Forbes estimates that more than 1,000,000 books are self-published every single year.
But with all this competition, why should you self-publish?
Simple – be your own boss and control every aspect of your book! You control where to sell and for which price; you will get paid directly to your bank account. You are in possession of all e-book and cover files and can make any changes you see fit at any time.
Does this involve a lot of work? Sure, it does need more commitment than just uploading your MS Word doc file to a distributor/aggregator who handles all for you. But it outweighs the negatives by a wide margin.
You can outsource many aspects (book layout / cover design / book file creation for Apple/Amazon/kobo/Google/BN) to get this done professionally without relying on a distributor/aggregator and have full control of all files all the time. You also do not need to share any profits with anybody else.
With self-publishing you still have the opportunity to look for a traditional publisher once your book is out and selling with all major retailers.
Your book might even be picked up by a big publishing house once your sales skyrocket.
Self-publishing isn’t just an option. It’s the best, most viable option.