Why do I hate the phrase just self publish? My name is Gina. I’m an author editor publishing professional I help you make your writing better. Graila points out correctly that self publishing can be incredibly expensive It does not have to be and every time I talk about this Somebody always jumps into my comments is like I self publish my book for $17 in a bag of jelly beans and that’s great I’m super happy for you That’s not most people’s experience most people who are going to have a fulfilling self publishing experience are either going to pay in time or money or both. Publishing is an expensive proposition and traditional publishing is a for-profit business They pay you in advance against royalties But they are looking to turn a profit on your book just like most self publishers are also learning to turn a profit on their book not everybody and if you are a hobbyist writer who just wants to have like three people read your story and you’d be thrilled With that you are very much still welcome in the club as a writer. I’m not trying to exclude you We are talking about self publishing as an expensive experience today, so we’re gonna stay focused on that So yeah, that is one of the many reasons that I really dislike when people are like just self publish it It is incredibly expensive either in time or money or both If you are going to just pay for every piece of this you need to pay for developmental editing and you need to pay for Copy editing and line editing and proofreading you need to pay for formatting. You need to pay for a cover designer You need to pay for an interior designer and jacket designer in addition to your cover That is separate sometimes they will be bundled together But putting stuff other than just the front cover is there’s more to it than that I often talk to people who cannot find stock imagery to meet the expectations that they have for their covers This is going to happen much more often if you are not writing romances that are heteronormative between two white people Any other combination of faces on the cover of your book is going to be more difficult to find and so you often have to Commission custom art or custom photography which can get very expensive indeed Is it possible to self publish for just a few dollars? Yeah, but you’re going to have to invest a lot of your time You’re gonna have to swap services with other people you’re gonna say I’m really good at copy editing and proofreading But I need help on developmental edits Let’s swap manuscripts you’re gonna have to do that for every stage of the process Which means that you are not just writing your work and sending it off to somebody else You are also investing time as an editor for all of those people in your publishing circles So you are going to have to develop the skills that you are bringing to the table and The time to put into other people’s work as well You want to just pay for a subscription software and some stock imagery and put together a cover on your own? Okay Well, you either need to have invested a bunch of time already into being a visual artist or you’re going to have to learn very Very quickly you want a cool font you’re either gonna pay for it or you’re gonna develop your own Font which is its own skill that takes time Formatting can be done with free software But you have to invest the time into formatting your manuscript correctly and I’ll tell you I’ve seen a lot of self published books That I can tell you exactly what this author did wrong in Microsoft Word in order to make their document look the way that it did and have the problems that it does in the novel So you have to also learn how to use Microsoft Word appropriately and Understand all of the features over there in order for your manuscript to transcript correctly Self-publishing is an expensive prospect if you don’t pay in hard dollars You are going to pay in time in addition to that in it’s not just expensive But it is also a valid career path. This is not a thing that you do as a consolation prize This is not a thing that you do while you wait for traditional publishing to swoop in and rescue you from self publishing Statistically, that’s not going to happen There are some people that it does happen to but I’m pretty sure most of them would not use that phrasing of being rescued from self Publishing they were successful as self publishers because that’s what they wanted to do because that’s what was good for them and their book And their story and then traditional publishing came around and was able to add some extra benefits that they didn’t have as a self publisher But they wouldn’t have found that success if they were just putting their book out there hoping to be rescued that sort of vibe becomes very apparent very quickly and Traditional publishing isn’t interested in that traditional publishing is interested in people who are very successful And I am willing to bet actual dollars that when traditional publishing comes around and says hey self publisher We would like to help you with an equal number of people say no To those who say yes to traditional publishing because the people who are successful enough for this to happen to them are very happy And self publishing for a lot of reasons. Yeah, I hate the phrase just go self publish self publishing is not your consolation prize Traditional publishing is not going to come rescue you from this and it is not something that is cheap or easy to do You are going to have to invest a lot of your skills in a lot of your time And if you don’t have those you’re going to have to invest a lot of money in order to make it happen