How hard is self-publishing?

Plenty. But also rewarding. 

To be honest, how hard self-publishing really is depends on two things:

-Your skillset

-Your budget

The writing part is exactly the same in both variants. The only difference is that as an author under a contract you may already have discussed your novel idea with your agent or publisher. In other words, you may start with a bit more confidence.

Everything that comes after that is more difficult as a self-publisher, though, because you are responsible for every little decision. Questions like:

-Who is the right editor for my project? 

-What instructions do I give my cover designer?

-When is the best time to publish that thing?

-Which service do I use to achieve the best results for printing my paperbacks?

Some of these things you can do yourself – if your skillset matches the professional level that’s required to create a competitive product. Like designing the cover. Or setting the layout. One thing you shouldn’t consider doing yourself is the final edit. 

The issue that comes with that is that you will have already spent so much time with your manuscript, that you’ll miss various important things:

-logic failures

-timing failures

-grammar and spelling

And those things matter to many readers because they spend some of their hard earned money and expect a certain level of quality. A mistake or two aren’t critical. But if they add up, people will get pretty annoyed. They will stop reading your book and eventually leave a bad review online. 

Does it work?

So there you have it. It’s totally fine to take the self-publishing route. It not only has worked for thousands of authors but it continues to do so. But you shouldn’t choose that route if your motivation is to save money. Because that decision will eventually come back to you sooner than you may expect. 

Bonus tip: Start looking for an editor, cover designer and printing service early. They all – usually – are booked for quite some time in advance. If all goes well, you will have them lined up in a way that they can start working once you have finished your last round of internal editing. Otherwise, it would again take more time until you got your finished product in your hands. 

But stop, you may have already guessed it: It sounded too good to be true. Why? Because while the cover designer can start early with some initial ideas, the exact measurements of your cover can only be set in stone once the whole book layout is done. Every few pages added or removed will alter the exact thickness of your book and therefore the requirements for your cover file. 

Conclusion: self-publishing can be pretty hard – especially for first timers. Once you’ve done that at least once, you hopefully will have some very important learnings that will make it easier the next time. At the same time, finally holding your own book in your hands is one of the most exciting moments for any writer.