: Springer or CRC versus self-publishing I have an IT textbook that is about 120,000 words which was accepted for publishing at several very reputable publishers. My goal is to get the text out

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Trad publishers are far better for this. How would you market and sell it yourself? How would you compete against vetted books by publishers if you are not a very famous name in the field already?

If your name is Einstein or Hawking then self publishing would make you more money. Charging less while still making more because you get a bigger slice would also reach more people. win win!

So how famous are you? How hard do you want to market this book?

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If you were a university lecturer deciding on the course textbook, would you choose a self-published one, no matter how good you thought it was?

If you were a reader looking for a book about a particular IT subject, where would you look? If you found a self-published title, would you be likely to buy it?

What are the less ten books you have bought? How many of them were self-published?

For me it's a no-brainer: if a traditional publisher will take it on, go with them.

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In academia, traditional publishing is a signal to readers that a book may be trusted. When I'm studying science or technology (and reading textbooks), I am usually not yet able to judge whether a book presents the current consensus of the scientific or technical community or contains misleading falsehoods. Self-published academic works give the impression of being rejected by respectable publishers because they were written by quacks. I would therefore never buy self-published textbooks, unless the author was famous (and possibly not even then, because some famous tech writers self-published abominable trash).

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