Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling?

Imagine that your self-published book is doing well. So well, in fact, that it has attracted the eyes of an editor at a traditional publishing company. And now that editor has reached out to you. They want to know if you'd be interested in signing with them. What would you do?

First, this is a great "problem" to have, so a celebration is in order!
 
A traditional publisher can bring so much to the table. First and foremost, money and power within the industry, the means to making you and your book famous. But hold on. They don’t make every book a best seller, and not every trad author is a household name, so what do they really do?
 
They provide an advance, not always a huge one, and they provide marketing power, also not necessarily in a huge way. So, there are many variables that work into this equation.
 
If a trad wanted to publish one of my books and offered a great advance and a sizeable marketing budget, the answer would be SIGN ME UP! I see this scenario as a win-win for me and all of my books. The traditionally published book in time would only help me and the rest of my books become better known, whether the other books were published traditionally or not.

I’d be paid a sum of money right away, and the publisher would advertise to make sure a large segment of readers learned about the book. They would give me and my book a lot of exposure quickly, and much more easily than I could do on my own. What’s not to love about this scenario?

However, trads don’t give everyone the star treatment. And they’ll likely be coming for your best book, the one that’s already earning money and capturing the attention of readers. The one that as a self-published book could continue to earn you larger royalties without their help. They may only offer a few thousand as an advance (many authors receive $5,000 for their first book) and a modest marketing budget.
 
So, if they’re not going to give you much of an advance, and they’re not going to use their money or power to sell your book, what is the point? What kind of deal are they offering you? How big of an advance do you want/need to make this happen? That’s the real question.
 
Once you sign away your rights, you will not be able to use the marketing tactics self-publishers use, such as discounting heavily or giving away the book temporarily for free as a means of building a following and growing momentum (blog post). This is the plight of new authors who are traditionally published—they put their books out, they are not given a marketing budget, and their hands are tied when it comes to pricing the book.
 
It's one of the reasons SOME traditionally published books sell only a few books (a dozen or less) in a year.
 
Control is the one thing self-publishers can love about being self-published. We have control over our words, our covers, our pricing, our sales descriptions. If we want to give our first-in-series away, we can do that. But with that power, comes the responsibility to pay for everything (blog post).
 
For most of us, our marketing reach is minimal compared to the trads. We don’t have the power of being known, of a full professional staff, of far-reaching hands and a network that’s been built over generations. If your book is going strong as a self-published book, imagine what it could do with more exposure and a famous publishing house to back it up.
 
The choice is to retain control and take your chances on your own marketing skills and the effect time can have in the long-run, or to give up your control, earn some money up front, and put all of the decisions pertaining to your book into a traditional publisher’s hands and hope they offer a decent marketing budget as part of the deal.
 
Like most things in life, there are pros and cons no matter which road you take.
 
So, would I go traditional if a publisher came calling? My answer has to be a firm "Yeah, maybe." Yes, I'd consider it. If it were the right deal, I would do it. It wouldn't mean that all of my books from that moment on would be published traditionally, so why not give it a shot?
 
What about you? Have you considered what you would do if a publisher came calling?