THIS! Publishers who need to advertise for authors... are not legit. Speaking as someone who runs a TINY indie publishing firm. I hate seeing how many bad actors there are in this space.

I love that you've explained well that these choices can change over time and intersect!

There are a lot of us! 🙂

Bravo to your colleagues navigating their best careers! Some people ultimately find they prefer one path over another, while others are happy varying according to the project. If it's working for you, then it's working. 🙂

Good luck in your queries!

Oh, it's so frustrating when you see someone's enthusiasm and hopes taken advantage of. Legitimate publishers do not need to advertise for authors!

Best wishes to you!

Great question! I can speak only from my own experience, which may not match others'. I had already established something of a name and reputation in my non-fiction field, and I think that really helped at first. That first book was shared on its own merit, but it was initially noticed by those who already read my blog, etc. So for me, self-publishing my non-fiction made great sense because I already had a platform.

That said, it can often be hard to land a traditional non-fiction spot without a platform, so then it really comes down to your personal business responsibility preferences.

I've heard it said that some fiction genres do better in indie or in traditional publishing, but if that was true in the past, I feel it's less true today. A well-done self-published book should look indistinguishable from a traditionally-published book, and most of the time a reader doesn't know (or much care) whether it's an indie or trad book. They do care about whether that book scratches their itch. 🙂 Today you can find indie books doing well in every genre, so I think genre is less a consideration than it may have been at one time.

Your self-published book helped you find your traditional publisher -- that's fantastic! Great work. Thanks for commenting!

I've traditionally published short stories and sold articles to magazines, but chose to create my own imprint for my series. I plan to query agents with my current WIP and test those waters as well.