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To Self-publish; Reason Number One

Here is an expansion of the reasons you should self-publish. The first reason: You own all the creative decisions. The boss makes the rules. So, if you self-publish, you get to decide. You decide book format, writing and publishing timeline, book and cover design, type of book, colors, page count, page type and on and on.  Many decisions are pretty mundane such as interior design and format. If people like your material, they'll buy it in whatever format it is available in. However, the cover and content are very important aspects to your book that you have to get right.

For the cover, choosing the right colors, images and fonts is critical. The book has to look attractive to its audience and must be legible as a thumbnail while displayed in on line book stores. This decision is made easier if you study your niche and look for books that relate to your topic. What colors are favored, what types of images are popular, and what type font matches the competing books? Get this right and your book will look like a winner. The best part is, you get to decide the final touches. Of all available and applicable images, colors and fonts, you can pick what you know your niche audience likes. As the niche expert, the decisions you make in your role as publisher is more informed.

Concerning the content, you are also the resident expert and final decision maker. Have you ever had a book edited by someone with good intention, but lack of understanding? I have, and it's difficult to sway the decision of a non-industry expert. For example, I wrote the novel Commitment, and had it proofread by someone very respected in the Christian novel genre. The point of contention existed around the sentence, "she swept her bangs from her eyes". For some reason, the editor was not familiar with the familiar name of the hair hanging over your forehead. She went further to explain that the publishing industry would not accept that terminology as well. Finally I relented, even though others I had asked understood exactly what bangs were. As the author of the publishing company that you own (self-publisher) you can make an intelligent decision of your writing style and content that you know your audience will relate to.


We all know "politics" plays a big role in the institutions where we work and serve. We always say to ourselves that if we were in charge, we would make some change. As a self-publisher you can make that change with well-informed publishing decisions and exclude the politics; A great reason to publish yourself or with a niche publishing company.



Jeffrey W. Bennett, MBA is the owner of Red Bike Publishing. Jeff is an accomplished writer of non-fiction books, novels and periodicals. He also owns Red bike Publishing. Published books include: "Get Rich in a Niche-Insider's Guide to Self Publishing in a Specialized Industry" and "Commitment-A Novel". Jeff is an expert in security and has written many security books including: "Insider's Guide to Security Clearances" and "DoD Security Clearances and Contracts Guidebook". See Red Bike Publishing for print copies of: Army Leadership The Ranger Handbook The Army Physical Readiness Manual Drill and Ceremonies The ITAR The NISPOM
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