Should I Take a Small Press Offer or Self-Publish?

If a small press offers to publish your book, take it only if the press pays you, never charges you, edits and designs the book, and leaves you a way to get your rights back. If the offer takes all your rights for the life of the copyright with no reversion clause, or it costs you money, self-publishing usually serves you better. This is my advice, not a rule, and I’m not a lawyer. Here is how I would weigh it.

What does a real small press do?

A real small press publishes your book at its own cost. It pays for editing, cover design and formatting, gets the book into distribution, and pays you royalties.

Writer Beware, run by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, has a page on small and independent publishers (page updated 30-Dec-25, opened 04-Nov-26). It says reputable small presses often can’t pay advances. They also don’t require upfront cash, withheld royalties to recoup costs, or required book purchases. If a press asks for any of those, you are not dealing with a traditional publisher.

So an offer with no advance is not a warning sign by itself. An offer that asks you for money is.

How do I check a small press?

Do this before you reply with a yes. Writer Beware’s page suggests:

• Wait until the press has been issuing books for at least a year, and look for a backlist of more than two or three titles.
• Order a couple of its books, or sample them on Amazon, and judge the editing, formatting and cover.
• Check who runs it, and whether they have publishing, editing or marketing experience.
• Search the press’s name for complaints.
• Look for long gaps or missed publication dates.

It also says the press should add real value beyond what you could do yourself, such as editing, design and marketing. I would add one test of my own: ask the press what it will do for your book that you could not buy yourself. If the answer is vague, treat that as an answer.

Which contract terms matter most?

The terms to watch are the same ones I list in what to watch for when a publisher makes an offer. Writer Beware’s small press page adds a few that matter here:

• Grants of rights for the life of the copyright without adequate reversion clauses.
• Demands for a copyright transfer.
• Next-book option clauses tied to the current contract terms.
• Reversion made to depend on you buying overstock.
• Fees for early termination.

The page says you should be able to do at least some negotiating, for example on option clauses, subsidiary rights and author copies, though royalty rates and warranties are rarely negotiable. If a publisher flatly refuses to negotiate, it advises caution.

This is not legal advice. Have a lawyer or an author organisation read the contract before you sign.

What if the small press closes?

Writer Beware says many small presses go out of business within the first couple of years, and that a sudden failure can tie up your rights or pass them to third parties. It also says some presses disappear without warning, and some reopen under a new name.

My advice is to find the reversion clause first and ask what happens to your rights if the press stops publishing. If the contract has no answer, that tells you how the press has thought about its authors. If you ever need your rights back, I cover the steps in how to get your book rights back.

What do I keep if I self-publish?

You keep control of the price, the cover, the title and the rights. You decide when to publish and when to change the book. You also pay for editing, design and formatting yourself, and you do the marketing, and a small press may do some of that for you.

That is my weighing, not a promise. Self-publishing does not guarantee more sales, and a good small press can open doors that are hard to open alone. The question is whether this offer does enough for you to justify what you give up.

Watch for the paid kind of “press”. If a company asks you to pay for editing, design or publishing, that is not a small press whatever it calls itself. I explain the difference in vanity press: what it is and how to avoid publishing scams and the red flags with hybrid publishing companies.

Want to talk through your offer?

If you have an offer in hand and want to talk through it against publishing on your own, book a free 25-minute discovery session. I will go through what the offer gives you and what self-publishing would take, and I can tell you what I would ask the press before you sign.

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