I’ve been asked a lot lately by new writers whether they should self-publish their first novel or go with a traditional publisher.
To me the answer is very obvious: find an agent and publish the traditional way.
What follows is my reasons why I think the answer is obvious but first a disclaimer.
Disclaimer 1: I have never self-published. Unless you count the short stories on this site and even then they were all published somewhere else first. I have zero direct experience with self-publishing though I have seen several friends go through the process. Some to a great deal of success. I am definitely not anti-self-publishing. If you have questions about self-publishing I recommend you read what Courtney Milan has to say about it. Her blog is a fantastic resource.
I do, however, know a lot about traditional publishing. To date I have had nine books published by the following publishers: Allen & Unwin Australia (How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar, Zombies v Unicorns, Team Human), Penguin Australia (Magic or Madness Trilogy), Penguin USA (Magic or Madness Trilogy), Bloomsbury USA (HTDYF, Liar), Harper Collins USA (“Thinner than Water” in Love is Hell, Team Human), Simon & Schuster USA (Zombies v Unicorns) and Wesleyan University Press (Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Daughters of Earth).
Disclaimer 2: I come out of the YA publishing category. Everything I say here is shaped by that fact. As Courtney Milan points out in the comments below it’s very different in her genre of romance.
Ask Yourself This Question First
Why do you want to be published?
There are many many answers to that question. But the most usual ones are: because I want to be read by people who don’t know me, because I want a career as a writer.
But sometimes people answer that they just want to see their work as a real book with their name on the spine and they don’t really care who reads it and they don’t want to have to send out to get an agent and all that jazz.
In that case, self-publishing probably is the way to go. You pay to have a few copies made with your name on the cover and then give them to your friends for Christmas.
This post is addressed to the people who want their work to be read beyond their immediate circle of family and friends.
Why You Should Try To Get Published The Traditional Way First
I first sent out a story for publication when I was fifteen years old. It was rejected. And repeat. A lot.
I sold my first short story almost twenty years later. My first novel sale came not long after.
Yes, you read that right, it took me twenty years to get published.
Getting published the traditional way is a slow, gruelling, heart-breaking and soul-destroying process. At least it was for me.1 My first two novels never sold. I know people whose first ten or more novels never sold.
I was desperate to get published back then. DESPERATE.2 I get the impatience many people feel with how long everything takes in publishing. It really is awful sending your work out over and over and over again to the same No, no, no no, HELL NO. No matter how the agents phrase it that’s what it sounds like on the receiving end.
Or even worse: no response at all. Despite your multiple queries.
Here’s why I think it’s worthwhile going through the gruelling process of finding an agent. (For why you need an agent read this excellent article by Victoria Strauss.) And then the just as awful process of your agent trying to sell your book to a publisher.
You learn to deal with rejection.3
Being a professional writer means dealing with rejection all the time. Every time my latest novel goes out to publishers it gets rejected. Multiple times. I can’t remember now how many publishers rejected HTDYF and Team Human. I find it best to forget those things but, trust me, at the time, it felt like an endless chorus of NOs.
You only need one yes. No matter how long it takes.
My first novel, Magic or Madness, was published in loads of different countries, each successive book of mine has been picked up by fewer foreign language markets. I’ve been rejected by pretty much every language market in the world. Eastern Europe has never published so much as a haiku of mine. I try not to take it too personally.4
You don’t need a tough skin. I certainly don’t have one.5 But you do not need to be able to keep writing despite rejection.
All too often I hear from people whose first novel has been rejected by gazillions of agents. Years now they’ve been sending it out, rewriting it, sending it out again. They’re filled with despair. They’re ready to give up. I ask them how their second novel is doing? They blink at me. They have not started a second novel, let alone finished it and sent it out to agents.
Always have a novel on the go.
When your first one is out there trying to land you an agent get started writing the second novel. And so on. Did I mention that I didn’t sell my first novel? Or my second? That I know people who did not sell their first ten novels? Jonathan Letham did not sell his first novel. From memory I think he sold his fourth. His earlier novels then sold after the first one to be sold was published. This is a very common story.
Keep writing is good advice when you’re trying to find an agent and it’s good advice when you’re a career writer whose agent is trying to sell what will be your hundredth published book when it finds a home.
Never stop writing!
People trying to find representation for their first novel often think that once they find an agent their book will automatically sell. Not true.
They also often think that once their first novel sells all their subsequent novels will also sell. Sadly, not always true either.
True story: there are successful, published writers whose agents have not been able to find a home for all their books.
Rejection: it just keeps on giving.6
You Learn How To Write
In those 20 years I was sending out and being rejected I never stopped writing.
I would occasionally get little hints from my rejectors as to why my stories weren’t working for them. Some of those comments were useful, but far more useful was all the feedback and comments I received from other writers. Having my work critiqued by other writers improved my writing immeasurably and prepared me for the brutal edits I would get once I became a published author.
(Here’s a post on how to find people to critique your work. Check out the comments as well.)
Even more helpful was learning to critique other people’s work. It is eye opening to read someone else’s unpublished work and see that they’re making similar mistakes to the ones you make. Suddenly you understand what everyone was talking about when they were critiquing you. It teaches you to see the flaws in your own work.
Obviously continuing to write was also very important. During those twenty years I learned how to write novels. I learned that I was better at writing them than I was at short stories. I learned to write stories and novels that people other than me wanted to read and that is when, at last, they started to sell. (Hopefully you’ll be a faster learner than I was.)
Once You’re Published
This is when your learning curve takes off with a steepness that is dizzying. No critique I have ever received from friends has ever been as detailed or demanding as any of my editorial letters.
I am a much, much better writer because I have been professionally edited, copyedited, and proofread.
Had I self-published I would never have learned how far my work was from where it needed to be. I would not have learned how much time and effort goes into getting a novel to a publishable standard. The many revisions and fact checking and proofing that are needed.
Then after the long and exacting editorial process, there’s the design of the interiors of book. What fonts are used, how the titles, and sub-titles look, how the words are arranged on the page. Then, of course, there’s the cover. Is there a more important ad for a book? No, there is not.
Traditional publishers do all that for you. And, on the whole, they do it pretty well.7
They also know how to distribute your book: how to get it to readers. They have long established relationships with booksellers all over their country. They know how to get books reviewed and talked about. They’ve been doing so for years, decades even.
You, a first-time, unknown novelist have little of that knowledge.
Self-Publishing
There’s a reason the majority of successful self-publishers already had a career publishing with traditional publishers. Or were very well-known in fan fiction circles. They had what is known in the industry as a “platform”. They already had a core audience; they didn’t need a traditional publisher.
An unknown first-time novelist does not have an audience. That’s why they should go with traditional publishers. Traditional publishers can make a new author known, can help build their audience.
When Courtney Milan started publishing her own work she’d already published many books with a traditional publisher. Her name and work were already known by many romance readers. She had dedicated and loyal fans such as me, who were willing to buy her books no matter who was publishing them.
Most importantly she had the knowledge and the contacts to do it right. She knew which editors, copyeditors, proofreaders etc to hire. She knew what professional books look like and how to produce same.
Writers with platforms, who have the inclination to do all the hard yards in producing their books exactly how they want them to be, can now do that. I think that’s wonderful for the industry. And truly great for writers.
I have never self-published but I certainly don’t rule it out in the future. The landscape of publishing has changed a vast deal since I started out. Self-publishing has changed a vast deal. We writers now have more options.
However, the vast majority of first-time authors, without a platform, are still better off going the traditional path. Even if they wind up self-publishing in the end they’ll do so with a great deal more knowledge of what they’re doing than they would otherwise.
Which ever path you pick, GOOD LUCK!
And keep on writing!
Update: I’ve had to not let some comments through. I get that you love what you’re doing and it’s working for you. By all means make the case for self-publishing on your own blogs. But really if the best you can do is to call me names? Then no. I am not letting your comments through.
Update 2: On checking the IP address of the nasty comments I discovered they’re all coming from the same person.
Update 3: Added a disclaimer to make it clear that what I have to say is shaped by being a YA writer.
- I do know a couple of people who were picked up by an agent and whose first novel sold basically within minutes of sending out. That’s unusual. Also annoying. [↩]
- I wonder if self-publishing had existed back then if I would have gone ahead and published my work as it was? Back then I was pretty sure what I was writing was genius despite all the rejections. Reading it now I know it was rubbish and it being published back then would have been at best really embarrassing. [↩]
- Which is not to say you ever learn to like it. I hates rejection, I does. HATES IT! [↩]
- But let’s just say I’m not barracking for any Eastern European football teams in the World Cup. [↩]
- Oh, the tears this profession of mine has made me weep. Fortunately a fair few of them have been tears of joy. [↩]
- Show me the profession that doesn’t involve waiting and being rejected. I suspect it does not exist. [↩]
- Yes, there are exceptions. Horrible exceptions. No industry is perfect. Least of all publishing. [↩]
Thanks for the inspiration! I’m pulling out my unsold work right now, and starting my next. I had been “taking a break” after several hurtful rejections…but you are spot on. Never give up! Thank you.
Amy: So glad to be of help! You are not alone.
It was honest of you to post the disclaimer about never having been self-published. I have to say, though, that your reasons to get on the query-go-round are not terribly persuasive. In fact, most of what you say, being a complaint about how nasty the process is, argues the other direction.
You learn to deal with rejection? But there is no value to that except in the query-go-round context itself. This argument is rather like saying that it’s a good thing to take increasing doses of rat poison because one becomes immune to its effects.
You learn how to write? Well, yes, but you do that by writing, not by submitting, and as you observe, repeated rejection can be discouraging and can persuade people to stop writing. In fact, you are more likely to learn to write by self-publishing.
As you also note, it’s entirely possible to get good critique of your work without submitting to a publisher. Everyone who is serious about writing should be encouraged to do so.
Hmm, as for publishers knowing how to distribute books — nah. They know how that worked in the past, which is through physical bookstores. These days, though, most people buy books online, and publishers have no better access to online distribution than I do.
Platform? But that’s not built by publishing, and no publisher is going to do it for you. In fact, publishers nowadays expect you to have an established platform before they will even consider your book.
As for the “I just want to see my book in print and screw all the rest of it” business, no, I don’t agree that attitude is a good reason to self-publish. Nor do I think inability to find a publisher is a good reason to self-publish. Here are the three main reasons why an author should do that.
1) Your book will have a better chance of success (which is still not very good). (Remember that the proper comparison here is not between all self-published and all traditionally published books, but between all self-published books and all those SUBMITTED to publishers, whether accepted or not.)
2) At any level of success, you will make more money self-publishing than traditionally. If your book doesn’t sell well, guaranteed it wouldn’t find a publisher, either, which means you can compare low sales revenues to zero. If it sells well, then you have good sales revenue to compare either to zero (because again there’s no guarantee you’d bee accepted) or to about one-fifth what you can make self-publishing.
3) You have complete artistic and business control over your own works, including covers, editing, formatting, publication dates, pricing, subsidiary rights, and so on and so on. With traditional publishers you’d have control of just about none of that.
Obviously I don’t agree with you here, but thanks for sharing anyway.
This is a brilliant post! Thank you for your insight!
It’s fabulous to be a writer on the traditional publishing path and know that many talented and successful writers such as yourself deal with the same problems and fears I am.
I also agree that self-publishing isn’t terrible, but new writers especially don’t have the experience and resources to do it well.
Brian: I’m not going to respond to all your comments here as it would involve me restating what I already said in the post above.
Hmm, as for publishers knowing how to distribute books — nah. They know how that worked in the past, which is through physical bookstores. These days, though, most people buy books online, and publishers have no better access to online distribution than I do.
It’s absolutely true distribution has changed dramatically in the last few years. Right now in the USA almost half of all physical books are sold online. However, that still leaves the other half being sold in physical book shops. Publishers are very successful at getting their books into those shops.
You’re dead right that anyone can get their book sold by online retailers. It is a more democratic landscape than it once was.
You learn to deal with rejection? But there is no value to that except in the query-go-round context itself. This argument is rather like saying that it’s a good thing to take increasing doses of rat poison because one becomes immune to its effects.
Really? As a self-publisher you’ve had no rejection? All your attempts to sell your books into translation markets have been greeted with uniforms yeses? All your attempts to get other authors to blurb your work ditto? All the markets you’ve contacted to get them to review your work have done so? Your reviews have all been stellar? Your books have won every prize they’ve been entered in?
Rejection is a fact of life in the publishing industry no matter how you enter it. It’s a fact of life in any industry. I may not have self-published but I know many who have and they have not escaped rejection by doing so.
I do strongly believe you’re better off starting out trying to be published by the traditional routes. But if that doesn’t work and you really believe your work is good enough and others believe in it too then sure self-publish. I would. I doubt these days I would have kept trying for 20 years.
Traditional publishing is conservative. They turn down books that really should have been published. However, the vast majority of work they turn down simply wasn’t ready. I’ve seen the slush piles at traditional publishers and the vast majority isn’t merely bad storytelling or boring, it’s ungrammatical and incoherent.
Platform? But that’s not built by publishing, and no publisher is going to do it for you. In fact, publishers nowadays expect you to have an established platform before they will even consider your book.
This is flat out not true. I have a platform solely because I was published traditionally. My books have been promoted, widely reviewed, sold all round the world. I’ve been toured all over the US and Australia invited to appear in many other countries as a direct result of how I was published. The platform I have I owe entirely to traditional publishing.
I know many people who have debuted in the last few years. None of them had platforms before their publishers took them on. What you’re saying, that traditional publishers won’t publish you without a platform, is a lie.
1) Your book will have a better chance of success (which is still not very good). (Remember that the proper comparison here is not between all self-published and all traditionally published books, but between all self-published books and all those SUBMITTED to publishers, whether accepted or not.)
That’s an interesting definition of success. So you’re arguing that you’re better off publishing a book yourself that’s not ready and that’s going to sell very few copies than it is to go through the process of trying to find a publisher and realising that your novel wasn’t ready for publication in the first place?
One of the main things a first-time novelist is learning is whether their work is ready yet. It’s something most of us are very bad at judging. I certainly was.
At any level of success, you will make more money self-publishing than traditionally. If your book doesn’t sell well, guaranteed it wouldn’t find a publisher, either, which means you can compare low sales revenues to zero. If it sells well, then you have good sales revenue to compare either to zero (because again there’s no guarantee you’d bee accepted) or to about one-fifth what you can make self-publishing.
I’d like to see figures to support these statements. Yes, when you self-publish you get a bigger cut off the sales of your book. But if your book only sells ten copies that’s kind of moot.
“If it sells well” is a huge if. None of my work has sold particularly well. My individual book sales top out at 70,000 but I’ve still been able to make a good living via traditional publishing. But, yes, I know many respected traditionally published novelists who can’t. I do wonder if they’d be able to so as self-published authors. Frankly, there are quite a few established authors who may well do better self-publishing. I don’t know for sure.
However, this post was specifically aimed at first-time novelists. Who do not already have a writing career and an established reputation. I.e. they don’t have a platform. This is why I gave the example of Courtney Milan in the post above, who is doing much better since she turned to self publishing.
As I said I’m not at all against self-publishing. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I self-publishing in the the future. I am supremely grateful it exists as a viable choice. But when/if I do my years as a traditionally published author has given me invaluable contacts and resources to do it well.
You have complete artistic and business control over your own works, including covers, editing, formatting, publication dates, pricing, subsidiary rights, and so on and so on. With traditional publishers you’d have control of just about none of that.
This is mostly true. Except the editing. If you get an edit you don’t like you say no to your editor. I have done this many times. I don’t know a single writer who hasn’t wielded STET when required.
Also no good agent would let you give your publisher all your subsidiary rights.
However you leave out a very important part of the equation: having control of everything means doing all the work. And to do all of that well, to find the right editors and copyeditors and designers, or God forbid, do it all yourself. (And, no one should edit their own work. We are blind to our own writing. Especially after rewriting it multiple times.) It’s a lot of work. A crazy amount of work.
It’s not one full-time job, it’s several full-time jobs.
Frankly, this is the main reason I haven’t turned to self-publishing. I don’t want to do all that work. I struggle to write one book a year.
You have all my admiration for tackling all of that. And I’m really glad self-publishing has worked so well for you.
Jessie Devine: Thank you.
I also agree that self-publishing isn’t terrible, but new writers especially don’t have the experience and resources to do it well.
The boom in self-publishing and small presses in the last decade or so is a truly wonderful thing. It’s given many authors and wonderful books a second life.
But, yes, it is really, really hard to do well. Kind of like anything, really.
“You have complete artistic and business control over your own works, including covers, editing, formatting, publication dates, pricing, subsidiary rights, and so on and so on. With traditional publishers you’d have control of just about none of that.”
I would suggest that for many authors this complete control is not a good thing – and anyone who has browsed the Kindle store would agree that “complete control” often results in awful covers and terrible editing decisions. I think that having someone who knows what they’re doing take this on is one of the major *benefits* of traditional publishing, not a drawback.
Stephen: I would suggest that for many authors this complete control is not a good thing – and anyone who has browsed the Kindle store would agree that “complete control” often results in awful covers and terrible editing decisions.
Yes, indeed. I would never in a million years want to be responsible for my own covers. I so often hate covers that sell gangbusters and love the covers of books that bomb. I have no idea what makes a cover work. None.
I absolutely loved this post!! It’s always fun for me to read about publishing and peek a bit behind the curtain. I think you really gave a fair balance to both sides. I myself want to go the traditionally published route regardless. I do feel like I have a platform already through my book review blog that I’ve been doing for over 6 years now, but self-publishing doesn’t feel right to me and my goals as a writer. Plus, I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable with my author, blogger, publisher friends all reading a work of mine that may not have been as edited as thoroughly as it might be if I was with a traditional publisher. I feel like with a traditional publisher, I can be putting out the best version of my book into the world.
Being published traditionally also provides this sense of validation- these people (your agent, your editor, your publisher) all have to love your book enough to champion it and put it out there in the world. Maybe that’s a bit needy and insecure on my part, but that’s how I feel. Self-publishing also requires a LOT of work, whether it’s doing it all yourself or even having the burden of trying to find people to help you out. I just don’t think I could do that.
Anyway, I’ll stop rambling on. Great post, as usual! Although I did just see the update you posted, so just really quickly. I can’t believe people are calling you names over this post. I don’t think you were dissing self-publishing at all, or being negative about it so I feel like there’s no need for name-calling at all. You were being very realistic about the nature of self-publishing. OK, that’s really all now, lol.
Bookchic: Thanks. You make a lot of good points.
I would caution about depending too much on that kind of validation. Yes, it feels great, and enjoy! But it’s best not to need it. Publishing can be a fickle business. I’ve seen too many people who depend on that kind of validation. At first all they needed was to be published, then it was to sell a certain number of books, have a certain number of good reviews, then they had to be a NYT bestseller, then a no. 1 NYT bestseller, a prize winner, have a movie made from their book etc etc. The goal posts keep moving but they don’t get any happier even as they achieve some of those goals.
I’m sure that’s not what you’re talking about.
Turns out it was just one person sending me abusive comments. The vast majority of self-publishers do not view traditional publishing as the devil.
I do think it’s possible to start self-publishing and do very well without a prior platform (and can probably list 50+ names of people who have done so). I would have actually listed a different requirement than platform for successful self-publishers: you need a really strong sense of both business and marketing, the latter including enough capability to watch the market and respond flexibly, to get covers that work in a crowded marketplace, to write blurbs that both appeal to your genre and yet stand out, to understand how to use one product to funnel readers into becoming fans, and so forth.
If you can do that, and you can write well, I don’t actually think it matters whether you’ve been published traditionally.
Platform is a factor in success (and don’t let anyone claim it isn’t), but I don’t think it’s the most important one. I’ve watched NYT-bestselling authors be unable to sell their self-pubbed books because they don’t have the business sense to leverage their platform; I’ve watched unknown authors take the tiny readership they get from publishing one decent book and leverage it over and over until they have a solid fanbase.
Platform is the weight you throw on the lever. If you can’t place a fulcrum and don’t have a lever, it doesn’t matter how heavy you are.
Mechanics are more important than the starting position.
I could say a LOT more, but I think at this point the best self-publishers are vastly superior to traditional publishers on the mechanics of the digital marketplace, and the best traditional-publishers are vastly superior to self-publishers on the mechanics of the print marketplace. So the right balance stems from the relative mixes between digital and print in a given genre (for instance, YA right now is much more print-heavy than romance), as well as the individual desires and capabilities of the potential self-publisher as compared to the skill-level of the potential publisher.
Courtney Milan: Thank you so much. I was so hoping you would weigh in. You’re right. Everything I have said is very much influenced by my coming out of the YA genre. I just can’t see—at this moment in time—a YA author successfully self-publishing as a first time novelist without some kind of a platform.
But as you say things are very different in romance.
Platform is a factor in success (and don’t let anyone claim it isn’t), but I don’t think it’s the most important one. I’ve watched NYT-bestselling authors be unable to sell their self-pubbed books because they don’t have the business sense to leverage their platform; I’ve watched unknown authors take the tiny readership they get from publishing one decent book and leverage it over and over until they have a solid fanbase.
Is another factor in all of this frequency of publication? One of the things that has always made me afraid of pursuing my love of romance to actually write romance novels is that you seem to need to publish a minimum of two-books a year to have a sustainable career. And that this is just as true self publishing as it is if you’re with a traditional romance publisher.
I could say a LOT more, but I think at this point the best self-publishers are vastly superior to traditional publishers on the mechanics of the digital marketplace, and the best traditional-publishers are vastly superior to self-publishers on the mechanics of the print marketplace.
I do hope you will say more about this. On your blog. I am absolutely fascinated and all ears.
Yeah, I think YA and romance are almost diametrically opposed on the self-pub scale: publishers actually DO a lot for YA authors (whereas even NYT bestselling authors these days are telling me their publishers put them on Netgalley and that’s it), and print distribution is slowing to a trickle in romance, whereas it’s still going strong for YA.
I have MANY THOUGHTS about the frequency of publication since I am not a fast writer in the self-publishing world. I am REALLY EFFING SLOW compared to the people who are putting out books every six weeks. I am fast if you mean I can manage somewhere between 1.5 to 2 books a year, but at this point in romance self-publishing, two books a year is sloow and I do things to compensate.
But in summation: The more memorable your books are, and the better you are at mechanical stuff, the slower you’re allowed to be.
Courtney Milan: putting out books every six weeks
How? I can’t even. What? How possible? That just makes me turn into a gibbering wreck. I didn’t even have one novel this year . . .
Even NYT bestselling authors these days are telling me their publishers put them on Netgalley and that’s it.
Makes me wonder how sustainable a model that is for those publishers. If they’re not doing any marketing or publicity no wonder so many romance writers self publish.
Yeah, I would hope (though I can’t say for sure until it happens) that just publishing a book would be all I need to feel validated, even if nothing really comes after that. My goal is to be a full-time author though, so I’d like to continue writing and publishing books traditionally, and selling at least enough that publishers continue buying books from me, lol. I feel, at this time, that all of that other stuff (NYT Bestseller, movie/TV optioning, etc.) is great (of course!), but I know it’s not really something I can control and shouldn’t use it as a source of validation.
Good that it was just one person, though crazy (and a bit sad) that they would pretend to be multiple people just to hate on you.
I’m also in agreement with your befuddlement at books coming out every 6 weeks. HOW?! I’m a slow writer too (well, really more of a procrastinator-y one) so I can’t even imagine having a different book out every 6 weeks. I was amazed at Meg Cabot having like 2-4 books out every year for a while there. I’d be a little leery about the quality of said books though, if they’re being put out at that kind of pace.
The people I know who do that work REALLY, REALLY hard–it’s not even funny how hard they work.
It would also make me a gibbering wreck. But it’s really not so different from what people like Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope did–so it’s clearly possible to write that fast and still write well.
Different people write at different paces, and like all things in publishing, it’s a matter of getting comfortable with who you are, not with comparing yourself to what other people do.
BookChic: I’m a slow writer too (well, really more of a procrastinator-y one) so I can’t even imagine having a different book out every 6 weeks. I was amazed at Meg Cabot having like 2-4 books out every year for a while there. I’d be a little leery about the quality of said books though, if they’re being put out at that kind of pace.
As Courtney Points out there are super-prolific writers whose quality is really, really good. I would add to her list Georges Simenon.
Courtney Milan: Different people write at different paces, and like all things in publishing, it’s a matter of getting comfortable with who you are, not with comparing yourself to what other people do.
Funnily enough I have a whole post about this. The assumption that writing fast per se means you’re producing shit and if you write slow you must be good irks me.
However, for slow writers considering switching to self-publishing the fast pace of it is terrifying. It does seem to be a model that advantages the speedy writer. Would love to hear about your ways around that. How do we slow pokes compete? Have you blogged about it?
And, yes, it’s scary that you, who I think of as a fast writer, is considered slow in the self-publishing world.