Is traditional publishing still every writer's dream?
It's not.
I was at a loss on what to write this week, but then a certain author started making the rounds with a viral TikTok advising people to never take the self-publishing route first because it’s not worth it. I first heard of this because someone made a long, agitated post about this on Instagram. At first, I wanted to avoid it. I just wasn’t in the mood to get my blood pressure up over some author whom I’d never even heard of spouting their antiquated, unresearched views.
But then I got curious. So I looked it up. And though I was on the border of rage, I was able to hold myself back because, honestly, the video and all her points are laughable. This is an author who started publishing thirty years ago, who swears by her Penguin Random House marketing team, who has clearly done zero research and is sharing information that was generated in the back of her brain back in 1995 and has never bothered with an update.
The fact of the matter is that being traditionally published is not the dream people make it out to be. Not in this day and age. Furthermore, after hanging out and working with many happy, self-published authors, being traditionally published is a dream, but most definitely, not the dream anymore.
Once upon a time, I, too, thought traditional publishing was the only acceptable route to getting published. Self-publishing was for people who couldn’t make it in the traditional publishing world. But then self-publishing started becoming more accessible. Amazon and IngramSpark among others came along. And thanks to the influence of the internet and social media, marketing your own book doesn’t have to be that hard either.
More and more people started self-publishing. More and more people started taking control of their narratives, publishing stories the way they wanted to, without having to change parts that were important to them just to be able to check boxes imposed by trad publishers. Genres started evolving. Writers were able to push their imaginations to new levels, to experiment with new techniques. Readers were able to find something that seemed tailored just for them.
A huge community of self-published writers and their readers emerged online, people who show up for each other and help each other to sell and market their books. Self-publishing has evolved in such a way that it’s a movement in and of itself. I almost don’t even think trad publishing and self-publishing should even be compared because they stand on two completely different planes. Yes, both aim at getting stories out to readers, but I’d say self-publishing has accomplished things that trad publishing hasn’t, while trad pub seems to bring more and more drama whenever news is heard from them (some of the stories in just the last year have even more drama than some of the telenovelas I watched when I was young).
I don’t want to put down traditional publishing. This isn’t about raising one above the other. I just want people to stop looking down on self-publishing and pretending that traditional publishing is the only way to be considered a “serious writer.” Writers are no longer choosing self-publishing because “they got rejected” or “couldn’t make it” in trad publishing.
In fact, as a neurodivergent person with extreme social anxiety, now that I’m older, I’ve come to recognize that the expectations of traditionally publishing a novel would exhaust me. I don’t want to do book tours and in-person events. I go to one writing group on Saturdays, and I end up needing the whole weekend just to recuperate from the exertion socializing takes from me. I want a quiet, manageable book release. Something that’s not going to overstimulate me. Whoever finds my book finds it. If my book doesn’t become the next best-seller, oh well. At the end of the day, I just wanted to write a book because the story and characters would not leave me alone, because I enjoyed the wordplay, because I wanted to make the pictures in my mind feel real.
What's more, authors who’ve managed to acquire trad pub deals often complain that their publishing houses aren’t putting the marketing efforts they thought they would into their books. Unless you’re a big-time writer such as Stephen King or Colleen Hoover, publishing houses are now counting on lesser-known authors to do most of their marketing, essentially leaving them in the big kid pool without floaters, kicking for their lives.
Thirty years ago, the publishing scene looked much different. If an author wanted to be even remotely known, they had to go the traditionally published route. That isn’t the case anymore. Publishing houses and their marketing teams were more likely to hold you by the hand on your author journey. That also isn’t the case anymore.
Self-published authors are not people who gave up. They’re not people who are lazy. They’re not seeking to self-publish just because they got rejected. They’re people simply with a dream of getting a story out of their heads and into book format at the very core of it all. They’re people who are not willing to give up story arcs that matter to them, or who want to mix genres, who are tired of having their imaginations curtailed, editing stories, adored book cover designs, and even titles just so they can make large profits. We’re people who don’t want the complications of dealing with corporate offices, and who are happy with our quiet, unknown lives. This is a choice and a valid one.
We’re all just trying to find ways in which to accomplish our dreams and goals, and those ways don’t all have to look the same. If someone is going on social media to spout writing advice, they should first and foremost check that they’re not the kind of person whose ideas only run along black or white lines. There isn’t just one kind of writer out there. We don’t all want the big payout. We don’t all want fame. We don’t all seek prestige. Some of us just want to tell stories. Nothing more.
January 2024 Gratitude Challenge
Continuing with
’s January Gratitude Challenge, here are the things in my life I’ve found time to be grateful for over the past week:1/14 - Having found/learned the power to say ‘no.’
1/15 - Winter is cold and isolating. But snow is gorgeous. Falling snow is magic.
1/16 - Secondhand bookstores.
1/17 - YouTube. It’s such a fountain of information. Pick a topic. Any topic. YouTube’s got you.
1/18 - Sunny days. Especially in winter.
1/19 - Being a writer.
1/20 - Margaritas.
Hi there, I’m Maria! I’m a freelance fiction editor assisting women writers in amplifying their voices through their writing. You can find me on Instagram @theintuitivedesk. Or visit my site
www. theintuitivedesk.com to find out more.
I’m also a writer currently working on too many novels at the same time. You can read some of my past writings here.
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Two things. I have to second your Jan. 19 & 20.
Also, thank you for this piece. I self-published my first book and have several more in the making, and I internalized a lot of what you wrote about. So much so, I didn’t give Georgie’s Long Goodbye the love it gave me. I’m circling back to my marketing plan. But reading this felt validating. Much appreciated.