- You’re published! Screw you, New York City Big Publishing Syndicate!
2. When you Google yourself, your name comes up with your book title instead of a defunct LinkedIn page or an ad to find your classmates.
- Write what you write: Stories, novellas, and books of any length are okeydokey. No more fitting into a 75,000-word box.
4. You get to choose your own cover design. Yes, it can have a cat (horse, eagle, rhinoceros, zombie with dripping fangs) on it.
- Promotion is up to you. You decide how much or how little you can fit into your schedule.
6. For the author, printed books are cheap, which means you can give them out for reviews, praise, and to assuage the ever-present family pressure.
- Higher commissions.
8. You retain the rights to your material. Publishers have strict rules what you can and cannot do with your work once you sign that contract.
9. If your book sells well, you can move it into the professional publishing circuit; if it doesn’t, you can always self-publish a different book.
- Self-publishing isn’t a dirty word anymore. Many famous authors self-publish their work for the very reasons listed.
Read more about my thoughts on self-publishing in SELF-PUBLISHING: IS IT THE S-WORD?
Mollie Hunt: Crazy Cat Lady Mysteries and more 
Very good article. I read your follow up to this first. I recently published my first book and I think it is thrilling to go on Amazon and see it there. I’m not sure how much money I will make, but it is the idea that I accomplished it. I had been thinking about doing it for a couple of years. Amazon and others make it an attainable goal to get your work out there and I am sure that is also what people like about it.
Good for you. Success is what you make it.