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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27065
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27065
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Personally, I would not regard self publishing as an alternative to traditional publishing but as a market for work that does not fit in the traditional publishing sphere.

Publishing is book marketing. Marketing is about knowing a particular part of the market and figuring out how to sell to it. Each traditional publisher has figured out how to sell to one or more segments of the market. In some really lucrative markets there are multiple publishers competing. In smaller markets there is often only one or two publishers competing. In some niche markets there may only be one.

And then there are all the markets that are too small or too obscure or too difficult to understand for it to make business sense for a traditional publisher to serve that market. This is where self publishing makes sense, providing you understand that market. Since no traditional publisher will attempt to address that market, the only way to get to it is to self publish. Web based self-publishing platforms make it vastly easier to reach such markets now, so self publishing becomes a much more viable vehicle for reaching that market.

Of course, those misunderstood markets sometimes turn out to be huge, and produce the odd self publishing success story (which always ends with traditional publishing once the traditional publishers figure out the market). There are also a few (very few!) cases of mainstream works being self published and breaking out -- but those inevitably lead to traditional publishing, which is where the belonged all along.

If you go the self publishing route with a work that is in the market currently served by traditional publishers then you are competing with them and your chances of success are slim. Plus you cut yourself off from the discipline of refining your work to meet the demands of the market.

In short, a mainstream work should go to a mainstream publisher; a work intended for an unserved market has no choice but to go the self publishing route.

Original score: 2