For this post and the next three, I'll be comparing self-publishing to publishing with a publishing company based on my own personal experience. For this week, I'll post the pros of self-publishing. Next week, I'll discuss the cons. The following two weeks will cover publishing companies. Again, this is based on my own experience, so these pros and cons might not be the same for every person. Also, I self-publish with Amazon, so how they operate might be different from other self-publishing formats. With that in mind, here are several pros for self-publishing.
One, the process of formatting and uploading a manuscript is quick and easy. The first time for formatting does take longer simply because you're getting used to the system. After that, though, it might take two hours max to get everything done (not including editing the book, though). So once you're finished with everything, you can have your book on the market in little to no time. Even the review process only takes about a day or two max before your book gets posted onto the site.
Two, you have more freedom over the content of your book. You don't have to worry about an editor telling you what you should and shouldn't have in your story so that you meet a company's agenda on what they like to have in books represented by them. Of course, you still have to follow government guidelines and the like, but you don't have to worry about having a company's own viewpoints being forced onto your book.
Three, you choose whether you keep some of your work, or all of it, free on sites like Quotev and Wattpad. Since you hold all of the rights to your work, you don't have to worry about taking a portion of the story off of a site or all of it for that matter. Personally, this is a huge selling point for me since I want to keep my stories up on Quotev and Wattpad while also offering my readers the option to purchase my books.
Overall, I find that self-publishing allows you more freedom as an author. And, it offers a quicker process to get your book(s) on the market. Anyway, I hope that this helps!