USA Today Bestselling author, Kelli Maine writes about the pros and cons of self publishing:

Sometimes you have to take the plunge, but which direction do you go? Not too long ago, this question wasn’t considered valid by “the industry”. If you self-published, it was because you couldn’t get an agent or you couldn’t get an editor to buy your book. But today, the game has turned on its head. You don’t need an agent or an editor to get books in reader’s hands and be considered a legitimate author.

While some very successful self-published authors still seek the validity of having their names on a book in Barnes and Noble, know that getting stocked in a bookstore is NOT a guarantee from even the big six publishers. Take it from someone who has a YA published by a big six publisher and zero books in bookstores. They can’t necessarily sell your book to book buyers any better than you could.

With fewer and fewer brick and mortar stores and the ones that are still around carrying an equal number of t-shirts, toys and One Direction dolls as books, there’s an ever shrinking amount of shelf space and if you can suck in your gut and hold your breath, you might be able to squeeze in between Cassie Clare and Veronica Roth.

You can read the whole article HERE.