I actually kinda wonder if MM romance might be one place where going with a small (or smaller) publisher could be a good decision, if they're established in that niche. Readers will know to look for their books, which gives you some more visibility than self-publishing would. Thoughts?
It depends on the authors' goals but there are tons of self-published authors killing it in M/M and have been for the last few years. Also, many small presses that took M/M have closed. Of course, it could definitely work if you can find a publisher that does well in that genre but a lot of the M/M authors I see now are self-publishing and doing very, very well. I don't think readers these days care who published a book or even notice. Many readers will just buy a book they wanna read and don't even know if it's self-published or not. They don't pay attention to that. I know I certainly don't when I'm checking out books. I could care less as long as it looks like a decent book and I am interested in reading it. Also, self-published books are more lenient with pricing so that's another plus to self-publishing.
If you have a marketing plan (which you will need even with a publisher) and know your goals you can kill it in self-publishing with M/M. Many, many authors are doing it including authors who used to be with publishers. Also, some M/M writers are hybrids as well.
These days, visibility is HARD especially on Amazon no matter how you publish. Because of this, many SP books are in Select which means they benefit from the extra visibility of Kindle Unlimited, which is another thing that makes it much harder for a small press to compete. This is the main reason why many small presses have closed in the last five years, not being able to compete with KU and pricing. At least, that's what the presses have claimed.
A publisher is no guarantee of extra visibility unless you're gonna get a huge promo boost and I doubt that will happen with a small e-press. You can read the proof of this right here on AW from several authors over the years who signed with small presses (even some touted as some of the best) and the author got no promotional support or it was minimal and they had to do everything themselves anyway. If an author even wants a shot at selling his or her book they will have to get out there and "pound the pavement" themselves. They are gonna have to do the bulk if not all of the promotion with a publisher or not.
A small press won't do anything promotional you can't do for yourself such as blog tours, social media, giveaways, etc. And, the truth is most won't do any of
that. Not even the bare minimum.You can set those up yourself or hire a promo company to do all that for you for a good price. In fact, you have access to more promo opportunities when you self-publish. You can promote in a lot of creative ways that you can't with a publisher because you don't have the rights to do a lot of things SP authors can do in promotion. For example, self-published authors can run pre-order discounts, do freebies, specific cross promotion opportunities, permafree for a series, put books on Instafreebie for promotion, all types of things that an author would need their publisher's permission to do and not sure the publisher would allow it. Also, you can do Bookbub and it seems like only the big presses are submitting to Bookbub for their authors. A Bookbub can work wonders for a book if you're accepted but the average small press isn't able to put money out for this type of promotion or willing to most likely.
Another thing is pricing. A big complaint from e-press authors is that the books are so high compared to the SP books. This was a problem I had with small e-presses when I was with them. I understand they wanna make money off books but it's hard as heck to sell an ebook for 6 dollars and up when everything else is selling for 3 dollars or less or is free in KU for 10 dollars a month.
When making these decisions, it always comes down to the author's goals but they have to know the market and have realistic expectations too. There are many authors (SP or not) who are not selling and it has nothing to do with how they published. Visibility is the key and no one can guarantee that but if you research and learn how to promote effectively (not meaning spending tons of money, just learn techniques that work for you and your genre) then you can do well self-publishing especially romance. Not saying everyone will be rich (which is the same in trade publishing) but you can build your brand and do well in self-publishing if you are organized.
It's good if authors on the fence about how to publish check out all the retailers and see how their genres do on the charts, not just Amazon. Amazon is a huge part of the industry but the world does not end and begin with Amazon. The other retailers are just as important in the long run but some genres do better on certain retailers I've seen. For example, if you are interested in Kindle Unlimited, it's the trendy stuff that follow tropes strictly that work best in the program.
