Devika Fernando - Why Go Indie?: 6 Reasons for Self-Publishing

Areyou someone whos always wanted to be a writer? Someone who has recentlydiscovered a passion for writing and is thinking of being serious about it? Orsomeone whos followed the upsurge of eBooks with interest and wants in on thefun? In whichever category you fall, youre probably asking yourself: Why goindie?

Letshave a look at the main reasons why writers go indie :

Theywant to go with the times and imitate the success stories theyve discoveredonline or in the media.

In thepast few years, self-publishing has experienced a boom across the world. A lookat statistics shows us, for example, that the number of books self-publishedvia Smashwords in the USA increased from roughly 11,800 in 2010 to 89,000 in2016. Keeping in mind that these are only thenumbers in America, and that European countries as well as Asian countries suchas India have seen a steady increase in self-published books too, there is nodenying this trend.

It startedroughly a decade ago when two of the biggest competitors opened business:Amazon paved the way with their eBook self-publishing platform Kindle DirectPublishing in 2007, closely followed by Smashwords in 2008. In 2010, Appleentered the scene, providing an alternative to all iPhone and iPad users whowere reluctant (or unable) to use e-readers such as the Kindle or an Androidsmartphone. For authors, that meant even more ways to reach readers. As Apple offeredauthors a royalty share of 70%, Amazon had to up the ante; it had previouslybeen offering 35% but increased the percentage to 70. This led to another surgeof indie authors trying to get their work out there, and in 2011 we saw moreand more of them selling so many copies of their eBooks that they even hitbestseller lists like that of the New York Times. Throughout the years, eachpublishing platform has worked on luring more authors and making things easierfor them, which led to more competition but also more opportunities.Smashwords, for example, does not just directly sell in its own online storebut also acts as a mediator to reach other retailers like Apple iBooks, Barnes& Noble (Nook) or Kobo for those authors who cant or dont want to sign updirectly.

Theyhave had negative experiences with traditional publishing :

Traditionalpublishers are not very clear about their terms and conditions. The fact thatthey are less transparent can also lead to issues like unrealisticexpectations, misinformation, complicated legal matters in contracts, as wellas delays or unfair payment. In fact, there have been claims by numerousauthors that they have been scammed either by agents or by publishers. Thebiggest issue are the royalties: How do you know what number of books were solddirectly through your publisher and how may indirectly through distribution tobookstores etc.? How can you be sure that your publisher gives you the correctnumber and pays you for it? Even agents working in the publishing businessdont deny that cheating authors is possible and even happens on a somewhatregular basis. Literary agent Richard Curtis can be cited, and according to theNYT he has even backed his claims openly in a book.

Thereare a lot of grey areas either not specified in contracts or overlooked byauthors (especially those with no experience). Take returns, for example: Abookstore might return books in bulk loads if they dont sell; do these returnscount as sales for which you earn royalties or will they be deducted? Whathappens if a returned copy is later bought by an individual? Print books ingeneral are very hard to trace for an author. If your publishing house is alsoyour retailer, then it could print and sell more copies than stated to you, andyou would have no way of verifying it. Assuming you could get ripped offdoesnt make any author feel good, so why run this risk at all? Or why rely onan expensive lawyer to help with the contract when you still cant be sureabout what will happen in the future? There might be audit clauses inpublishing contracts, but very few authors understand them and avail themselvesof this right, and even fewer can afford paying for legal assistance. Better totake all matters into your own hands and go indie!