From Traditionally to Self-Published

Romance author Lucy Day shares why she switched to self-publishing, what her biggest challenge is, and how confidence has played a role in her success.

- BY MORIAH RICHARD

While Lucy Day has a lot of interesting and surprising things to share about her almost 10 years of self-publishing, at the top of the list might be this: She started her writing career being traditionally published.

“I found with a traditional publisher—this was years ago—that it could take 18 months or more after a manuscript was accepted to actually see it finished, and that’s an eternity,” she says with a laugh. “I really love that with self-publishing, I create my own timetable, and I can generally publish faster than that. The first Lucy Day book was published in September of ’22, and now the fourth one [came] out [in February].”

But it’s not just how quickly she can get the works out to readers that draws her to self-publishing. She says, “It’s empowering to learn all the facets of self-publishing, all those nitty-gritty details, and that it’s possible to do all that—or a lot of it—yourself. And to do it well and publish the same caliber books that traditional presses are doing.”

Along this vein, she says that she “just never really understood that stigma of self-publishing not being as good as traditional. I think there are a ton of amazing books out there that are self-published. And I think we're lucky that we live in a time where it's relatively easy to self-publish.

“There are a lot of people out there with a lot of important things to say and amazing stories to tell, and they don’t have the same resources that a lot of other authors have. It’s really hard to find an agent and get in with a traditional house sometimes. Then it can take years to finally get a book in print. It’s a gift to be able to self-publish, and I think there’s a lot of amazing authors out there doing it.”

That pride in quality is what elevated her novel,