Dear Writer: Episode 40

To start with, Ashley posed the question of why someone would choose the self publishing route over being traditionally published. Sarah and Ashley came up the following reasons:

• Creative control
• Control over rights and marketing
• Long term could be a more financially viable option
• Faster process
• Opportunity to ‘get your name out there’

This then led into a discussion of the drawbacks of self-publishing:

• Upfront costs must be covered by the author
• Continuing costs for marketing
• Stigma to self-publishing
• More time and effort is spent on the author’s part to prepare the book to a finished, quality product
• Cost prohibitive and greater risk of financial loss

So, why then did we choose to self-publish When the Rain Falls? Both Ashley and Sarah reminisced over their failed attempts at traditional, as with many authors, it feels like the natural first route to try. However, what it boiled down to was a strong desire to see the book published and a more realistic way to make money off of it. Sarah in particular believes that it is a better business decision to self-publish rather than go traditional.

The next part of this podcast episode was dedicated to Sarah and Ashley’s personal journey, how we found each step of the process in preparing their book to be self-published, which included a discussion of numerous edits, receiving advice from beta-readers, preparing the interior formatting and picking a cover designer.

We devoted a small amount of time to discussing the setup of our business, and the difficulties we face as small business owners being located in different countries from one another. Finally, we discussed our takeaway so far from the self-publishing process. We both agreed that it had definitely been a learning process, and it’s still far from being complete. We have much more still to discover about self-publishing, but are excited to see where the future leads.