[00:13] Rachel: Hey writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel. And I'm Emily, and today we want to talk about some thoughts about traditional and self publishing paths. This is my rant that I get to bring. It's rich has turned your rant for 2024 that I get to bring to you today. Okay, here's how this started. So I have briefly told Emily what I'm going to talk about, but let me just jump right into my rant. I was scrolling social media a couple of days ago, maybe last week, I don't know, and I came across this post that was like, here are the reasons why I will never self publish. And as like a self published author, I was really interested in that. So I read the post and it had a lot of reasons that I just kind of fundamentally disagreed with and felt like were not only factually inaccurate about the differences between traditional and self publishing, but also they felt a little icky to me and that they didn't really seem like they were coming from the right place. So I want to talk about this because you are going the traditional path. I am going the self published path. We have worked with at this moment, at this moment, we have worked with writers who've gone down both paths. We work with agents not only also in your capacity of having an agent, we also work with agents in the capacity of editing. We have a pretty good finger on the pulse of the industry. I don't know, but I have a lot to say about this because I care so much about an author's ability to choose the path that works for them. And it makes me really prickly when I see what feels like inaccurate criticisms about each of the different publishing paths. So before we dive in, I feel like I really have to make it clear before I go on this rant that I do not care which publishing path you choose, and that if you have a preferred publishing path, more power to you. Like if you prefer to go self publishing just because that's what you want, amazing. If you prefer to go traditional because it's your dream, amazing. I support you 100% in which path you choose. But what really grinds my gears is when I see information put out on the Internet that is wrong, or, according to my viewpoint, wrong, and is also coloring or showing other people, like making other people think about one of these paths in a way that's just not true. Yeah. So I'm going to rant about it for a second, because this post, as I said was definitely criticizing the self publishing path. And I have a.
[03:07] Emily: What was it actually saying? And if I'm getting ahead of myself.
[03:10] Rachel: No, that's okay.
[03:11] Emily: It was me.
[03:12] Rachel: I'm curious. No, the post was saying it was like a trending audio for a reel. So I think the post was using that reel like the trending audio to fit with what they wanted to talk about. And the message was like, these are the reasons why I will never self publish. And it was like three or four main reasons. And the first main reason that was the one that really struck me a little off, was that this person said that traditional publishing is, and I quote, because I think it's important, the standard of excellence. They went on to say, that makes me nauseous. Yeah. That traditional publishing is the aiming for if you want to write a good book. And traditional publishing sets the level of what good books are and what amazing books that want to be read. Those are traditional published books. And it had this air of superiority and a little bit of elitism that if you wanted to write a good book, it needed to be published by a traditional publisher. And obviously I have a lot of problems with that because I myself think I write like great books. But I also feel like if you're going to call something the, quote, standard of excellence, there needs to actually be a meaning to that phrase. And this may be coming from some of my background working in the legal department and marketing language, but that means nothing. Standard of excellence means nothing because there is no standard. What is a.
[04:53] Emily: Well, basically what they're saying is that if you go trad, that means somebody has anointed you.
[04:59] Rachel: Right.
[05:00] Emily: They've said, like, you meet the standard of excellence, and so therefore I shall publish your book.
[05:05] Rachel: Right.
[05:05] Emily: And so what this person is saying is that you're not allowed to anoint yourself. You're not allowed to say my book is worth sharing. You're not allowed to decide to have control over your own career path.
[05:17] Rachel: Right.
[05:17] Emily: This person is saying that in order to be a good author, you have to sell your book to somebody else.
[05:26] Rachel: Yes.
[05:26] Emily: And that just is fundamentally untrue.
[05:29] Rachel: It's not true. And I have read amazing, traditionally published books. I have also read pretty terrible, traditionally published books. I've read amazing, amazing self published books. And I've also read pretty terrible self published books. I don't understand what that phrase means in the sense of content, because you can't objectify the content to say, this meets a standard. And that's why we do fall back to then thinking, okay, well, then it's a pick me attitude. Like traditional picked me or traditional picks people, that means they are the best of the best. And so that means they are the best books that come out. And there's all other sorts of things associated with a traditional public chain, like working with an agent, working with an editor, working with a house, that if all those people look at your book, you're guaranteed to have a better book.
[06:27] Emily: Not true.
[06:28] Rachel: It's not true. Exactly. No. This is where I'm looking at it, and I'm like, if I were someone who didn't know, who wasn't confident in my decision to go the self publishing route, I would read that and be like, oh, if I self publish my book, must be worse. I think that's bullshit. I think that's bullshit. And I also think it's bullshit to have that expectation in any capacity. Again, most traditional books are really solid. Of course they are. But that doesn't mean that self published books aren't going to be fucking amazing, too. And case in point, some of the best books I've ever read are self published books like Carissa Broadbent and her series the Serpent and the Wings of Night. And then LJ Andrews, which has written an amazing self published series. There are some very solid authors that have self published their books and who just prefer that path. So calling it, like, the standard of excellence makes me upset and sad for someone who might look at that and be like, I will only be good if I am traditionally published. And I think that's harmful. Like, a really difficult narrative to internalize. Yeah.
[07:44] Emily: Because there's so many myths. There's, like, myths that self published books aren't edited, which. Yeah, no shade on you if you decide to publish your book and it wasn't edited.
[07:56] Rachel: Right.
[07:57] Emily: That does not mean that you didn't write an incredible book.
[08:01] Rachel: Right.
[08:01] Emily: But the myth that because it's self published means it didn't have eyes on it is just also fundamentally untrue. The only difference between the two paths is the amount of control that you have is, like, who is calling the shots on certain aspects of the production of your. Doesn't like someone like Carissa Broadbent. She's got has. She goes through the same steps that someone, from my understanding, and I follow her. So I, like, see what she does. But I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure she follows all the same basic steps through the production of her story that any traditional author would. It's just a different way of organizing those steps. It's a different business decision. And I always come back to that. It's a business decision. It has nothing to do with the quality of your craft. It has nothing to do with the quality of the book, has nothing to do with any of those things. It just has to do with how the business is structured.
[09:01] Rachel: Yeah, actually when I was looking up, after I read that post and got prickly and hated, I was looking up like Chris Abadbrandt and LJ Andrews, and I was looking up like self published authors that are successful. And we're going to talk about this in a second. But some that maybe have moved from self publishing to traditional, like I was looking up actually, what was the choice here for these both. Both Carissa Breadbrand and LJ Andrews, on their webpages or on their blogs have explained that it simply was a business decision. They wanted more control over the process. And yes, that comes with other challenges, like learning how to market, learning how to do editing yourself. If you do it, it comes with a different learning journey, not any better or worse of a learning journey, because trat has its own learning journey. But they talked about how they chose self publishing for very specific business reasons, not because they were like, I don't want to write as good of a book, or I don't want to search out like an agent, or I'm not getting the attention that I want. And so I'm going to take the lesser road. And I just decided that I'm never going to be trad published, so I'm just going to publish. They don't paint this picture of giving up on trad publishing and then going the self publishing route. It simply was, they wanted certain amount of things for their business. It aligned with their business goals, and so they chose that path. And is that how everybody approaches self publishing versus traditional publishing? No, but ultimately that's what it boils down to is it's a business decision on what you think would be better for you, better for your books, or better for whatever your dreams are. And it's okay, one thing or another, but don't disparage the quality of self published work when it's just not true.
[11:09] Emily: Yeah, no, it's absolutely not true. I think you talked about marketing and I think there's this idea, this myth out there that it's going to be so much more work to go the self publishing route over the traditional one. And I don't think that's true either. There is something about, yes, you have more control and you are responsible for managing more things. I think that that is fundamentally true. But in terms of, is it more work, especially in the marketing arena? No. Like, traditional authors also have to market themselves. And I think there's this myth that if you go the traditional route, you won't have to do anything. You just give your manuscript and your editors just fix it, and then somebody comes up with an incredible cover, and then you write incredible book jacket copy, and you're never going to have to see it, and they're going to market it perfectly. And that's not true. You almost have to fight more for what you want and what you see for your book. You have to speak up more because somebody else will control that if you don't make sure that your voice is heard. And so it's a different kind of work, guys, and you still have to market if that's, like, your number one reason. It's just so silly.
[12:23] Rachel: Well, I feel like this went around Twitter. I remember this being a Twitter debate, like, in 2017. I don't know if you remember this, but it was around the time that we met. I remember reading full posts that were like, this is the conflicting part. There were some posts on Twitter that were like, a publisher only wants to pick you up if you have over 10,000 followers on Twitter. Do you remember that? Did you see that? Yeah. And so then it's like, okay, well, that completely get why? Well, because they want you to tweet at your followers to buy your book. That's marketing. But I think maybe 15 years ago, when social media didn't exist. Yeah. They didn't expect you to go take out newspaper ads. They didn't expect you to find out how to get on good Morning America by yourself. But now that social media is a thing and the publishing industry is trying to adapt to that and figure out TikTok and having a platform is important to selling your books. It's not the end of selling your books. Not the only way to sell your books. But I think that's now an expectation on both sides of these paths. Yeah.
[13:34] Emily: And I'm not speaking from my own experience because I'm not quite in that space yet with the folks that I'm working with. So I just want to make that super clear. But I do know that there are a lot of authors who have spoken publicly about the amount of pressure that their traditional Publishing houses have put on their shoulders for how they show up on social media.
[13:53] Rachel: Right.
[13:53] Emily: So they've even lost control over how they're allowed to show up on their own social media because there are certain expectations for the types of ways that they can speak about their books. Some people might say, oh, well, they have guidance, and that might be true. And then other people might look at that and say, oh, that's pressure.
[14:14] Rachel: Right.
[14:14] Emily: It all comes down to what do you want in the business of selling your art? Because that's different from writing it.
[14:22] Rachel: Exactly.
[14:25] Emily: Yeah.
[14:27] Rachel: Anyway, I don't think this idea of a standard of excellence exists. I think we're all just trying to write great books, and there are a lot of different ways to do that. So whatever path makes you happy, go that direction. But the second point that this person had made on their post was, again, another quote. It's nearly impossible. Those are the words to self publish and then be picked up by a traditional publisher afterwards. There's a couple of other things that I problems I have with this statement. The first is that the idea that if you're going self publishing to then be picked up by a traditional publisher, that is the chosen path. The idea is still that you end up traditional published. That's still the end goal, that you're only self publishing so you can get a following, so that traditional will sometimes pick you up. So I think that's the implied message here, is that you're only going to self publish because you want to be traditionally published at the end. And that's another kind of, like, external validation, inherent message. So, number one, I don't think that's true. I think if you want to self publish and you only want to self publish, then this shouldn't really matter to you. Who cares if a traditional publisher comes to make you an offer? Because this is your chosen publishing path. Now, on top of that, they had said that it was nearly impossible to be picked up, that if you weren't picked up, it had to be like a unicorn level of book. Again, what does that mean? What's a unicorn level of book? Because there are only like a unicorn level of traditional published books that go viral and successful and massively mass produced every single year. So if we're going to pick people, I think any book that goes crazy popular is a unicorn book. That's just how it works. We're not all Sarah J. Moss, unfortunately, or Colleen Hoover. Or Colleen Hoover. But on top of, like I mentioned earlier, that you and I are connected to a lot of agents and to a lot of people that work in the publishing space. And really, the chatter that I'm hearing right now from agents that I work with is that a self published author that does really well is actually really desirable from a traditional publishing path if they choose to go that path, because if you are really good at self publishing, that includes that you're probably good at the business side of it. And traditional publishers right now are open to writers who have proven they have understood the business side of writing. I can't tell you the author's name, but I specifically am holding an author in my head right now who is massively popular on social media, who has multiple published books and self published books. And their books are now being picked up by traditional publishers like hotcakes, not because they're any better or worse than what else is out there from a quality standpoint, but because this publisher knows that this self published author understands how to market their books. So I think the thought that, oh, it's nearly impossible to be picked up is, like, not true. There are tons of self published authors who later moved to traditional publishing. Travis Baldry is another huge example. Huge. Who wrote, God, why can't I remember the cozy book's name? Legends and lates. Yes, legends and lates. That book started as self published, it got super popular, and then was picked up. Trad. They don't have to be unicorn books, guys. But if you see so many examples, you start to think, well, it doesn't feel nearly impossible. There are just tons.
[18:26] Emily: I also want to point out that even, let's say you self publish a book and it tanks, right? You can still get picked up by Trad. They don't care about that. They literally do not care. What they care about is the book that you have presented to them. Do they think they can make money off of that? That's what they care about. So you can't take the book that you self publish and then go try.
[18:51] Rachel: To give it to an agent.
[18:52] Emily: But if you write another book, they literally do not care. So the idea of that statement is just not true. Yeah, you might have a better chance of being picked up if it's super successful. But also, even if it's not.
[19:05] Rachel: Even if it's not. Yeah, even if it's not. I think if you just keep writing and keep doing your thing, you'll end up where you want to end up anyway. That was another one that was like, okay, but let's unpack this, because there are a couple of attached thoughts to this that are inaccurate. Lots of examples. And if you wanted to see other authors that started as self published and then moved to traditional after they got a book deal, literally all you have to do is google it because there's tons of examples. And I googled it earlier. Now the last, a lot of people.
[19:42] Emily: Who'Ve gone the other way, the other direction, done trad and then decided to.
[19:46] Rachel: Go think I could be so inaccurate, but I think Rebecca Thorne did that, or like, she's been both at one point. There's also like hybrid publishing where your publisher, this is, again, why this point is so inaccurate is because it's not black and white. There are lots of self published authors who retain the rights to their ebooks, but who sell the rights to their.
[20:12] Emily: Printed copies or their foreign editions.
[20:14] Rachel: Or their foreign editions. Exactly. So what do you call that person? Are they self published still or did they get a traditional deal? Well, they got a traditional deal, but they still are self published. They retain their ebook rights for themselves. So it's not black and white and it's not like draw a line in the sand of, you have to be good enough to go one way or the other. I think there's so much growth and change going on right now because this industry is struggling. Like Trad is struggling a little bit to make their money. There are all sorts of reports of the big five being down on sales. And so Trad is trying to figure out ways to adapt, ways to find great books, ways to highlight voices they haven't highlighted before. And I think if you have the expectation that you're holding on to these myths that were true ten to 15 years ago, or that maybe weren't even true, but that were widely perpetuated ten to 15 years ago, you don't have a full understanding of how everything is working together and how things are shifting to that point. You can also change your mind. I changed my mind. I wanted to be Trad and I chose to go self published for this series and I might change my mind again in the future. Like, you're allowed to make different business decisions depending on where you are at a certain point of time, what you've learned and where you want to go.
[21:45] Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
[21:49] Rachel: Okay. The last point that this person had made, and I'll start to wrap up my rant. So they had written this fairly long post, like, this is why I never want to self publish. And then they ended it on. Traditional publishing is my dream. And I was like, say less. You could have just said that. You could have just said that. If traditional publishing is your dream, more power to you. If you listener really want to be trad published, I fully support you. That is so amazing. Like, own it, lead with it. You're allowed to want what you want. You're allowed to be like, actually I really can't wait to have penguin random House publish my book. I used to dream of looking at the spine of my book, seeing Tor at the bottom. Like, I wanted Tor to publish my book specifically because they published my other favorite books. That's what I wanted. If that's what you want, fuck yeah. Go for it. Let it be your dream. But you don't have to qualify your dream with all these other reasons for why your dream is important to you or, like, why your dream is the right way. Right way, exactly.
[22:59] Emily: Just because you chose one path doesn't mean the other path is wrong. And I think this comes from both sides. Like, there are plenty of self published authors who are like, why would you go traditional?
[23:07] Rachel: I judge you, right?
[23:08] Emily: It comes from both sides. And it's just, like, so unnecessary.
[23:13] Rachel: Yes.
[23:14] Emily: We all have books. We all want them in the world. We want our friends books to be in the world.
[23:19] Rachel: Right?
[23:19] Emily: We support each other and whatever. No single person's path looks the same. Whether you go traditional or self published, they all look different, and all of them are valid. And honestly, the thing that really helped me was talking to other writers who had gone down both paths, because until you actually hear it from somebody who has had a literal experience, trying to do the thing that you're hearing all these rumors about.
[23:48] Rachel: Right.
[23:48] Emily: It's really hard to accept that those rumors might not be true. So talk to your writer friends. Talk to the ones who've published. Reach out to your favorite authors. You'd be surprised who would talk to you. There's a wide variety of experiences on both these paths. And like you said, in the middle.
[24:08] Rachel: Yeah.
[24:09] Emily: The judgments are just not necessary, guys.
[24:11] Rachel: They aren't. The judgments are not necessary. And what's so funny to me is that that's exactly what you just said. That's exactly how I switched my mind, was talking to other authors on both sides. And you and I work in the same business. We do the same thing. We're good book coaches, and we still have different wants and dreams and goals, and that's okay. So take the competition out of it, take the external validation piece out of it, and really look at what is it like for other people, and what do I want for myself. And then you're allowed to own it. Just make those steps, like, take steps forward to accomplish your dream. And we don't need to hate on the paths of others or try to tear them down to validate our own choices. Yeah.
[25:08] Emily: The path that you choose is not indicative of your value as a creator.
[25:14] Rachel: Exactly.
[25:15] Emily: And the path. There are no shortcuts, guys.
[25:19] Rachel: Yeah.
[25:20] Emily: Putting your art in the world, it takes work. It takes energy. It takes vulnerability. There's no shortcuts. So if you think that one path is going to be easier than another because you're trying to avoid difficulty in some way, I'm sorry to tell you, rich and I both have books coming out this year on two very different paths. They're just hard, guys. It's just difficult putting some your book babies out in the world and packaging it and marketing it, getting into the hands of readers. It's difficult no matter which path you choose. So don't let that be your decision either.
[25:58] Rachel: Exactly. Say it louder for the people in the back. Yeah. Okay. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest after I can rant.
[26:06] Emily: These are rant episodes. If you love our rant episodes, ask for more.
[26:10] Rachel: Ask for more. And if you don't, don't come at us. Too bad. Okay. Thank you for listening. If you see anything out there or if you hear anything out there of what are the goods and the bads of this industry, just take them all with a grain of salt. And all of them the goods, the bads, take it all with a grain of salt. And know that whichever path you choose, you can do it.
[26:43] Emily: Yeah. And you all stop worrying about this before your book is done.
[26:47] Rachel: Just stop. Yes.
[26:49] Emily: Finish your book.
[26:50] Rachel: Finish.
[26:50] Emily: Worry about it.
[26:51] Rachel: Then you can make a decision. Yes.
[26:54] Emily: All right.
[26:56] Rachel: Awesome.
[26:56] Emily: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
[27:02] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course, the magic of character arts. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
[27:11] Emily: Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Bye.
