The digital revolution created a huge space for independent authors to get their works directly into the hands of consumers. Authors no longer had to go through the Big Five publishing houses to put a book in front of readers.

Instead, they could use Amazon Kindle or another digital platform and allow readers to purchase the book directly from them. My aunt, M.B. Gibson, did that with her novels, starting with Aroon.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each route. Traditional publishers are able to put the book on shelves across the nation. Then again, folks are going to bookstores less and increasingly relying on digital books anyway.

Brandon Sanderson had a really good discussion of the pros and cons of each in his 2020 lecture series to BYU (available here and here).

At the moment, I am hoping to go the traditional publishing route. That means, once my manuscript is as polished as I can make it, I must find the right agent. And that’s a whole other post. I think traditional publishing is more work on the front end, but I am hoping it has greater payoffs in the end, allowing more people to read the story I wrote.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.