First good reason: No paying publisher has made you an offer you can't refuse.
Second good reason: You wouldn't be satisfied with a 20 percent royalty on your book, the most you can expect if your book is commercially published.
Third good reason. You have written your book for a specific group of people (market niche) and are determined to let them know it's available.
My advice is this: Go with a commercial publisher if you get a great offer that costs you nothing but puts money in your pocket with no debt involved.
People who seem to do the best with self-publishing are the following:
- Experts who give speeches and host workshops
- Doctors with private care patients
- Business owners with information and skills to share
- Professors and scholars who have an important set of facts to share with colleagues or the general public
- Historians who can make local or regional history come to life
- Writers and people with important information or a story line who feel driven to publish a book.
- Anyone with a story to tell that can help others
Be sure to learn the pitfalls of publishing. Be charitable. Not everyone asking for your dollars is a crook. Simply be aware that dozens of perfectly legal businesses offer a wide range of services related to book publishing but are not publishers. They may want you to think that they are publishing companies. The key to knowing whether they are publishers or not is finding out how much money you need to send them. If the answer is anything more than $0.01, you are not dealing with a commercial publisher.
Why publish your own book? Only you know can know the answer. When it's right for you, you'll find a way. You'll be a successful self-publishing author.