publishing yet? Discover the benefits of self publishing and begin your journey now.
When I first got started with self-publishing, I had no idea about all of the benefits associated with getting going in self-publishing. You're going to want to stick around because I'm going to go through exactly why self-publishing is something worth considering.
If you're an author or becoming an author where you're writing your first book. And you're considering, whether should I try to go the traditional route or should I go the self-publishing route.
So, let's get straight into it, what exactly are the benefits of self publishing? Well, before we can even do that, we sort of have to break it down a little bit on what to do. The definition of what is self-publishing?
The easiest way of looking at self-publishing, it's that you are doing all of the work that a normal publisher would do. Now, when you have a normal publisher, what they're going to do is that they're going to take your book and they're going to do multiple rounds of editing on the book.
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They're going to go back and forth with you as they're doing this editing process. In addition, they're going to find a cover for your book, as well as a title and a subtitle. They're going to figure out what genre and categories your book is fitting with.
Exactly how they're going to best be able to market this book once it reaches the market. In addition, they're going to figure out which platforms it's going to go on and the channels that are going to release across the pricing strategy on it.
They're going to be doing some marketing not too much. But the thing is that you take all of these tasks that they normally would do. You're going to do them all yourself.
Top 10 Benefits of Self Publishing
Now, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking why in the world would I want to do all this myself when they can do it so easily? And the first and biggest answer is because, in the end, you're going to lose a lot of money as a result of this. If you go the traditionally published route.
Or even worse, you're going to lose time as they're making you wait. So, that's one of the reasons why you are going to want to hear all of the benefits of self publishing. So, what are they?
1. Creative control
The first thing is creative control. This is such a powerful concept because you have complete control over what happens with your book. So, nobody else is telling you, no, you can't do this, or no, you need to change that. Or they don't like this or that.
You don't have to do that. You can simply say look, I want the book to go in this direction. I want it to be about this.
I want to be of this length. I want whatever it happens to be that you would like to see. You have complete freedom and this creative control that you have with your self-published book is lonesome.
2. Higher royalty rates
One of the reasons that some authors choose the self-publishing route which is also the second reason is a higher royalty rate. With self-publishing, if you're doing it on Amazon, you're going to get 70% royalties from your book, from your Kindle books that you're putting out.
As long as they're priced between $2.99 and $9.99. Surprise! Surprise! Don't ever go outside of that range or it starts to drop very quickly, the amount of money you're making from your books.
So, just keep it inside that range and you will be making 70%. Compared to what you might be making otherwise at like 10% to 15% which is crazily terrible with your paperbacks.
Your hardbacks, you could be making about 40% to 50%. Your audiobooks also will earn you about 40% assuming you're going through ACX Audible. So, if you're self-publishing you're going to be keeping a lot more of the money for yourself.
3. It allows you to set your book price
The next reason is it allows you to set your book price. You get to decide what price you wish to do your book at. If you're on Amazon, (Which is the Cheapest Self Publishing), I told you on the Kindle version, you should have it between $2.99 and $9.99. To maximize the amount of money that you are making off of each sale of that Kindle book.
Then, for your paperback books, you should be pricing it in such a way that you're able to get about a $5 profit from each sale of your paperback or hardback books. We make sure that we're controlling the pricing.
I have seen the traditional publishers actually take Kindle books and put them out there outside of the goldilocks range of pricing. Where they're outside from $2.99 to $9.99, it makes no sense at all. They're just losing lots of money.
The reason Amazon puts it within this price range is that they want to increase the amount of money they are making. And in reality, how much money will you be making? Some authors will price their books way too high or way too low.
As a result, Amazon loses and the author loses. So, Amazon's doing you a favor when it comes to your books and making sure that the pricing is correct. So, this is one of the other benefits of self publishing, it's that it allows you to set your book price.
4. You face no issues of rejection
The next reason is that you face no issues of rejection. Now, with traditional publishing, you're going to regularly face rejection. I remember reading a little bit about Stephen King when he was doing his first book. I think it was Christine and he put it out there, it is a horror book, right?
He had to go over and over and kept on trying and trying and trying. I think Harry Potter may have also been in the same category. You know, just keep on putting it out there and hoping this time it'll get accepted, and eventually they accepted it.
Was it because all of the other versions were trash? No, it's because they have gatekeepers who don't even expect many of the books to be successful.
Some of the recent reports coming out from some of these major traditional publishers show that they realize the vast majority of books are almost not even worth their time. They just have to find those nuggets, those that will earn them the money back.
But these other ones, they let them give them a chance for just a few seconds. Then off they go to the next book and don't even bother to market. But you don't have to face any of the rejection associated with putting your book or sending it to one of these companies.
And then they tell you, no, we're just not interested. You don't have to put up with any of that and that's a really powerful benefit that you can just put it on there. Nobody's going to reject you unless the content has serious problems.
Then, Amazon will reject it, or perhaps just the formatting in the way that you're sending it to them. But they'll reject it and tell you what you can do to fix it. Whereas traditional publishers may or may not even tell you what you needed to fix.
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Maybe your book is just fine and it's their problem. They're the ones creating this issue by rejecting your book which is a great book that lots of people would love to read. And instead, what are you going to do?
Just throw the thing away or let it sit in a drawer. As opposed to self-publishing which is such an important thing. So, you're just not going to face these issues of rejection.
5. Start building your brand
The next one is to start building your brand. This is one of the huge benefits of self publishing. So many clients that I work with regularly are not thinking about the bigger picture.
They think about one book at a time and they should be thinking about the idea of your name or your pen name. It is going to be associated with these books and the brand itself.
So, when we pull it together, when the name comes up, people are always immediately going to say, oh I know you're the one who does this type of book. It is so important because it takes time to build a personal brand or branding.
Your self-published book is going to be a perfect mechanism to do this. When you're done with your first book, you're just going to put out another book and another book. This is how we exactly do this with traditional publishing.
You just don't have this option unless you're already super successful. But once your first book fails, they're going to be less likely to take a chance on your second book. Because you've already shown them you can't deliver when it comes to getting your books to sell.
It does take practice and it takes a lot of books but the traditional publishers aren't going to give you that chance or that opportunity. That's one of the reasons why one of the benefits of self publishing is to start building your brand. You can't do it if you just have a single book.
Unless you get lucky, somebody always wins the lottery. But that doesn't mean it's going to be you. When it comes to self-publishing, let's never think about it in terms of getting lucky.
We rather would use a strategy, a winning strategy that I teach in the Checklist. Showing exactly the strategy to drive the traffic. You need to get your book self-published and sold.
6. You can easily target your audience
So, the next huge benefit is you can easily target your audience. Now, if you're going the traditional publisher route, you'll have a problem with this. Because you're trying to figure out who your audience is.
But they're going to be the ones doing the targeting. Now, do they know who exactly your audience is? Don't you think you might know better who your audience is?
That's one of the reasons why you want to be able to do the self-publishing route. Where you can figure out who your audience is and then engineer your books to write books that they are going to love.
As opposed to the traditional publishers where they're guessing who your audience is. Then, they're forcing you to write books that go in the direction that they think people want to hear.
Who do you think has a better understanding of your ideal reader? Would it be them or would it be you? This is a question that so many authors have.
It's very difficult for many people to understand the importance of being able to know your ideal readers. As well as making sure that you're writing your books directly to that group of readers.
You are writing to that specific market, book after book after book. As we're continually targeting that market, we're building a name for ourselves. It's easy for us to target the market as opposed to traditional publishing.
7. It is a safe option
The other thing is a safe option. It's safe because you have complete control over everything. So, the result is only going to be whatever you can imagine you'd like to see.
It's completely flexible, so it's a lot safer than some of these other routes. Who knows what exactly is going to happen?
We have no idea whether or not they're going to end up, maybe they trash the project in the middle. They've done this before; some publishers go out of business and things. So, you don't have any of the safety risks associated with going with the traditional publisher.
Where they may be pushing and angling and positioning your book. In a way, you're just not comfortable with the way your book is. But as a self-publisher, it is never a problem.
8. It saves time
The next thing is that it saves time. This is a huge benefit in the sense that as you're going through and self-publishing your book, you can do it as fast as you can. So, there are a lot of steps involved.
But you're going to be able to hire out a lot of people. I always put in the description of all of my YouTube videos, and all of the people and services that I use. As well as the tools to make this thing go as fast as humanly possible when we're putting the books onto the market.
We do not want to have to wait a year or two as they're going through like a traditional publisher. Multiple rounds of editing and all of the things that they're doing. Rather, we can go as fast as we feel comfortable with.
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We choose the quality level that we're going for. Now, you know me, I tell you, shoot for books that are going to get you four and five-star reviews. But you can go even down to three stars. If it's a two-star and one-star, then you're going to be in trouble.
Because people will quit buying books when it's that low. But you will save time by being able to move as fast as you care to go through the different steps when it comes to self-publishing.
9. Longer “Shelf Life”
Then, the second to last hit, we have two left, it's that you have a longer shelf life. What we mean by that is that when we put our book out there, we're going to be doing all sorts of marketing. To ensure that we keep on driving traffic using our email marketing skills that I teach my clients regularly.
The other thing is as you're targeting and pulling that traffic back in, you put a new book out and then people see the first book. Then, they're coming through all of your books. The more traffic you have the more you're able to drive it.
But you have complete control over making sure you have a longer shelf life. Compared to traditional publishing where once they put the book out, you maybe get a week or two or something. Where they're pushing it a little bit.
Then it just gets put in the bend with all the other books that never made it. This is a huge discouraging factor for many authors who are just getting started. Only to have your hopes dashed as a result of a poor shelf life that you're going to get with the traditional publishers.
Unless you're one of the lucky winners. You're already a lucky winner if you get chosen by one of these traditional publishers. But then when you're there, you have the challenge which is that your books may or may not succeed at that point.
10. Networking Opportunities
The final one is the networking opportunities as a self-publisher. You have a lot more opportunities to be in different groups of people who are regularly putting out books.
They motivate you to put up more books as opposed to traditional publishing. Once you see how it goes to that first book, it can be very demotivating.
You can feel very isolated. As opposed to the self-publishing route, there are an awful lot of networking opportunities available to you that you need to pay a lot of attention to.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as you can see, there are an awful lot of benefits to self publishing things. Which you're going to want to consider. If you are self-publishing, you already know that this works fantastic.
If I have forgotten anything, let me know below in the comments what benefits have you found, and check out my other self publishing blogs and videos that would answer some of your self-publishing questions.