Level playing field

Contrary to popular wisdom, established authors don't have that much of a toehold above unknowns. This is largely because there are now so many authors who are 'established', now, that unless they're on the New York Times list, most people browsing have probably never heard of them. Furthermore, a lot of well-established authors are old-school luddites, who'd rather stick to their traditional model that's working so well (mostly) than make the effort to learn about how well they could do for themselves.

Readers generally return to authors that they like, but they rarely buy based on how many books an author has previously published (while publishers do consider this.) So, rather than competing with someone who started earlier than you, and has more publishing street cred, it's a matter of finding readers who like your style - just as it is for everyone.

Control freak

A chief bonus of self-publishing is that you control everything. With traditional publishing, you license your rights over to the publisher for a set period of time (which can be extended or reduced depending on 'out of print' definitions). You also agree to a great swath of things you can no longer do with your own work, like sell it yourself (or any product the publisher deems is 'competing - including, sometimes, other books in the same genre!), sell it in another format (they want those rights, too, usually), give it away, give bits of it away, turn it into a serial podcast, etc.

You also have no control over the cover (as Bloomsbury authors repeatedly discover), the marketing strategy, the blurb (in some cases) where it will be sold, the retail price, the interior font and illustration... etc. 

Self publishing gives you that control back - you can do anything you like with the work, on the proviso that you're willing to put in the work to do that.

Marketing and promotion

This is a big issue that's really a non-issue. To sell books - self-published or otherwise - you have to market yourself. Your publisher won't do it unless you don't need it (don't get me started on how arse-backwards they are about their consumer base) and even then, they'll probably botch it. Marketing and promotion is a lot of effort, especially when you're starting out.

Traditional publishing has one over on you here - the impulse buy from somebody browsing in a bookstore who liked your book cover. But honestly, just how likely is that? This mythical customer has a three-month window during which to buy your book before it's remaindered or returned. If that three months doesn't fall on any convenient shopping periods like Christmas, Mother's or Father's day, you're pretty stuffed. Even if it does, your customer has to, by chance, pick up your book from it's spine-out display on the lower shelf out of eyeline, where all the books go when publishers don't pay extra for face-out, eye-line positions.

So... yeah, you're not losing much.

But the thing that people seem to forget is that when you self-publish, you're not marketing a single product. You're marketing the brand of You The Writer. Which means that, assuming you've used a modicum of sense when assembling various webpages etc so that all your works can be easily found and purchased, your marketing strategies cover all your products with no extra effort. Which means the more products you have, the more cost-, time- and effort-effective your marketing strategy is per product.

Money money money

Self-publishing nets you up to 80% of the pie, maybe even more if you're selling from your own site. Compare the $2.20 royalty from a paperback novel sold for $22.00 with $4 from selling a set of short stories online for $5. Making more money for something that took less work to create.

Now, there is extra work involved - it's all on your to write, edit, format, source illustrations, market, promote and sell the work, rather than just hand over your manuscript (and then still market and promote the work). But there's no denying self-publishing can net authors a much higher profit margin than traditional.

Summing up

It's not an either-or situation. While you usually can't both self- and traditionally publish the same work (at least, not at the same time), there's nothing stopping you from traditionally publishing your novels, and self-publishing short stories, poetry, novellas, and any novels that the traditional publishers thought wouldn't sell enough to be worthwhile. As more and more talented authors emerge on the self-published scene, the stigma will dissipate. After all, there's no stigma attached to indie games, indie movies, or indie music - because these industries have shown that self-publishers can produce high-quality work. Readers are discovering that "indie authors" can also produce high-quality reads - give it time, and a self-published author won't be any more remarkable than an indie game developer.

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