Leilanie Stewart

If you are gearing up for the publishing stage of your writing journey and wondering whether self-publishing is a viable option, or you are getting despondent from so many publisher rejections, then this article might give you the boost that you need to start your indie journey: No publisher wanted my book, so I went it alone – now I’ve sold thousands of books as a self-published author. The article is so motivating, in fact, that it inspired today’s blog post: Is self-publishing worth it? Yes, but don’t take my word for it.

Of course, you can take my word for it if you like, since I’m also a self-published author. These days, I’m mainly a self-published author in fact, with only two books out of my eleven published titles traditionally published and the other nine self-published. Certainly, sales of my self-published books far outstrip my small press published books by a mile. I know this because I still get royalty checks from my traditionally published books from time to time and the numbers of books sold by my publishers are piddly compared to the number of books sold under my own imprint. I can theorise about why, but I’ll never know for sure; I actively promote all of my books, so it’s not that I play favourites with my self-published titles more. The fact that I stopped looking for a publisher four years ago speaks volumes. It’s much better for me all round to continue self-publishing: full control over all elements of the editing and publishing stages, as well as getting a higher percentage of royalties.

That being said, I wouldn’t rule out finding a publisher in the future if a specific book seems a good fit for a particular publisher – the right publisher. Going forwards, if I decide to go down the traditional route once more, I’ll be looking for a publisher large enough to help my books reach a wider audience than what I’ve managed by myself – which, I suppose for an indie author is okay. I haven’t quite sold thousands, like the author in the link above, but I’m getting close, and in the four years since I set up my own imprint, I suppose… that’s not bad.