Tyler Wagner argues self-publishing beats traditional publishing 99% of the time because authors keep 70% royalties on Kindle versus 10-20% from major houses that take 80-90%. Self-publishing offers full ownership and creative control, whether you hire freelancers or use a service publisher.
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Should you do traditional or self-publishing? So traditional publishing or self-publishing? My name is Tyler Wagner. I'm the founder of AuthorsUnite.com, and I'm going to answer that question for you now. So should you do traditional publishing or self-publishing? Well, it really depends on what your goals are, but I will say this up front so you don't even have to watch the rest of this if you don't want. But 99% of the time, self-publishing is gonna be better. But if you'd like to stay longer and watch me kind of calculate this out as to why that is, feel free to continue watching. So really, in today's world, right, as this video is being filmed, it's 2019, and the gatekeepers are gone, okay? So you don't need a publisher anymore to become an author. You can self-publish. And it's actually fairly easy. So you don't, you don't need it. Now, the one thing that traditional publishing does have a benefit is the brand, right? So, you know, some of the big 5 publishers, they have very big brands. And if you are published by one of them, it definitely helps. It definitely helps your brand. Okay. So other than that, I don't see the benefit of it, honestly. Like that is the only benefit that I see because here's the deal. If you go with one of those big brands, there's big publishers. Well, here's the deal. Typically, they're going to take like 80-90% of the royalties from the book, right? So let's just say the book's $20. We're talking like paperback here. The book's $20. You're— and that's the retail price. Your royalty is like $7, okay, from that. And then they're taking 90% of that. I mean, you gotta— sorry for the bumpiness— you gotta sell a lot, a lot, a lot of books books to make some money. And hey, you might, but you know, most authors don't. Okay, so, you know, I think that— imagine, right? You spend all that time writing that book, you know, sweat, blood, sweat, and tears, and then you got to give— you got to give 90% of that to them just to put their logo or their brand on it. I mean, I think that's a little loco, so I'm going to say no to that. Now let's look at self-publishing, right? So self-publishing is amazing. I mean, and here's the deal, right? It comes down to like time and money. So, you know, let's just say you choose self-publishing because you should. So you choose self-publishing, then you have kind of two options from there. Is you can try to figure it all out on your own, try to find good designers, try to find good editors and all that. Or you could go with a, like a service publisher, which is basically like what Authors Unite is, the company that I run, that has already brought all this together for you and can handle all that work for you. So all you have to do is write your book and then we take care of all the publishing and marketing for you to get you to bestseller and to actually grow your business with your book, right? So once you choose self-publishing, which you should, then those are the kind of two options. And it really just comes down to how much time you want to put into it. Um, you know, time is our most valuable asset. So Hence, that's why I've already gone through all this for you, is to figure out, you know, who are the best designers out there, who are the best editors, who are the best marketers. We at Authors Unite are easily the best marketers out there for hitting the bestseller list like the Wall Street Journal and other lists like that. So, so yeah, that's really what it comes down to. And here's the thing too with self-publishing, and if you were to work with Authors Unite, you don't have to, but I'd highly, highly recommend it. You keep all royalties, right? So 100% ownership of the book and all royalties. At Authors Unite, we don't take any. When you self-publish, they don't take any. Now the thing is on Amazon, right? Like when you publish with them, you'll get for Kindle, you'll get 70%, they take 30%. There's some other technicalities with all that, not really the point of this video. But you, by self-publishing or working with a company like Authors Unite, you will get the most royalties from your book that you possibly can, okay? And all that time that you spent, you should You deserve that. Why would you give up 90%? It's just crazy. So that's that. And then it's also freedom, right? You have the freedom to do with your book as you wish, okay? And really, I think as far as I'm concerned, those are the two biggest reasons why you should self-publish. Like, you actually can make money from your book. You actually make, you know, a good percentage from it. And you have that freedom to do as you wish with your book, right? So which one should you do? I've already told you this, and you know, I told you in the first 3 seconds, but you should 100% self-publish. It's just, there's no reason not to. So for all of you out there that do want to write books and do want to become bestsellers on lists like the Wall Street Journal and do want to grow your business with your book and actually have a system that does that for you, that generates you leads for your business, then go to authorsunite.com, um, and we look forward to seeing you there.
