According to bestselling author Sue Grafton, authors should not worry about the process of getting published. Grafton believes that if an author has a good story, then he only needs to worry about writing it. If it is a good one, the universe will automatically come to the author’s aid. She says that authors should not even think about self-publishing and gives some harsh opinions about authors who try to self-publish. According to her, authors that self-publish their work are lazier than those who get traditionally published.

Opinions like Grafton’s are the cause of some of the biggest arguments about publishing. Between traditionally published and indie authors, who does more work? A number of accomplished authors who get published the traditional way have had to endure hundreds of rejection letters from literary agents before they succeed. These authors have earned their place after being baptized by fire. However, they should not think any less of indie authors.

Nobody has the right to call indie authors lazy. Indie authors have many responsibilities including: hiring staff members, researching, studying the publishing industry, organizing distribution channels, networking, marketing, and selling their books. Most of these are tasks that traditionally published authors don’t worry about. Therefore, just like their counterparts in film and music, indie authors are not lazy.

A good number of indie authors have at some point been offered traditional book deals, but they decided to do their own publishing. Indie authors particularly like to be involved in the marketing and sales of their books. These are the most difficult parts of the publishing process so it is unfair to call the authors lazy. Indie authors sometimes have good reasons to turn down book deals or to decide they won’t try to get traditionally published in the first place.

Another reason why indie authors have the same amount of work or even more than traditionally published authors is that they know how hard they have to work to prove themselves. There is still some stigma associated with self-publishing and indie authors know this. They go out on a limb to make sure that their books are as close to perfect as possible. Indie authors spend a lot of time editing and revising their work to make sure that it is of very high quality. Sometimes indie authors completely rewrite books to make them worthy of the attention of their discerning audience.

No matter how much people try to reconcile the warring traditional and indie authors, the question of which is the best way to get published will probably never be answered. People have earned a lot of money being traditionally published and the same also applies to self-published authors. Sometimes getting traditionally published doesn’t make financial sense and that is why an author might decide to publish his own work. In some cases, the wide distribution networks of big publishers are too tempting to ignore. In the end, an author’s decision on how to get published is a matter of personal preference. Nobody should question the authors because they know that any decision they make will affect them directly.