Self Publishing – A good thing…

I’m back in the grid again. I’ve been working on our Church’s Fall Festival, which was yesterday, so that’s why I’ve been out of the grid for the last couple of days. It went really well, other that the attack of the cotton candy machine. The wind decide to get a little brisk about the time we started the machine up. We all worked hard to get it caught up and bagged, but unfortunately I was covered in cotton candy. Pictures of this mishap are posted on my Facebook page by many friends that thought it was really hilarious…

Ok, on to today’s thoughts. As most of you know I self publish all of my books. It’s a decision I made for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for one of my books to be picked up by one of the big guys, but if not, that’s alright too. I’ve had a couple of  publishers call me to inquire about what I have coming up, but once we talked about the percentage of royalties and what they’d do for me if I put my book with them, well I politely turned them down.

I’m a person that researches things a lot, well sometimes too much. I’ve looked into the good points and bad points of going both ways and when I look at the numbers, self publishing wins every time. I have control of what, where, when and all the things that happen with my work. I also make more in royalties than if I went with a publisher.

The tools available now for authors allow you to make awesome covers and publish really great looking books. There are so many outlets for self publishers to post their books for sale and advertising. It’s amazing the rise in just the last two years of the acceptance.

You might be saying, but wouldn’t you sell more with the big publishers. Maybe…but when I talked with one of them, they told me that I’d have to do a lot of advertising and social media myself, which I already do anyway. They didn’t offer very much in the way of marketing, well no more than I do now, so why do anything different.

This is a choice I made for myself. Now a big publisher might be the best fit for you, so understand that I’ve just not had a really good deal thrown at me. The couple I did get just didn’t push the right buttons. Self publishing is more widely accepted now than it was years ago. I’ve actually seen big, NY Times Bestsellers come from self published authors. Many big authors are going back to self publishing. That tells me something.

As always, good writing and May God Bless You…