One of Curtis Brown’s literary agents, Nathan Bransford, has written an illuminating piece on guidance for authors considering self-publishing with Should You Self-Publish? Ten Questions to Ask Yourself. There is a lot of advice dished out to authors about self-publishing, but in my opinion, though much of it is well-meaning and sincere, it comes from individuals from various facets of the publishing industry with either loaded agendas, or those adopting hand-me-down information which gets twisted and confused and presented in an entirely misguided way.
1. Have you taken the time to research both the traditional publishing process and the self-publishing process?
This is your book we’re talking about here! You probably took a year or more to write it – why rush into a decision about its fate? Why take the next step without really knowing what you’re doing?
Too often people rush off to self-publish out of frustration with the traditional publishing industry and treat it as a way of sticking it to The Publishing Man – this is so extremely misguided. Don’t let frustration cloud your judgment. Any decision about how you’re going to proceed should be based strictly about what is best for your book and your career, not about proving someone wrong.