How to Publish: An Internal Conflict (OR:Help, I need A Crystal Ball)

The question of whether to self-publish or attempt to traditionally publish your work is addressed on countless blogs and websites, but not answered.  There is helpful information and context available, but ultimately, it’s up to you to decide which you think you’ll be the most successful at. 

If you self-publish, you get to keep the lion’s share of profits and retain full control of your work.  But you have to do all the marketing yourself.  70% of $100 is much less money than 10% of $1,000,000.

If you traditionally publish, you have a publishing company to market your book.  But you get only a fraction of the profits and will probably have to compromise on your work at times.

Actually, if you self-publish, there is so much low-quality work out there you have to try 1000x harder to stand out and your book will easily get buried if you don’t hustle like crazy.

Well, also, if you trad-publish, the publishing company expects you to do some/most/all of your own marketing anyway (how much seems to vary among the sources I read).

Oh, but if you self-publish, it’s more like running an entire business yourself.  You want to be an entrepreneur and a writer, right?

And if you trad-publish, your book might sink into oblivion anyway and also make you little to no money.

How do both of these have so much overlap on their “con” list?  It’s maddening, researching this question.  Part of the problem is that the challenges are industry-wide (such as standing out in a saturated market). Part of the problem is also that there’s always an element of luck involved that is rarely mentioned because “be lucky” is shit advice (“keep throwing books out there until your luck strikes” is better though).

As I’m mulling this over, I have received 7 query rejections so far (I sent 11).  I received some feedback that my query package needs to be stronger, so I’m working on some revisions. I think my next move will be to join RevPit in March to get more professional feedback, and if I’m lucky, a free full edit of my manuscript (which would be amazing for either publishing scenario).