For me, it's been the overwhelming list of tasks that need to get done. Together they make a dark, impenetrable forest, and most of the time I can't see the trees for the forest. However, I don't think I would find it much different if I returned to pursuit of trade-publishing, a pursuit I found overwhelming when I was taking that path.
I would argue, however, that trade publishing "requires one skill" is not correct. The writing is the same in trade and self-publishing. In trade, as was said, you're selling to a small audience. But your book has to appeal to the same wide audience. So you have to learn skills needed to sell to that small audience: how to write a good query, which is totally different than writing a book; how to prepare a book proposal; how to pitch to an acquisitions editor or an agent; how to muddle through agent agreements to make sure you are getting what you want from that relationship.
Some of those skills translate easily to self-publishing. Writing a query letter isn't a whole lot different from writing back cover copy. Pitching to agent/editors is probably akin to holding author events.
The self-publisher's efforts can be focused on the audience they need to make a little money: the reader. Yes, you either need to learn formatting and covers or hire them done. I suspect marketing efforts are about the same for trade publishing and self-publishing. I know people on this site will disagree with me. Never having been trade published, I can't speak from experience. But several authors I know, who have been published for three or four decades, say the trade publisher nowadays does much less than they used to in marketing, their main focus being getting it into bookstores. They expect the author to do the work of getting notice for the book.
So I think the skills difference between trade publishing and self-publishing, while a true thing, isn't as great as some say.
Best Regards,
NDG
Not quite sure where to start here, so, at random:
There's no "pitching" of books to agents or editors, unless you happen to corner one in an elevator at a conference or something like that. Books aren't oatmeal. From an agent's POV, it's nice to have a personable client who can eventually charm booksellers and interviewers and in general be useful for publicity. But most books are accepted or rejected without the agent ever meeting the writer. Unless the writer is a bona fide celebrity, it's all about the book: whether or not the agent loves it, and then, separately, whether or not they think they can sell it.
Marketing. While it's true that writers are expected to do more to help themselves these days, primarily through the use of social media, marketing is still very much the responsibility of the trade publisher. That includes the following tasks, which s-p writers, even the most diligent, are either unable or unlikely to succeed in doing: 1. Getting the books into brick and mortar books stores and other retail venues. 2. Selling to libraries and institutions (the source of most hardcover sales for non-bestselling writers). 3.Getting reviews in mainstream national publications. 4. Selling to book clubs, foreign publishers, and serialization outlets like magazines. 5. Making the work available in all formats, including audio, hardcover, ppbk and ebooks. Note that marketing is not the same as PR; although there too, the publisher has a great advantage over the self-publisher. One publicist I know, who works for a famous publisher, told me that the thing he was most ashamed of in his career was taking on self-published novelists as freelance clients, because he knew perfectly well that there was little to nothing he could do for them that would impact sales in a meaningful way.
Finally, the writing isn't the same. I was a literary agent for 14 years, and like most agents, 95% of the submissions I saw were unpublishable. Everyone wants to write a book, and maybe, as the saying goes, there's a book in everyone. But that doesn't mean that others will want to read it. The ability to write well requires innate talent as well as a sh*tload of practice and the ability to tolerate, in most cases, a good deal of rejection along the way--not only to tolerate it, but to use it as a challenge to make the work better. You can't edit a cow's ear into a silk purse. Agents cherry-pick the best material they see, and not even that will not necessarily sell, because editors are even more demanding than agents. The stuff agents reject, much of which ends up self-published...well, until you've read through an agent's slush pile, you have no idea how bad some of it can be.
I'm glad writers now have the option of self-publishing without breaking the bank. There are plenty of applications for self-published work. But it's a whole different industry from publishing.
I'll add another advantage to self publishing (I've done neither but am having no luck with querying as yet)--
You can write exactly the book you want to write.
I've been redrafting and modifying and pruning and adding and embellishing and changing and shifting and so on and so on ... in order to try to find the magic formula to get an agent. It's become obvious to me that as soon as I decide to self publish all those constraints (the ones that we glean that people in the trade industry want) -- will go out the window.
I can get back to writing what I want, and I guess that's the freedom of it.
Someone on this forum--sorry I can't remember who it was--- once said something really smart that stuck with me: Don't edit your book for anyone who's not paying you. I would add "or at least representing you," because agents often do edits. If an agent is willing to commit to handling your book, it's worth taking her suggestions seriously. But even then, you should only implement the ones that feel right to you, that lead you closer to the book you wanted all along to write. I tell my editing clients the same thing. I'm a pretty savvy reader, having worked in publishing my whole career. Nevertheless, while I can share my reactions to a particular work and make all the suggestions I want, the author is the ultimate authority on what their book is meant to be. All books need editing, and smart writers are grateful for good editing. But if you take every random suggestion that comes your way in order to snare an agent, your book will be distorted out of all recognition. You want an agent who wants
your book, not some other hypothetical book.
If your goal is to be commercially published and to see it on the shelves of bookstores and libraries, you should stick with writing what you want.