Indie Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

This is my take on Indie vs Traditional publishing. Over the past year and a half or so, I've been reading many different articles, some for and some against Indie publishing.

I have a few author friends who went the traditional route, and were completely frustrated because their publisher or editor wanted them to make major changes to their novel. I'm not talking minor things like sentence structure or maybe rearranging things a bit. One author was told to get rid of all the dialects in her book. What?? The dialects helped make the book, and it would have changed it substantially. After weeks of arguing back and forth, she finally won, but at the cost of great frustration.

Then there is the rejection factor; J.K. Rowling was rejected twelve times before the Harry Potter series was accepted. Considering it can take upwards of six months to even get that rejection, one can see how much time is involved. That is even if one can find an agent willing to represent them, and most publishers do not accept unsolicited or unagented manuscripts.

Then there is the time it takes to actually get the book in print; anything up to two years and sometimes longer.

Another friend went the Indie route, observing that these days the publisher expects the writer to do most of the work anyway, and then takes 30% of the profit! "I may as well do it myself, that way I know if things go sideways, it's my fault!" Then there is the time frame; if one is on the ball, one can be published and up for sale in weeks as opposed to months or years. Granted, it is a LOT of work! I did my own editing, revising, polishing, book cover design,marketing, etc. But the satisfaction of holding one's printed book in one's hands is incredible, and worth all the work involved!

I started my novel way back in 2000, after years of life intruding, etc. I finally said that come hell or high water, I would finish the book and see it published before I turned 70. (I just turned 67). What I hadn't planned on, is that the book rather wrote itself, using me as its secretary! I also had not planned on writing a second book-or a third, but that seems to be where I am going at the moment. The last paragraph of the first book came to me long before I finished it, and as my daughter said, "I smell another book!"

Now that the first one is in print, I am busily marketing it locally for a start, and then we'll see. I have a convention in mid February, then I clear off my writing desk, get new pens and paper, and start the process all over again. After all, it is the journey that sustains us.