After being in this business for twenty-five years, I can tell you that the only people who know whether a book is self published or traditionally published are the publishers and the bookstore owners. People always used to say that you shouldn’t self publish because there wasn’t any marketing—you had to do it all yourself. But now days, traditional publishers don’t usually provide any marketing either—that’s gone, and you have to do it yourself no matter how your book is published. So as far as marketing is concerned, self publishing and traditional publishing are on even ground.
Distribution is the thing. Most bookstores won’t carry self-published books unless they know the author—if it’s your hometown, for example. That can be really frustrating, and I understand that, but if you can overcome that obstacle, you can go a long way with a self-published book. Look at The Shack, for example—I know everyone uses it as an example, but look at it anyway. It’s self published. Every traditional publisher turned it down, and now they’re all standing in line to kick themselves around the block. The market is changing, and if you do quality work, your self-published book can compete with books from traditional publishers.
But quality work is important—don’t go to Kinko’s. Go to a quality self publisher that will do a beautiful job, and then the fact that it’s a self-published book won’t make one bit of difference to readers. They don’t care. They don’t know if it’s traditionally published or self published, and even if you tell them, they don’t care as long as the quality is the same. The more bookstore owners realize that, the more the market will continue to change.