Why I'm Not Interested In Traditional Publishing
Disclaimer: I have no personal experiences with traditional publishing. Everything here is based on observation as a reader and an independent author online.
When my family first found out I had written a book in 2023, one of the first things I was asked was: “Will you send your book to a publisher?” And I said no, because that had never been my plan. Even back then, I knew my writing wasn’t something mainstream publishing would be widely interested in. After I self-published my first book on KDP, I still sometimes got the question: “Would you consider sending it to a publisher after all? Why not just try?” Every time, I tried to explain that no trad publisher would touch a self-published book unless it already does well, and that it wasn’t that simple. Which seemed confusing to anyone outside of publishing.
When they ask me about how I do want to publish and I try to explain serial novels, I get politely looked at like I’m nuts for giving my work away for free. Like traditional publishing and print editions are the only books that count as legitimate. Now, I do like a printed book myself, but books that aren’t paywalled aren’t ’not real, legitimate books’.
At first, the thought of trying trad pub did sometimes cross my mind. But I was young, shy and insecure and didn’t think my work was good enough. And I always liked being able to do everything myself, so I tried self-publishing. As I got more into the self-pub space (silently) and found other ways a story could truly be successful, trad appealed to me less and less. There wasn’t one big moment where I decided “traditional publishing isn’t for me”, but now, I know it simply doesn’t fit me and my work.
And to truly understand why, I made a pros and cons list for myself, which I will be discussing in depth here. I’m not trying to convince you either way, these are just my personal thoughts and needs that may be of help to you if you’re questioning which route to take.
First, let’s discuss the pros I do personally see in traditional publishing. There are good reasons to go trad, otherwise no one would do it.
1. Editors
A publishing house will run your manuscript through several different types of edits to make it the best it can be, and you won’t have to pay for them yourself. That is absolutely valuable, and I’m sure if I had access to that level of editing, my work would improve faster and wouldn’t require as many revisions as I tend to do. This is something I could replicate by hiring editors myself, but the cost would be in the thousands. I don’t have that lying around. So, I make do with self editing and feedback from a friend (thank you, friend!).
2. Advances
The big check you get for your book that will (hopefully) pay for all the hours you put into it. It would be nice to be guaranteed to earn some money for your work, instead of leaving it up to the algorithm gods whether or not your book will be seen by anyone and if those people will buy it.
3. Easier access to nice, printed editions
Because publishers print in the thousands, they get to cheaply add details to print editions like foiled lettering, UV spot, textures, printed edges, printed endpapers, and many other options. There are some printers available to independent authors that offer these options (BookVault is the one I’m familiar with), but unless you’re willing to sit on thousands of books in inventory, it will not be cheap. A publishing house would handle that inventory for you.
4. Getting into bookstores
For many, seeing their book in a bookstore is a sign that they ‘made it’. Getting there is much easier through a publishing house than as an independent author. But, it’s not a guarantee, even if you do sign with a publisher. It depends on what the stores are willing to stock, and if they don’t think your book will sell, tough luck.
Personally, this doesn’t matter much to me. I do actually have a book in a local store with a really good deal; I get to keep all the income, I only need to provide the book. And I am planning to keep that going, but at the same time, it gives me immense anxiety to handle all that in person. (Which is why I have someone acting as my manager for that, lmao).
If I was traditionally published and people found me in bookstores and told me about it, I would not enjoy that. If I saw my own book in a store, I wouldn’t even acknowledge it. I’m aware that makes me the weird one.
5. “Legitimacy”
Most of the world will only see you as a legitimate, successful author if you’re signed with a publishing house. Including some authors. It would be nice to not be looked at like I’m throwing my career down the drain for not even trying ‘real’ publishing.
There are all great, real and meaningful advantages. But for me, they come with a trade off I’m not willing to make. And here’s why:
1. Loss of creative control
I am, admittedly, a control freak when it comes to my personal projects. If there’s something that needs to be done, I would rather learn to do it myself than let someone else do it. That way, I’m kept in the loop on everything regarding my work and I know it’s exactly what I want it to be. Communicating my ideas and creative decisions is not my strong suit. I would hate having to justify my creative choices to someone else. I know why I did or want something a certain way, but I can’t always put it to words. And when I manage to do so, I am often misunderstood. So, I would rather not deal with the hassle and do it myself, even if there’s a learning curve.
Working with a publisher would make this even worse. I wouldn’t be working with them, I would hand them the manuscript and they decide everything else. The title, the cover, the marketing, even some aspects of the story that need to change to fit the market better. Illustrations, yes or no. What kind of illustrations. Anything interior except the manuscript wouldn’t be my choice to make.
That would be my nightmare.
2. Loss of rights
In a similar vain to the loss of creative control, when you sign with a publisher, you lose at least some rights. I wouldn’t be able to decide for myself what kind of editions I would want to publish, where the story is allowed to be read, even whether or not a sequel is allowed to exist would be out of my control. If a book 1 did poorly, even though I have a whole series in me I would want to write, too bad. I could write it, technically, but I wouldn’t be allowed to share it in anyway. If I’m lucky, I could wait until rights revert back to me, but that would take years.
Again. Nightmare.
3. Marketing is still on me
The only reason I would ever truly want a publisher is so they could market for me, because I hate social media so much. I’m not good at it, I don’t understand how it works, I hate recording myself in any way and trying to actively sell something to people makes me feel icky. So, it would be nice to have that burden shifted to someone else.
Except, publishers don’t even market for you anymore. Unless you’re one of their most profitable authors, marketing is still 99% on you. You get signed and then they’re like “So, what’s your marketing plan?” Like you’re now contractually obligated to get on TikTok and dance for the camera.
Which creates a bit of a paradox: if I had the skill they would demand me to have, I wouldn’t need them in the first place. I could sell to my audience myself without the middleman taking the majority of the profits that I’m generating by myself.
4. Royalties
Speaking of income.
As far as I understand how publishing contracts work, you get your advance, and you do not earn any royalties until you’ve earned that advance out. Let’s see what that would look like with a simplified example.
Royalty rates are usually 10-15%. Let’s take 15% to be generous. I’m going to calculate with euros because I’m European. One book is usually around €15, give or take. From that €15, you would earn €2,25. And let’s say you got an advance for €5000. You would only start earning royalties after you sold well over 2000 copies of your book. Good luck with that with no marketing help. Authors rarely earn out their advances.
5. Schedules
Creatively, I work terribly with schedules. I work on my books when I have the energy and inspiration, and I work on several at once in rotation. I would not handle it well if I had a contract telling me I had to finish a certain book in a year or so. It would stifle my creativity and worsen the final product.
If someone were to ask me now when my next book will come out, my answer would be “I don’t know, when my brain chemistry allows it.”
Maybe that would be less of a problem if that was my fulltime job, but let’s be real, a writer rarely writes fulltime.
6. Anonymity
I don’t like being perceived. I like being able to share my work while not having to share myself as a person, like my face or my real name. I’ll share my personality and some of my experiences, those come out naturally regardless. But anything more personal makes me feel like I have eyes on me all the time, and it would give me horrible anxiety.
I don’t know this for sure, this is just what I’ve gathered from observation from an outsider’s perspective, but it seems like a publisher would probably push for less anonymity. Like a real photo of me on the author page and doing things like press tours or interviews if I were to get big enough. I would hate that.
7. Not being from a native-English speaking country
I’m not from an English-speaking country. Not natively, at least. Which I would imagine could make it more difficult to find an agent and a publisher. And in my own country, they publish Dutch books, not English, so I can’t go local. I haven’t done much digging into this, but the few times I’ve tried, I hadn’t found anything discussing this, because the English publishing world is incredibly American-centric. (Not just traditional publishing.)
8. Tiny market for my niche
I would call my niche something like “queer, character and relationship focused, romantic fantasy”. There is a bit of a market for that in traditional spaces, I have a few that I would say fit that description on my shelf right now. But they’re not that common and I actively struggle to find more. (The few I know are Freya Marske, Aiden Thomas, F.T Lukens, and John Wiswell.) Though, I’ll admit I haven’t gone searching in a long time.
I don’t know what the market is truly like, and I would be curious to know if it’s small because there aren’t many authors or if it’s because the publishers don’t sign those authors often. The first option would be a good thing for me if I were to try trad, it means there’s a space for me to fill. The second would not be so great, because it’s probably competitive for who gets those few spots at the publishers.
Of course, every contract is different and I’m sure you could fight for aspects you want, like more creative control. But as a debut author? This is just speculation on my part, but if a debut is being difficult about the contract, I wouldn’t be surprised if the publisher decides you’re more trouble than you’re worth.
Again, these are my personal reasons and thoughts on this matter. You may agree or disagree. Some of my problem points may not be problems for you at all. But if you take anything away from this, I hope you either understand better how I work and why, or that it helped you get closer to deciding what route you want to take. For me, it’s a clear decision that I made a long time ago. I’ll be staying right here in my own little corner that I’m building for myself, where the system actually works for me and how I operate, and where I can make whatever I want in the exact way I want to.