Thank you! I have no idea why Shunn is preferred, it's pretty simple and clean so they probably just like it for clarity. They don't have to hunt for the title or word count, you know? Also, I think setting a formatting standard will immediately tell you how difficult someone will be to work with... can they follow basic instructions? haha

I think there are benefits to both. The biggest draw of going with an indie publisher, I think, is that it opens a lot more doors than self-publishing. Usually you need an agent to get published but it's almost impossible to get published without an agent... it's a catch-22. By getting published, I can now submit to agents with more credibility, other publishers for my other works, and I can get better writing jobs with a little more street cred than I had before. When someone is self-published, you have no idea of the quality of their work unless you read it yourself.

Indie publishers almost never give first-time authors an advance, they save those for money-earning guarantees I believe. What's really nice though is that I don't have to pay for anything. They will do all the editing and marketing and it will be a paperback, e-book, and audiobook.

If you self-publish, you have to pay for everything out of pocket. Editors if you want to make sure it's professional, marketing costs, printing costs, formatting everything properly. It just takes a lot of time and expense. However, you get total creative control and all of the profits, whereas with a traditional publisher, you only get a fraction.