To indie publish or traditionally publish? That is the question.

Alright, enough pseudo-Shakespeare.

A decade ago, independent publishing was considered Plan B, the consolation prize for authors who weren’t good enough to get a contract. Back then, the only authors who self-published were those who couldn’t break into the traditional publishing world.

Indie publishing carried a stigma. It was for the sad, lonely, dejected, “second-class” authors. But times have changed, and so has the stigma partly because many independent authors outsell and out-earn the status-chasing traditional authors. Today, many authors actively choose independent publishing even when they have a contract from big-name publishers.

And while it is common for traditional authors to give up on traditional publishing and go independent, it is far less common for successful indies to sign with a major publisher.

But why? Why would anyone make indie publishing Plan A?

I asked Scott LaPierre, an author, a conference speaker, and the father of ten children.

How did you start writing books?

Thomas: Tell us about your publishing journey. How did you get into writing books?

Scott: I’ve been a pastor and never sought to be an author. One year, I decided to preach on marriage at our church. It was supposed to be the marriage month, and the long-running joke is that it became the marriage year.

I’d put all these sermons together, and I was getting good feedback from the congregation. So, my wife told me that the marriage sermon series needed to be my first book.

My family and I went away on vacation, and I put this book together.

I knew nothing about the publishing industry. My book was twice as long as a typical nonfiction book should be, and I was so naive that when I finished the manuscript, I went to the Thomas Nelson website, expecting to find an option to upload my document for them to publish.

That’s when I first learned about literary agents and query letters. I didn’t realize that landing a publisher wasn’t the first goal. Sure, you might get a small publisher without an agent, but that wasn’t what I was aiming for.

So, I started writing query letters and sending them out. I probably sent around 40 and received only one or two responses. One response stood out. A gentleman wrote back and bluntly told me, “There’s no way anyone will be interested in you.” At first, his words were shocking and painful to hear, but in hindsight, it was valuable advice. It saved me from continuing to bang my head against the wall.

I replied, asking if he could elaborate. His response was simple: “You don’t have a platform.” That was the first time I’d heard the term. He advised me to self-publish instead. So, I did, and to my surprise, I enjoyed it. And my sales were pretty good.

What do you mean by “pretty good” sales?

Scott: You regularly tell authors not to publish the first book but I didn’t follow that advice. I published my first book, Your Marriage God’s Way (affiliate link), and it did incredibly well.

At the time, I didn’t realize my first book was selling incredibly well. It wasn’t until I published other books and saw that their sales didn’t come close that I understood just how successful it had been. The first book sold around 25,000 copies.

The book also led to speaking engagements. Even though I’m a full-time pastor, my elders graciously allowed me to take six to eight weekends a year to travel and lead marriage conferences, which I love doing.

I later published an accompanying workbook, and at that point, I was completely comfortable with nearly every aspect of self-publishing. One day, another author approached me and said, “You’ve got a lot of good things going for you. Have you ever thought about getting a literary agent?” I said, “Yeah, I tried years ago.”

For many of us, getting a publisher is the litmus test of success as an author. I wanted that traditional route for the validation and to feel like I had truly “made it” as an author.

This author told me, “I have a literary agent, and I think you have a lot of good things going for you. I’d love to introduce you to her.” I told him, “I’m not really pursuing that route anymore. I’ve become pretty comfortable with self-publishing.” But I figured there was no harm in at least meeting her.

When we spoke, she said, “I think we could get you a great contract. When publishers see your sales and how well you’ve done as an indie author, they’ll want to get behind what you’re doing, and that will only make things bigger and better.” That sounded great to me, so we put together a proposal, which was a long and detailed process. She did an excellent job crafting it and then pitched my finance book to multiple publishers.

My brand is God’s Way—Your Marriage, God’s Way, Your Finances, God’s Way, and my next book, Being Content, God’s Way, which is already mostly finished. But I wanted to see what it would be like to go through a traditional publisher if someone was interested.

Then, one of the executives at Harvest House reached out and said, “Why don’t you come to Portland, and we’ll have breakfast together? I saw your proposal and am very interested in what you’re doing.”

So my wife and I went to Portland, met with him and his wife over breakfast, and gave him copies of my books. He seemed genuinely enthusiastic about me and my work. But during that meeting, he told me something I didn’t take seriously enough at the time. He said, “We’re not going to be able to do much for you that you’re not already doing. We won’t be able to offer you anything you don’t already have.”

I brushed that off because I was so excited about getting published with a traditional publisher. His statement wasn’t a criticism of Harvest House; it’s simply the reality for most publishers today. Harvest House is a great publisher, and I have nothing but good things to say about them.

He meant that many authors mistakenly believe a traditional publisher will handle all their marketing and put in a ton of effort to promote their book, but that’s not how it works. There was a time when publishers would “discover” an author, shine a golden light on them, and do all the work to build their platform and sell their books. But now, it’s pretty much the opposite.

Today, publishers are looking for authors who are already established, already selling books, and already have a platform. In a somewhat ironic twist, publishers are essentially looking for authors who don’t need a publisher.

So, what can a publisher provide? They can give you a cover, an editor, typesetting, and book design. But as most indie authors know, those services are easy to secure on your own.

Thomas: Business-savvy authors with large platforms don’t work with traditional publishers.

Dave Ramsey publishes his own books. Taylor Swift publishes her own books. What would a publisher do for Taylor Swift besides take most of the money? She didn’t need a publisher in any way, so she bypassed them entirely and made a fortune.

She took the same approach with her concert film, skipping the major movie studios and partnering directly with AMC Theaters. For her book, she contracted directly with Target. Moves like these terrify publishers because they represent millions of dollars they would have made if she had worked with them. Instead, she kept all those millions to sustain her massive empire.

How did publishing traditionally affect your sales?

Scott: As soon as your profits are limited to $0.80 per book by a publisher, then your cost-per-click advertising can’t be profitable.

Thomas: Harvest House wasn’t giving Scott a bad deal; that’s just the industry standard. Traditionally published authors typically earn between 80 cents and a dollar per book, and that’s only after they’ve sold enough copies to pay off their advance. They don’t see any royalties for the first several thousand book sales.

Even once they start earning royalties, payments are delayed, and they receive their money about six months after the books are sold.

In contrast, indie authors generally make between $4.00 to $8.00 per book, depending on various factors, and they get paid within 30 to 60 days of the sale. This creates a much faster cash flow cycle, which is especially important if you’re running ads. Plus, with a higher profit per book, indie authors have more money to reinvest in marketing, which makes advertising far more sustainable.

Was advertising a part of your marketing mix?

Scott: I use Amazon ads. I tried Facebook ads. I’ve tried Twitter and Google ads, but Amazon works well for me. I understand that some make it big with Facebook ads, but I didn’t do well with them.

I’ve done well with Amazon ads and really enjoyed using them. In fact, I almost think that’s what caught Harvest House’s attention. They probably saw my sales numbers and thought, “Wow, this guy must have a huge platform.”

But I don’t have a large platform. I’m guessing most of your listeners have never heard of me and have never attended one of my conferences. I’m not a big-name figure like John MacArthur or Paul Washer.

Most of my book sales come from my own marketing efforts, not from name recognition. So when I signed with Harvest House, my marketing was taken away, and my sales were lost.

Something pretty interesting happened. Harvest House wanted to sign me to a multi-book deal, but they also wanted to republish Your Marriage, God’s Way. They had seen the sales numbers, and I don’t think they were trying to take advantage of me. I believe they thought this would be a great way to launch me into the publishing world. But the problem was that republishing meant pulling the book off Amazon.

All of Amazon’s algorithms had been working in my favor. They were driving sales and promoting the book organically, and all of that would be lost if I pulled it off Amazon. And that’s a whole separate conversation. You can get Amazon to work for you. You can trigger its algorithms to help sell your book.

I made the difficult decision to remove the book and workbook from Amazon so that Harvest House could publish it. My wife and I were excited and anticipating great results. But when the book launched, it just seemed to fall flat. Sales weren’t what they had been before. It felt dead in the water.

To be fair, I did sell out my advance, and Harvest House told me they planned to do another printing. But while they were pleased with the sales, I wasn’t.

How many copies per month were you selling before you signed with Harvest House?

Scott: Probably 500 to 600.

How many copies were you selling with Harvest House after the initial launch?

Scott: Probably 200 to 300.

Thomas: So, you had a successful indie book that you were running ads for. Essentially, you were acquiring readers for around $2.00 per reader and earning about $4.00 per reader in return. Is that roughly accurate?

Scott: A simpler way to say it is that I knew that I could profitably run Amazon ads for about 45 to 50 cents per click. That doesn’t mean a click is a sale, a click is a click. But those clicks converted to enough sales that I was still profitable.

As soon as I started running ads on a traditionally published book where I was making 80 cents per book sale, I had to decrease my cost per click so I could remain profitable. That meant I could only pay around 15 cents per click, and you don’t even get any clicks at that price. So that was one of the problems.

Thomas: Another thing many authors don’t realize is that traditional publishers won’t pay for advertising for your book. In their contracts, they never commit to paying for advertising. They could easily pledge to spend $10,000 on Amazon ads to promote your book, but they never do because they don’t want to spend that money.

Instead, they want to generate sales for free. To put it another way, they want you to pay for the ads. Ideally, they’d like you to take the 80 cents per book you earn in royalties and use it to buy clicks that ultimately benefit them.

I remember being on a call with a major publisher when I was a literary agent. The marketing person was trying to convince the author to spend nearly her entire advance on a book trailer.

I knew that book trailers didn’t drive sales. There’s a reason Amazon doesn’t allow authors to embed them on book pages; they actually hurt sales. A low-budget video from a reader is far more effective than a high-production book trailer. But the publisher wanted her to invest in an expensive one.

I told her not to do it. If she did, she’d essentially be working for free, giving all the money they had paid her right back to them. She wouldn’t see a single penny from the publisher, and they’d still expect her to market the book on her own. Honestly, it felt pretty abusive.

Literary agents serve authors by protecting them from getting beat up by their traditional publishers in that way.

Traditional Publisher: Decreased Sales

Thomas: When you went with a traditional publisher, your sales went down.

Narrow to No Margins

Many authors think their sales will go up with a traditional publisher. But if you’re using the indie marketing techniques we talk about and your advertising is already working for you, a publisher won’t help your sales increase. Why? Because many of those effective advertising tools aren’t available to you as a traditionally published author. You simply don’t have the margins.

You’re making too little per book to be able to afford most of the marketing techniques.

Poor Cash Flow

Traditionally published authors have become, in a sense, the poor of the publishing world. They don’t have money, and they don’t have a marketing budget. But it’s not just about the money; it’s also about cash flow.

Even if a traditionally published author could advertise profitably, the problem is timing. You have to spend money now but won’t see any returns for six months. That means you need six months of working capital to operate. Anyone who has studied business or understands cash flow knows that’s a terrible cash flow cycle.

Ideally, you want a positive cash flow cycle. Amazon makes money now, and then they pay their vendors 30 days later. They’ve grown their whole empire through a positive cash flow cycle where they effectively borrow money from their vendors for 30 days.

Lack of Data

Besides the low margins and unsustainable cash flow, the other big problem is the lack of data. As an indie author, you had this wonderful KDP dashboard. You knew exactly how many sales you got per day. If you’re using Amazon tags, you can see how many of those sales came from your Facebook or X advertising campaigns, your Amazon ads clicks, or organic searches. With that data, you could experiment and learn.

But as soon as you signed with Harvest House, they put a blindfold on you, and you didn’t get any of that data.

Scott: They did have an author dashboard where you could see rankings, but it paled in comparison to the data you can get as an indie author.

Publishers get books in bookstores, whereas indie authors can’t do that as easily. It sounds great, but it’s not that helpful.

Lack of SEO Knowledge

This might sound harsh or arrogant, but I don’t think publishers understand Amazon as well as many indie authors do.

By that, I mean that Amazon is not a bookstore. Amazon is a search engine. In fact, after Google, it’s tied with YouTube as the second-largest search engine. If you approach Amazon with this in mind and optimize your books for its search algorithm, you can dramatically increase your sales.

I was talking to people in the publishing world who didn’t understand SEO, keywords, or how to embed keywords in book descriptions. It was so frustrating because I had no control over any of it. I couldn’t update my book descriptions or even my book cover.

My book is a very conservative marriage book, but the cover they provided, while beautifully designed, was super contemporary. It didn’t resonate with my readers, and I had little say in the matter. Suddenly, my branding was completely off course. I had built a brand moving in one direction, and now it was being steered in another.

When the book first went live on Amazon, I checked the description, looking for keywords that would help with search optimization, but I couldn’t even find them. I’m not sure SEO was something they had even considered.

As an indie author, I have become incredibly familiar with this side of marketing. But it’s clear that many traditional publishers don’t have the same level of understanding or focus on it.

Thomas: That has been my exact experience when interacting with executives at publishing companies. Many of them come from the editorial world. Many were English majors who became editors and worked their way up through the editorial ranks, learning the business side on the job.

Others came up through the retail world. They ran bookstores, worked in warehouses, and developed a deep understanding of fulfillment, inventory costs, and distribution, which are crucial in traditional publishing.

In the print world, especially for evergreen books, mastering inventory and distribution can give a publisher a significant edge. Take Bibles, for example. You don’t need to do much marketing for a Bible. The demand remains steady, and the popularity of a translation doesn’t fluctuate much from year to year. These trends are measured in decades, not months. In cases like that, strong distribution experience is incredibly valuable.

Traditional publishers rarely have people who came up through the SEO or search engine world. You don’t typically see those who truly understand metadata, algorithms, keywords, and how to reverse-engineer a search algorithm working for publishers.

Many in traditional publishing assume that because Amazon doesn’t share its algorithm, it’s impossible to optimize for it. But that’s simply not true. While Amazon doesn’t publicly reveal its algorithm, that doesn’t mean you can’t figure it out. By running your own experiments and analyzing the results, you can gain insights that even major publishers don’t have.

Lack of Proximity to Readers

Indie authors are much closer to their readers. They know exactly what their audience wants, which allows them to optimize for algorithms more efficiently. They can help Amazon’s algorithm find the right kind of reader for their books. In the indie world, it’s true in nonfiction and even more so in fiction.

Indie novelists have this process down to a science. For example, LitRPG authors know precisely who their readers are and how to guide the algorithm to find the right kind of nerd who loves their specific style of LitRPG.

Scott: It was a pretty discouraging thing to have what you think will be your dream come true and then find out that it doesn’t go that way.

Timeline for Making Corrections or Changes

Scott: The other thing is that even a great publisher won’t care about your book as much as you do. As an indie author, you can easily make changes through the KDP dashboard. But to get those same changes made through your publisher is very difficult.

If you find a mistake on a page, you can send your list to your publisher, but it won’t be changed until the next printing. They print 5,000 copies at a time, so the changes won’t be made until those 5,000 copies are sold.  

Cost of Author Copies

Another issue is simply buying author copies. Harvest House told me they would offer discounts on my books, which sounded great. As a speaker, book sales at events are a key revenue stream, often worth a few thousand dollars, not just from honorariums but from selling books directly to attendees.

However, the pricing difference was significant. When ordering through KDP, I could get my book for $3.00-$4.00 per copy. Through my publisher, I had to pay $7.00-$8.00 per book. That drastically cut into my margins.

On top of that, to get the best discount from Harvest House, I had to buy thousands of copies upfront. That created a whole new problem with storage. Instead of ordering copies as needed, I had to figure out where to store them and how to sell them through all that inventory.

With KDP, you can order the number of author copies you need. You don’t have to buy in bulk or worry about storage. I can even have the books shipped directly to the event.

If I’m speaking in North Carolina or Florida, I can send the books straight to the church from my KDP dashboard. I ask them to hold onto the shipment until I arrive, which means I don’t have to transport them myself.

In addition to the financial benefits, it makes the logistics much easier.

Dealing with Seller’s Remorse

Scott: I remember talking to my wife and saying, “I can’t believe this, but I regret this. I wish I could get my book back.”

This wasn’t a reflection on Harvest House. But I knew if I pursued getting my rights back, I would burn bridges with the traditional publishing world.

That’s something I would caution your listeners about. I know my situation is a bit unique because most authors are either fully indie or fully traditional. I’ve had the opportunity to experience both.

If an author chooses the traditional route and later wants to reclaim the rights to their books, they will likely have difficulty getting another traditional publishing deal. Their literary agent may not even want to continue working with them.

I contacted my agent and said, “You’re great. This isn’t personal. Harvest House is great. But it’s become clear to me that I’m an indie author.” I knew that probably meant the end of our professional relationship. We’re still cordial online, but she no longer represents me as an agent.

The same is likely true for traditional publishers. If I reached out to another publisher, I’m not sure they would be interested, knowing that I got my rights back. I haven’t tested it, so I can’t say how they would respond.

But it’s important to understand that once you try to reclaim the rights to your books, you’re probably burning your bridges with traditional publishing.

Thomas: You didn’t demand to get your rights back. Instead, you approached it as a business deal. You entered into a contract and simply asked, “How much will it cost to buy back the rights to my book?”

Many authors don’t realize this is an option, but it’s almost always on the table. The price may be higher than you want to pay, but it’s rarely out of reach.

Most medium to large publishers release at least 52 books a year, and many publish hundreds. That means every week, there’s a new darling they’re excited about. Your book from last week, last month, or last year is no longer a priority.

Indie authors, on the other hand, are constantly tweaking and optimizing their books. This is one of the reasons they excel at SEO. They don’t just create an Amazon page once and leave it. They continually refine it to be more effective. Their books rank better because they actively manage their metadata and keyword optimization.

Traditional publishers, however, tend to treat books like print products; once they’re out, they’re done. With the exception of a few top-tier titles, they rarely go back to fine-tune metadata or improve SEO.

So, if you approach a publisher and say, “I’ll buy all the copies in your warehouse. What price would make that work?” they may be open to negotiation. For them, selling off remaining inventory eliminates warehousing costs and other expenses. From there, you can negotiate a price that works for both of you.

How did you approach your publisher and ask to buy back your book rights?

Scott: I wasn’t even sure if I could get my rights back. I revisited my contracts for each book I had with Harvest House and looked for the section about rights reversion. I initially had this conversation with my agent, and to her credit, she helped me through that uncomfortable conversation.

If your publisher gave you an advance of $15,000 per book, they’re going to expect you to pay it back if you haven’t already paid it off through sales. They’ll also expect you to buy the inventory.

Since Your Marriage, God’s Way did well for Harvest House, I had sold through the initial printing in about two years. I had paid off my advance and started to receive royalties. So when I reached out to them to ask about rights reversion, they gave me a status report, were gracious, and gave it back.

The next book, Your Finance is God’s Way, was more challenging because it hadn’t sold through the advance, and there was inventory on hand.

They ran some discounts themselves to get rid of some of the inventory, which was a real blessing to me because there were fewer copies I had to buy.

I don’t know what other publishers do, but Harvest House ran half-price discounts and unloaded around 1,000 copies to a distributor. Consequently, there were fewer copies for me to buy back, and it helped pay back part of my advance. Eventually, I got the book back and published it on Amazon yesterday.

But again, these are all things that authors can do on their own without a publisher. Oftentimes, you’ll take better care of your work than a publisher will.

If you don’t have a publisher to secure a designer, can you get a good one?

Thomas: You can hire top-tier cover designers, editors, and interior layout freelancers who can do the same high-quality work for you as they do for traditional publishers. The difference is that by hiring them yourself, you keep more of your money and maintain control over your book.

In fact, many of these professionals are the same people publishers hire. Most cover designers, with the exception of those at some children’s book publishers, are not on staff. Instead, publishing houses hire freelance designers based on whether their style fits a particular book.

Professional cover designers often list dozens of publishing houses they work with because they specialize in certain genres or audiences. These same designers are also available to indie authors. Many of them do just as much work for successful indies as they do for traditional publishers.

Of course, hiring a top-tier cover designer will cost more than using a cheap, pre-made cover or working with someone who is just starting out. But if you’re willing to invest, you can achieve the same professional quality as a traditionally published book.

The same applies to editors. While more editors are on staff at publishing houses, many still work freelance. They take on projects for both publishers and indie authors, meaning you can hire an editor with just as much experience and skill as one working for a major house.

The barrier to quality isn’t a real obstacle. Indie authors can match the quality of traditionally published books. And when it comes to marketing, they can exceed it. Indie authors tend to have more optimized strategies and make significantly more money per copy sold.

Where can I find professional designers and editors?

Scott: To find cover designers or interior designers, just look at the copyright page of a book. Many of them are listed there for you.

I liked the way the interior of my book looked, so I went to the copyright page, found the name of the design agency. When I contacted them myself, I explained they had done the design for my book with Harvest House, and I’d bought back the rights. I told them I liked the design so much I wanted them to design the interior for me.

Do a little search on the internet, contact the designer, mention the book title where you found their name, and say, “I loved the cover (or interior) you did for this book. What would it cost to secure your services and have you do the same thing for me?”

I’ve been using miblart.com for cover design, and they do a really great job. I think they provide high-quality covers that are at least as good as those secured by a traditional publisher.

Thomas: You can also find freelancers in the acknowledgments of a book. I strongly believe that if you’re indie publishing, you should credit every single person you paid to work on your book. Whether it’s in the acknowledgments, on the copyright page, or in a dedicated credits section, their names should be included. In my books, I have a credits page because I wanted to make it clear who contributed. In fact, I even made this part of my negotiation, saying, “I want to include your name in the book, and I’ll list your website on the credits page.” That way, if people appreciate their work, they might hire them for future projects.

I learned this approach from Steve Jobs. He believed that people do better work when their names are attached to it. On the very first Apple II computers, he had the engineers’ signatures laser-etched inside the chassis. These computers are now valuable collector’s items, but at the time, it was a deliberate move. Jobs knew that by putting their names on the product, those engineers would be more motivated to work late, push harder, and take pride in their work.

I saw this principle in action with one of the professionals working on my book. She was in the middle of a cross-country move when we needed some last-minute changes. Even though she had every reason to step away and let someone else handle it, she stayed committed because her name was in the book. She wanted to make sure that the work she was credited for was done right.

Giving credit not only helps the people you hire by promoting their business and strengthening the indie publishing ecosystem, but it also results in a better book in the end. People are invested in the success of the project.

https://youtu.be/c-OnG77QyKc

From Indie to Traditional to Indie

Thomas: Starting as an indie author, switching to traditional publishing, and returning to indie has become common in the romance genre for many of the same reasons.

In response, a new kind of publishing company is starting to emerge, designed specifically for savvy indie authors. There’s already one in the romance space, and I’m beginning to see the seeds of similar models appearing in other genres.

What an indie author wants from a publisher is very different from what a traditional author wants. Most traditionally published authors don’t know what typesetting is or how to do it. To them, it’s a mysterious and complicated process. They don’t realize how simple it can be. If you’re writing a novel, you can just put your manuscript into Vellum, and it formats the book in minutes. But because they don’t know that, it feels intimidating, so they prefer to have someone else handle it.

On the other hand, the savvy indie author understands how to typeset their book and knows how to get a cover that attracts the right kind of reader.

Successful indie authors care less about the advance and more about the royalties. However, traditional publishing houses compete with each other based on the size of the advance they can offer and rarely negotiate on royalties.

What do indie authors want from traditional publishers?

Thomas: Successful indies want a traditional publisher to offer distribution into Bookstores, and that’s it. They want the publisher to provide a sales team to knock on bookstore doors, secure end cap displays, and initiate in-store marketing and advertising.  

There’s an entire world of book merchandising that remains pretty opaque to most indie authors. Many don’t know how to break into that space.

Suppose a publisher offered to help with distribution, get your book into bookstores, give higher royalties, and didn’t claim rights to the ebook. In that case, I imagine you’d consider it, especially if you could retain access to your sales data and dashboard.

Then again, at this point, maybe you’re fully committed to staying indie.

Scott: Pretty Much.

That’s funny you mention ebooks. It reminds me of something that really surprised me. As indie authors, we’re used to pricing our ebooks at $3.00 to $5.00. But traditional publishers want to sell paperback copies, so they jack up ebook prices.

If you enjoy strong ebook sales, be prepared to say goodbye to them if you sign with a traditional publisher. Because they want to push paperbacks, they price ebooks almost as high as the print editions. That caught me off guard and made it much harder to get people to buy the digital version.

When I talk to traditionally published authors at conferences, I often look up their books on Amazon and ask about their sales. As we get to know each other, I start to hear the real numbers, which are often much lower than expected.

One author told me that once his book is published, only a few hundred to maybe a thousand copies sell. The top percentage of books sell around 5,000 copies per year. That’s a very small minority.

There’s a common assumption that if an author has a traditional publisher, their book must sell in large numbers. But after speaking with many traditionally published Christian authors, I’ve learned that’s often not the case.

In fact, I’m sometimes surprised publishers even offer contracts to authors whose books sell so few copies. We can’t assume an author with a traditional publisher is selling thousands and thousands of books.

Thomas: One of our most popular episodes of 2024 was Publishing Secrets Revealed at the Penguin Random House Trial. One of the key revelations from that trial was that around 20% of traditionally published books from the Big Five publishers sell 12 copies or fewer.

There’s this perception that being published by Penguin or HarperCollins guarantees success. But that simply isn’t true. Many of these books are complete failures from a commercial perspective.

Scott: We know that there are box office bombs. We know that studios pour millions, even hundreds of millions of dollars, into movies that don’t make back their investment. And when that happens. How could all these experts, with all this money, release a movie that bankrupts a studio? We hear those stories all the time.

Well, movie studios are also just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. And if studios do that with multi-million dollar budgets, imagine how much publishers do it with books.

Publishers are constantly surprised by two things. They’re surprised when a book does poorly, but they’re also surprised when a book does well. Signing an author or giving them a contract doesn’t guarantee success. Sometimes, a book takes off, and no one at the publishing house is sitting back saying, “Yeah, we just knew that book was going to be a hit.” Instead, they’re pleasantly surprised when it sells thousands of copies. And they’re just as surprised when a book falls flat.

But again, just like the movie studios, they’re throwing stuff at the wall, hoping something sticks. A lot of books don’t. However, I didn’t know that some traditionally published books sell as few as 12 copies. That’s unbelievable.

Why are traditionally published ebooks priced so high?

Thomas: Traditional publishers price their ebooks much higher than indie publishers. To explain why, consider the pricing of Brandon Sanderson’s 1,300-page book Wind and Truth.

• Print: $24.00
• Ebook: $19.99

Why is the thick, physical book less than $5.00 more than the digital book?

To Make the Math Work

Part of it has to do with economies of scale. In order to make a profit selling a 1,300-page book, you have to print a lot of copies. You’ll have to have it printed in China and shipped on a slow boat. Then, you’ll have to store a massive number of copies in warehouses, retailers, and distributors across the country.

You have to sell a certain number of those books to break even. If you’ve printed 1,000,000 copies and got your cost down to $3.00 per copy, you have an initial outlay of $3 million just to print the book.

You’re in the red until your sales cover your $3 million cost. You really want to move those paper books so the whole print run will be profitable. That means every ebook you sell could have been a print book, and that’s one more book in the warehouse that you have to pay rent to store.

Warehouse space is not free, so you’re paying for storage space in all of these distribution warehouses around the country, and that is, it’s very expensive, especially when you have millions of copies.

Part of the reason they want to drive readers towards the print copies is to make the whole print run profitable. They don’t want to be stuck with hundreds of thousands of copies that they have to burn or pulp, which is often what happens.

When books don’t sell, the publisher has to pay money to dispose of the books. One way to fight the whole problem is by raising the cost of the ebook to make the print book more appealing.

Because of Amazon

Another reason big publishers price their ebooks so high is that Amazon controls the ebook market. Kindle is the dominant ebook reader, and even on other platforms, the Kindle app is the most widely used. Publishers are terrified that Amazon will gain complete control over pricing, distribution, and, ultimately, all the money in the market. And that fear isn’t unfounded. Having one company dominate the industry is a legitimate concern.

In response, Amazon is pouring billions of dollars into indie authors. The Amazon KDP Select fund alone is around half a billion dollars a year, and that money goes almost exclusively to indie authors. And that’s just for Kindle Unlimited; it doesn’t include direct ebook sales.

Most ebook sales also favor indie authors. Readers can either buy a $20 Brandon Sanderson book or, for the same price, pick up half a dozen LitRPGs, romantasy novels, or whatever niche they love. This has created a massive ecosystem that benefits indie authors, all under Amazon’s umbrella.

Amazon is using indie authors as leverage against traditional bookstores and big publishers. While indie authors might assume indie bookstores are their allies because they share the “indie” label, that’s not actually the case. Their financial incentives are completely misaligned.

Indie bookstores make their money by selling bestsellers from big publishers, which rely on large print runs of paperback and hardcover books. Meanwhile, indie authors make their money selling ebooks on Amazon. The reality is that these two groups are in direct competition, and they don’t always realize it. Being “indie” doesn’t necessarily make you friends.

What advice do you have for a writer deciding between indie or traditional publishing?

Scott: I’ve done both, and I would encourage them to go indie. It’s a wonderful world. I’m kind of a control freak, so personality may be a factor in your decision.

I was talking to a traditionally published author who speaks 50 times per year. He was working so hard to sell books, but he was working for his publisher.

When he told me what he was making per book sold, I asked if he’d ever thought about indie publishing. He said, “I just don’t want to deal with the headache. I just want someone to publish it for me, and I don’t want to deal with the cover or finding an editor.”

If you’re extremely busy or have a full-time job that demands 50 hours a week, I can see why traditional publishing might be a better option. If you’re running a nonprofit ministry, traveling, speaking, and building your platform that way, you may not have the bandwidth to manage everything yourself. In that case, traditional publishing can be an attractive route.

But if writing is your life, your livelihood, and your passion, then I would strongly encourage you to go indie.

I didn’t set out to become a writer because I wanted to but because of my profession. I simply write out my sermons. If you had asked me in high school or college, I never would have imagined becoming an author. But I love studying God’s Word, crafting sermons, polishing, refining, and improving. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. I like to be hands-on. I want control over the details.

If that sounds like you, then indie publishing is the way to go.

Still, it’s not a matter of simply deciding which route to go. It’s very difficult to get into traditional publishing. There is a large pool of people trying to get a response from a literary agent, hoping to receive even a single email reply to their query letter. If you do get a literary agent, how large is the pool of authors still waiting for a publisher to say yes?

Plus, the timeline is also very drawn out. Even after I got my contract with Harvest House, it was nearly three years before my books came out. In traditional publishing, you’ll have to wait a year to 18 months to see your book published. You’ll have to go through the proposal process with the literary agent and wait for them to pitch it to publishers. Then, you have to wait months for a publisher to respond. If you get a contract, you have to wait for your book to be placed in the publisher’s timeline.

If you don’t have that kind of time, I suggest you go indie.

Connect with Scott LaPierre

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