1-Publish yourself you have 100% creative and business control. When someone else publishes your paperback or ebook you give up some control in most instances that may also mean creative control.
2-When you publish yourself you maintain 100% of the copyrights meaning you may repackage and/or repurpose the material anyway you see fit. When someone else publishes your material this isn't necessarily the case, since they maintain the rights to your work for a specified amount of time.
3-When you publish yourself you're responsible for getting all the funds necessary needed to publish ie for editing, layout, book cover, marketing, etc. When someone else published your material they will often cover many of the cost for doing these things as they should.
4-When you publish yourself you keep 100% of the profit until such time you factor in printing or sharing for retailers/etailers for distributing and/or selling your books. For example, if you publish your ebook with Amazon, you'll get either 30% or 70% respectively. When someone else publishes your material you'll get anywhere from 3% to 15% royalty on the retail price of the book being sold.
5-When you publish yourself you don't get an upfront advance again, you're responsible for putting up all the money to have your book created, marketed, distributed and sold. When someone else publishes you, you may get an advance... often the advance is only several thousand dollars and while your book may sell, you don't get a royalty check until your book sells have RECOUPED the advance. So another word for advance is LOAN.
After considering this a more information I thought it was in my best interest to publish my own books and I'm happy I did. For more details on self publishing you'll want to visit the links below...
Click Here to Publish Your Own eBook
How to Self Publish for Profit
Book Pimping
