Five reasons why I’ve decided to start self-publishing.

Five reasons why I’ve decided to start self-publishing.

1.     I want an audience. If I strike it big with a publisher and get a New York Times bestseller, lots of people will read my stories. Woohoo. But wishing for that is like wishing to win the lottery. It takes more luck than my current allocation. And in the mean time, the only people who read my books seem to be a small handful of underpaid editors in beige cubicles. Apparently, editors are very slow readers, because it takes so long to hear back from them.

2.     I want speed. The publishing industry makes glaciers look like NFL running backs. I don’t understand this one. With the web, I can finish editing a story and have it on Amazon or iTunes in a week. With a publisher, it will take a year to get an offer, six months to complete a contract, then another 18 months to two years for the book to get released. Why? This makes no sense to me.

"It's all for nothing if you don't have freedom. And royalties."

3.     I want control. I am seriously tired of having some dude in an office on the 30^th floor of some Manhattan skyscraper decide if there is an audience for my books. I’d like readers to let me know if they like the stories.

4.     I want to push forward, not backwards. Traditional publishing is begging new media channels to kill it.

5.     I want perpetuity. Self-published ebooks never go out of print. The inventory is never “allowed to run out.”

6.     Bonus reason: I want the crowd to decide. Is my writing good or bad? Right now, that decision is being made by a chosen, random few. But I’d rather let readers decide and vote in the most honest way. Am I writing something good enough for them to pay for it, with their own hard-earned money, and then read it, with their own hard-earned time?