Why I self-publish (and why I don’t worry about KDP Select)

by theworm · June 30, 2015

There has been a lot of frantic handwaving over Amazons’ decision to go to ‘per-page read’ payments for Kindle Unlimited, with many authors worried it’s going to destroy their incomes and change reading habits in such a way that it will ruin them. Well, unless these authors are the ones who have been deliberately gaming the system by writing 10 page books so that the previous ‘10% read before payment’ quota was hit on the first page, then the truth is, nobody knows yet. It’s only going live from tomorrow.

Note: I only have one book enrolled in KDP Select, and hence opted-in to Kindle Unlimited and that’s, “The Resurrection Tree and Other Stories.” Also, this book was only enrolled last month, so I have no personal data to be able to compare ‘before page read’ to ‘after page read’ payments.

I think that a lot of authors conflate ease of publishing with entitlement to profit. For me, this is similar to the mindset of someone setting up their own Cafepress custom T-Shirt store with a handful of amusing designs and complaining they can’t jack in the day job yet. Read Elizabeth Hunter’s take on this for the best takedown of this phenomenon (and the inspiration for this blog post).

Self-publishing has become incredibly simple and accessible over the last 10 years. What a lot of new authors don’t realise is that they have almost full control in a realm where, not that long ago, they had none at all. Now, I’m not saying that you can’t criticise something new just because it’s better than something old (although the phrase “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” does spring to mind), I’m saying you need to see everything in context of the options you actually have. As Elizabeth Hunter says: “Own it!”

So, what do you get from self-publishing:

You can choose your own cover! Which means either making it yourself, commissioning a cover artist or buying a pre-made cover. Of course this can still lead to your cover looking terrible or not quite fitting the theme or genre, but at least you have the final say over what is arguably the most important ‘customer facing’ part of your work. Oh, and you can decide to tweak or alter it completely and have the changes active within a day or so. Basically, you have licence to experiment.
You can upload a new version any time you please! Obviously, you will have had your work properly edited before you published it, but even so, some things slip through. Find a typo, double word or (even worse) a continuity error? Easy! One quick edit and re-upload later and it’s all sorted. Traditionally published? Well, several thousand print copies are already on the shelves and nobody is going to recall those because you name-checked the wrong character in a dialogue sequence. And good luck hassling your publisher to do a fix to the digital version. Self-publishing means you have control over all the content, and can chop and change as much as you want. One nice benefit of this is to be able to add extra back matter when you like, so when your sequel is announced, update the previous book to include the first couple of chapters of the new one to whet your readers’ appetites.
Publish it now! Finished a new work and had it edited? Got a cover? Then you can have your work ready, visible and selling in days if you wish! Alternatively, you get to choose the publishing date and set up your own promotion strategy and pre-order offers. Compare that to the months and years it often takes for a traditional publisher to do the editing, get a cover and decide on a release slot that fits their schedule and marketing spend.
Accessible Data! Traditional publishers cling onto any sort of sales data as if it were the Ark of the Covenant and, should you even glimpse it once, your eyes would burn out the back of your skull, so no, you can’t see it. It’s for your own good! But with self-pub, you get easily accessible daily sales data so you can check your sales growth and quickly see what effect marketing and promotional events have.
Regular and clear payments! Along with the sales data, you get visible and downloadable earnings figures. You can see exactly what each ebook earned you and you get monthly payments with low to no minimum payout thresholds. Much better than an advance with the promise of royalties when you hit some sales figures you have no idea if you are anywhere near (see above).
You can change your metadata, including price, at any time! Decide you aren’t charging enough for your work, or want to change that blurb to something more effective? Go for it. it’s all editable by you and active within 24-48 hours. And this is just the vanilla service – sign up to KDP select (for example) and you get access to 5 free book promotion days and their Countdown Deals. Tie this in to your advertising materials and you’ve just created your own special offers. You have no control over any of this with traditional pub, where they still seem to be locked into pricing ebooks the same as physical books. Are they pricing your ebook at £8.99 when you know it would sell multiple times better at £3.99 and make more profit? Tough. It’s their call, not yours.

And those are just the benefits I can think of off the top of my head. Definitely read Elizabeth Hunter’s blog post for her take on this.

As for me, I have never and will never attempt to pass through the golden glowing gatekeepers of traditional publishing. There is more chance of throwing yourself into a black hole and coming out alive the other side of the universe than there is of having a manuscript accepted and published and being satisfied with how they sell your work.

You have total control now, so use it!

Tony.