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To Self-Publish or not? Still unsure!

5 years ago1,665 words

Last week, I talked about how I'm aiming to get Sindrel Song on Steam, but I'm unsure whether to self-publish or get a publisher. I've since read a bit about it, but I'm still not sure!

Thanks to those of you who commented on the previous post! I read everything and used that as a starting point for my own research, it was quite useful. I've not done as much as I should have, or I'd like, but I've been doing badly health-wise recently; I'll get to that in a minute.

I'm trying to decide whether to self-publish, or seek a publisher. There are pros and cons of both approaches. If I were to get a publisher, I'd likely have to hand over some things like intellectual property rights, they might be able to make their own sequels or I might not be able to make any myself, I wouldn't have control over how and where it's released, or how it's handled; they might even gain access to some of my 'technology' such as the code or visual assets, from what I've read. I don't know how true any of that is though, or how applicable it is to my specific case. They could also ask for changes, some minor, some major, which would mean more development time.

I have some limited experience of these kinds of business relationships from the sponsorships back in the Flash days, though I imagine that was perhaps less formal? Or not, I'm not sure. With Kongregate, a big sponsor, it was a fairly straightforward process - I don't think I had to do anything and I don't remember being asked to make changes or anything - but I did take the first offer presented to me (reassuringly, I read that this seems to be common for people new to this, happy to be offered anything at all and worried about missing their chance), and probably made a whole lot less money than I could have done as a result. However, I also vaguely remember a far less pleasant interaction with some site I can't even remember the name of, who kept asking me to make changes, offered only a few hundred dollars, and then eventually didn't pay anything after weeks of back-and-forth and tedious tweaking on my part. Ugh.

I can't imagine any of the big, well-known publishers would be scummy or untrustworthy, but it just seems to be the norm that things are heavily skewed in the publisher's favour, and they have all the power. It's more than just them doing marketing in exchange for a minority percentage of the profits. I'd be handing over a lot.

With self-publishing, however, I have complete and total freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I can release games as soon as I feel they're ready rather than having to spend weeks negotiating and trying to please a publisher. I can include whatever content I feel inclined to add, and I can make as many sequels or derivative works as I like. I also don't have to directly interact with other human beings in a businessy way, which is something I absolutely don't have the personality for or interest in.

So I'd like to go down the self-publishing route. I've not done so yet though because... well, a couple of reasons.

One is because I'm worried it'll be a path to nowhere, and if I self-publish on Steam and the game vanishes into obscurity, then I'll have missed my chance to earn anything significant from it (maybe?), and months of my time will have been wasted. So it's not a decision to dive into rashly.

Another is because I've zoned out these past few days. I've been feeling really lousy; deeply depressed, but also physically sick, lots of headeaches and fatigue (maybe from all the brain cancer stuff). It's been hard to focus on anything related to games development, so my mind's been wandering elsewhere, to other creative things that are just for me. It's helping me feel better, but it's selfish, and it's not getting me anywhere in terms of earning money... I suppose it's easy to decide to 'just take a few days off' due to feeling so awful without a boss breathing down my neck or any specific deadlines I need to aim for.

Having a publisher would mean that I'd need to meet deadlines, from what I've read, and that might be better for getting things done than this complete freedom. But would I even be capable of coping with it, broken as I am? Don't I need time to recover just from being so not well? Would it be better to stick with self-publishing, so then I don't have to stress myself out over letting down professional businesspeople? I might let down players though, and all the responsibility would be on me. Would that be worse? Or not?

Perhaps Patreon could work out for me, as has been suggested a few times? Would people be willing to contribute monthly to be a part of the process in some sense, or just to help me along? Would that generate enough income to live on? Would I be able to cope with it, socially?? While some people do earn a lot from Patreon, most don't. But I suppose that's true of most things. Most creators can't profit from their work...



I feel that my living conditions are getting in the way a lot. I've been living at my parents' house since the surgery almost a year ago, with the intention to move out as soon as I start earning enough money to do so. Obviously that's not happened yet, and I'm only getting older while not moving on with my life. My parents are quite happy to support me - I think me having literal brain cancer goes a long way towards that; I might not even be around much longer - but obviously that can't last forever, nor would I want it to. I feel bad enough about taking anything while giving back nothing in return.

But what am I supposed to do? I've come this far with the games thing, so I feel I might as well give it a bit longer before giving it all up and getting a job selling dildos door-to-door or whatever it is people do to pay the bills. A year? Two? I don't know. But then won't I be too old for any decent career by that point? Am I not too old already? Then isn't it best to stick with this, where I actually have experience and skills and a reputation, small though that now is?

I have some savings, enough to live for a short while if the absolute worst happened and all sources of support were cut off. I'm very reluctant to eat into them because I'll be losing my safety net, but I wonder whether I should at least try to rent a tiny studio flat for six months or something, just to see whether having my own place might produce positive mental changes. While I'm here, I feel like a perpetual teenager (even though my parents only moved here when I was in my twenties), and a lot of the mental processes that come with that really do get in the way. If I were alone though, would I just go mad from isolation? Or would I feel more responsible, have more meaning in my life, feel like sorting things out is more urgent, so I don't just end up spending unproductive days trying to patch up my deteriorating mental state? I don't know whether I'll do that or not though; it's not as if I have money to just throw away...



Anyway, I'm really not sure what to do, or what I could even do to move closer to some kind of decision other than spending more days researching it and 'thinking about it'. Maybe I should talk to some indie developers - I haven't yet - but I suspect every story's different, and so much of it is down to luck and the shifting whims of the audience. What worked well a couple of years ago might not work at all if tried tomorrow. And one game might be rocketed into the spotlight while another rots in obscurity purely due to the digital whims of an algorithm, or some social connection one person had from years ago and the other didn't.

What I'm considering is trying the self-publishing thing first, maybe reading about marketing and trying some things to promote it myself. I don't have the mind of a marketer at all, but maybe trying that might have benefits for my mental wellbeing beyond this game? Or maybe it'll go badly and be discouraging and I'll feel even worse?? Or maybe attempting negotiating with a publisher would be more beneficial to me??? Maybe the loss of freedoms would be worth the likely dramatic increase in sales???? Maybe I could try self-publishing first, and if it does really badly, I could try to get a publisher for a second attempt at a release? Or maybe I can't do that??

I really don't know! It's not as if there's a clear and obvious path forward.

I should probably at least upload Sindrel Song to Steam ASAP, since I can do that without releasing it, but I don't know whether I can do that then get a publisher... I'll probably do that as soon as everything stops aching and I can concentrate again though.

At least once I have decided, I probably won't have to think about this for a while? It's why I like the idea of self-publishing and just relying on Patreon and a small but loyal community; I'd be able to just get things out when they're done without these indecisive delays...

Anyway, I wish I had something more substantial to say or present here, but hopefully next week I will??