As I mentioned in my previous post, Amazon is celebrating Indie authors this month. Libraries around the country are initiating Indie Author Day tomorrow. I’ll have my own special surprise tomorrow to mark the occasion. But right now I’d like to share my five reasons to self-publish, based on my own experience.

1.If your book isn’t in a popular genre, consider publishing it yourself.

I wrote the first book in my Seed Savers series in 2010. We were just coming off the teen vampire romance craze. Agents did not want to hear about a futuristic book where gardening is illegal. As far as I know, they still don’t. If I hadn’t been busy querying, waiting, querying, etc. for a year and a half I may have hit that early KDP sweet spot back in the early days when there was no separation between “free” and “paid” books. But, alas, it took listening to Colleen Houck speaking at my local library for me to hear about self-publishing and get over the idea that it was inferior.

I still meet people with their first book, sitting around timidly, waiting, waiting, waiting, for someone to scoop them up, hoping someday they will be “published.”

2. Learning to publish and publishing will build confidence.

It’s a lot of hard work, but once you have published a few books and hit the road with them, you will gain confidence. No more sitting around timidly waiting for someone to make you feel worthy. Anyone who can write a book AND publish it is a very competent person. If you can crack the marketing and actually sell your book then you’ll feel even better. And guess what? Anyone can have their book on Amazon. Amazon even makes it easy. (The publishing, not the marketing.)

3. Tying in with number one, if you aren’t having luck getting an agent, much less a publisher, self-publishing will allow you to MOVE ON.

When you move on, you write more books. When you write more books you become a better writer. It’s true. You really do. I never even finished my original novel (before Treasure). When I go back and look at it I throw up my hands. So much work to clean that thing up. Ugh.

Just get moving. And maybe if you still want a big publisher, after several books you’ll be so good it will be like that show, Person of Interest: They’ll find you.

4. When you self-publish you can have as many print copies of your book around as you want.

You are not waiting on a publisher. You order them yourself. If you want to carry them around in the trunk of your car or go on tour, your books are always accessible.

5. If you deal in ebooks, you can sell those at a reasonable price.

I have sometimes bought print copies of books just because the ebooks were the same price. What?? Why?? No paper involved. Control of price-setting is awesome.

There you have it: my five reasons to self-publish. Is it hard work? YES!!! But if you’ve ever considered it and are getting nowhere in the traditional arena, why not give it a shot?

Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for my special surprise for Indie Author Day!!!

S. Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!