Authors with traditional publishing deals can also make the most of advantages offered by independent publishing. Here’s a look at when it makes sense for a traditionally-published author to self-publish.

You are writing in an experimental genre that traditional publishers won’t touch

Independent publishing is great for targeting niche markets. As an indie, it is not only possible to react quickly to changes in the marketplace, but it is less risky financially to go after niche subgenres, such as Steampunk or Sword and Sorcery.

If you are blending genres in a new way, you will find hardcore fans online, but the best way to reach them might be to do so alone. For a traditional publisher, the numbers might not be persuasive. Authors can make good money, however, by heading directly for digital venues, with little competition from traditional publishing.

Your traditional publisher can’t publish you as fast as you can write

For the most part, traditional publishers are slow-moving compared to their indie counterparts. The larger your trade publisher’s backlist, the longer it may take to see your work published.

One of the reasons Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman was that his publisher wouldn’t change its publication schedule to keep up with his production schedule.

With indie publishing, you set the publishing schedule. If you are able to publish a book a week, you are welcome to do so. This gives you the opportunity to build up your backlist, improve your digital footprint, or create promotions involving multiple books.

As a hybrid author, you can coordinate with your traditional publisher to use indie novels to bridge the gaps between traditional publication.

You’ve written a short-form piece such as a novella that wouldn’t be appropriate for traditional publishers.

Digital publishing has demonstrated that there is a market for novellas, but they are prohibitive to traditional publishers due to the cost of producing and shipping them, shelf space, and limits on for how much they can sell them. Unless you are a huge name with a following, novellas are a tough sell with traditional publishers.

As an indie, you can overcome most of these issues. Novellas are a viable product for an eager audience that appreciates shorter reads.

You have backlist titles whose rights have reverted and you want to get them back on sale

As an indie, you can very quickly get your old books back on sale. You can control how you manage your backlist, including where they are listed, how much you will sell the books for, and any promotions.

If you have out of print books, you can digitize them with a service such as 52 Novels, upload them, and start making money the same day.

You want to participate in writing projects with other authors

As an indie, you can try new things for creative expression or cross-promotion. Anthologies, story collaborations, and linked novels, in which authors share worlds and/or characters, are increasingly common in the indie space.

If you want flexibility, look to indie-publishing. And remember that your choice of traditional or indie publishing need not be mutually exclusive. Use the best of both approaches to get the most out of your writing and publishing.

If you’re a young writer, you have an opportunity to write from the heart or from a perspective to which most readers may be unaccustomed. If you’re advanced in years, you may have enormous life experience and maybe even some wisdom to bring to your work.

Some of the best novels combine the two. There are plenty of very young and very old authors who prove that readers are not prejudiced against the age of the writer.

Don’t want to take our word for it? How about taking the words of these well-known authors who started writing and publishing in their youth?

Ida Pollock – best known for her many romance and erotic novels, written under multiple pseudonyms, Pollock completed her first thriller, “The Hills of Raven’s Haunt,” at the age of 14.

Christopher Paolini – You may have heard of the “Inheritance Cycle,” the fantasy series comprising the books: “Eragon,” “Eldest,” “Brisingr,” and “Inheritance,” but did you know that he wrote these after graduating from high school?

A best-selling author at the age of 19, Paolini even designed the cover art and maps for the first edition of “Eragon.”

Françoise Sagan – This French novelist (and playwright and screenwriter) was best-known for her first novel, “Bonjour Tristesse” (1954), written when she was a teenager.

Anne Frank – Almost everyone knows the tragic story of this remarkable young woman. She began writing in her diary on her 13^th birthday. She journaled her time in hiding during the war, she wrote short stories, and aspired to be a journalist and famous writer.

Though she and her family were transported to concentration camps, where they died months later, her diary lives on. It is one of the world’s most widely-known books. “The Diary of a Young Girl” was published in 1952 and has been translated into more than 60 languages.

Mary Shelley – Some people are shocked to discover that 1818’s Gothic novel “Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus” was written by a woman. If you manage to elicit this reaction during conversation, pause, then drop in the fact that she wrote the novel at just 20 years old.

At the other end of the age spectrum:

Marquis de Sade – Before “50 Shades of Gray,” there was Marquis de Sade. Best-known for his novel “Justine,” he was imprisoned for real-life sexual excesses. In prison, he wrote sexually graphic plays and novels to cope with his anger and boredom.

He wrote an early version of “Justine” in 1787, in his late forties.

William S. Burroughs – An influence to Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Burroughs admits that he wouldn’t have become a writer if it wasn’t for the tragic death of his wife, by his hand, in a drunken game of William Tell. “Naked Lunch” was published in 1959 when Burroughs was in his mid-40s.

Helen Hooven Santmyer – She worked as a writer, educator, and librarian, but is best-known for her best-selling “…And Ladies of the Club,” published when she was in her 80s.

Ida Pollock – When it comes to staying power, we return to Ida Pollock. She was the world’s oldest novelist when she died at 105 in 2013. Although she was unable to sit at her typewriter, she was dictating novels to her daughter beyond her 100^th birthday.

It’s never too soon to start writing your novel. And it’s never too late.

One thing connects all of the writers in this post: once they started writing, not one of them gave up.