To Self Publish or Not?

Being a writer, this seems to be a common question. As I get nearer to the stage of publishing my first book, I have been asked this a few times. “What publisher are you going to use?” “Are you going to self publish?” I always scoffed at the idea of self publishing, but being that I try to be open minded and I live research, I looked into it more. My idea of self publishing was someone making up a sad looking book and trying to sell it on the streets. I knew better, but I guess since I was avoiding thinking of methods of publishing to avoid thinking of rejection, I had the worst scenario in my mind. Here are the pros and cons as I see them:

I took the photo here after a small earthquake, or spirits knocked the books and other things down. I will never know for certain. I was in the other room playing with my cat and little dog when we all heard a crash. The cat and dog scattered to hide under the nearest furniture while I investigated. 

Publisher:

Pros: someone else does the work of getting the books ready for you.

Cons: you do not get to choose your own illustrator and finding a publisher is hard, look at how many publishers turned down J.K Rowling!! You have to share royalties. Expensive.

Self publishing:

Pros: You do not have to share royalties, only pay your bills. You do not get rejection letters. More control over expenses.

Cons: The expenses are more obvious to you because they are all yours. More work depending on how you get them printed or just go straight e-book.

I am still undecided though I am leaning toward self publishing because I used to print and bind books, so I have some idea of what is involved there. More research in the future, for now, I just need to finish writing it.