The Trad-To-Self-Publishing Mindset Shift
I've had my debut novel, Dojo Riain (a coming-of-age story in the world of pro wrestling), on submission for two months now, and in recent weeks I'm looking more and more into self-publishing.
As I've been talking myself into it, I've noticed a real mindset shift. In pursuit of traditional publishing, being slow is almost mandated. For instance, if my book fails on submission, people might suggest my book and query package weren't ready, and that I ought to take the next 6-12 months reworking things. In reality though, the tangible results from that time and effort could equate to getting everything from 95% ready to 97% ready. It's also art, not an exact science. Through all those reworks I could go from 95% to 92%.
When I started talking about self-publishing, a friend reached out and said their parent is a retired graphic designer and could help me with the cover. In my trad-pubishing mindset I hesitated. I told myself 'No, you can't just take the first offer. You need to spend months trawling through designers to get as close to perfection as possible.'
But in shifting my mindset, I'm realising how freeing self-publishing can be. You don't have to trust some big, opaque system of literary agents and their whims. You have to trust yourself. If my friend's parent can't do what I need, I say no thank you and try and find someone else.
I have to trust myself to do things correctly (getting a professional editor, getting a good cover design, marketing well) without fearing doing things imperfectly (editing to absolute exhaustion, not getting the impossibly perfect cover). That's very freeing. I now see why people choose this route!