If you’re considering self-publishing as a way to get your book read and seen, you probably have quite a few questions about the process. The good news is that the internet has a lot of opinions on the matter. The bad news is . . . that the internet has a lot of opinions on the matter. Alongside some genuinely helpful information are a lot of myths and rumors about what it means to self-publish.

Read on for some of the more common ones—as well as what you can really expect on your self-publishing journey.

Indie publishing and self-publishing are the same thing.
Some people tend to use the terms indie publishing and self-publishing interchangeably, but they’re actually two completely different things. Indie publishing means that your book is still being published by a professional press—just not one that is affiliated with any of the Big Five publishers or their smaller imprints.

The Big Five, by the way, are Penguin Random House, with imprints like Viking and Doubleday; HarperCollins, with imprints like William Morrow and Avon; Simon & Schuster, with imprints like Scribner and Atria; Macmillan Publishers, with imprints like St. Martin’s Press and Farrar, Straus and Giroux; and Hachette Book Group, with imprints like Grand Central and Little, Brown and Company.

Indie publishers vary wildly in both the content that they publish and the quality with which they do so. They also accept and reject manuscripts in a similar manner as the Big Five. Self-publishing, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like: the independent publication of a book by its author (aka: you).

You can’t make as much money by self-publishing.
While traditional publishers may have the means to offer those multibook, multimillion-dollar contracts that we tend to hear about, the fact is that those are rare. Extremely rare. And those often involve advances, which means that you’d have to make that amount back in sales before you ever saw a dime from any sort of royalties.

When you self-publish, you earn a much higher percentage of royalties since you have more control over the product. If your book happens to go viral and you see impressive sales, you could very well earn more money than if you had punted it to a Big Five or indie publisher.

You only have to worry about marketing if you self-publish.
Many authors don’t want to deal with the marketing aspect of their book and are therefore tempted to submit their manuscripts to traditional publishers with the idea that the publisher will take care of marketing for them. Please know the chances are extremely high that you will have to aggressively market your book—even if you are picked up by one of the Big Five, and especially if you go through an indie publisher.

Traditional publishers tend to pick and choose just a few titles to throw their money behind in the expectations that those will be their most successful. So unless you’re one of the chosen few, you’ll likely be largely on your own when it comes to marketing anyway—just like if you self-publish!

There is a certain formula that leads to a successful book.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if writers could be handed a formula for success? “Just do X, Y, and Z, and watch your sales skyrocket!” The truth is, however, that no one really knows what they’re doing in the wild world of self-publishing. What works one month may completely backfire the next. Trends come and go, tastes change, new avenues of marketing or selling a book pop up only to be replaced by something even newer the next year.

That’s why it’s important to take everything with a grain of salt and to focus on what really matters: writing a quality manuscript. Because if you go chasing fame or fortune or viral sales, you’ll likely wind up frustrated and burned out.

It’s easier to self-publish.
It’s not hard to see how this idea has gained so much steam over the years. After all, it’s nice to not have to submit a manuscript to dozens of agents or publishers, waiting to hear back or culling through rejection letters. Instead, you can just . . . publish it yourself. And in that sense, it is easier to self-publish. But make no mistake: That’s where the simplicity ends.

As a self-publisher, it is now up to you to be in charge of everything. From hiring an editor (yes, you need an editor—everyone does), to hiring a professional artist to design your cover (no, you should not try to do this yourself unless you also happen to be a professional designer), to writing the blurb on the back of the book, to marketing your book via social media. In other words, it’s a multistep process that takes a lot of work if you want to make your book look professional—and that’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it?

Andrea Moran lives outside of Nashville with her husband and two kids. She’s a professional copywriter and editor who loves all things books. Find her on LinkedIn.