All You Need to Know About Book Publishing; Traditional versus Self-Publishing

For a writer aiming to publish their debut book, the process of finding the appropriate publisher can feel daunting and requires extensive research, particularly in a constantly evolving field.

Discover the approach I adopted to achieve a harmonious decision regarding my selected book publishing route, which involved weighing the pros and cons of self-publishing versus traditional publishing.

Step 1: Understanding What Traditional Publishing is and its pros and cons

Step 2: Why Self-Publishing?

Step 3: A Happy Medium

Step 4: Book Self-Publishing Companies

Understanding What Traditional Publishing is Pros and Cons

Traditional publishing is a mainstream publisher that handles your book's creative process and distribution. This conventional route pays an advance and royalties, and can be beneficial as it has a lot of distribution connections, a team to help market your book and professional editing and design.

Why are people moving away?

When deciding which route to choose, I spoke to some already self-published writers who told me why I shouldn’t take the traditional route. And here’s what they had to say:

1. You have less creative control over the process with the title, cover design and edits. I recall a friend sharing that he chose to self-publish his book because the changes a publishing company wanted to make did not resonate with the creative voice he aimed to establish.

2. You have less rights over your book. Traditional publishers usually require authors to sign contracts that are binding. And, some of them take percentages off of your book sale, which was the case with one publishing company I was looking into and did not like so much.

3. You have to have your manuscript approved in order for it to be publish. This means you will most likely have to make changes to fit what that publishing company wants because they are more concerned with your book being sellable. Not saying that this is bad because we all want to have sellable books but also authentic ones.

4. It can be very expensive. Choosing to self-publish cuts some of the costs of traditional publishing.

Why Self-Publishing?

Self-publishing is simply taking on all the cost and responsibility of publishing without involving an established publishing house.

More people are self-publishing because...

1. You have full autonomy and creative control over your work in the publishing process

2. All profits and rights to your book belongs to you 100%

3. Less expensive (all depends if you self publish by yourself or with a company)

4. Higher royalties

5. Still have access to global distribution

The down side of self-publishing...

1. You do not always have a team to support you

2. You have to find your resources separately. Meaning you won't have a team of editors, cover designers, interior book designers or a marketing team, you have to search them out separately.

3. It's a bit harder for book distribution to commercial bookstore but NOT impossible

A Happy Medium

After doing some research, talking to already published writers and actually reaching out to a few publishing companies, I found myself on the fence about my book publishing options.

 I did not want to go with traditional publishing because of the fact that I would not have total rights or autonomy over my work but I liked that I would have my resources all in one place and with a supporting team. Nevertheless, I discovered that there are some new self-publishing options available that allow you to publish with a company while still retaining the essence of self-publishing.

So what did I do?

I went with a self-publishing company that offered the ideal combination of support and autonomy. These publishing companies provide a supportive team to assist you without the need to be concerned about manuscript acceptance or relinquishing your rights and creative control, you only pay them for the services that they offer.

With self-publishing companies, you still have credibility with book distribution to commercial bookstores, royalties and marketing if you wanted it. I can't speak for every self-publishing company but the one I used, Friesen Press, which I'll probably do another blog reviewing them!

Book Self-Publishing Companies

For anyone looking for a happy medium like me, here are a few self-publishing companies:

• Friesen Press (a Canadian publishing company)

• Amazon kdp (kindle direct publishing)

• Ingram Spark (if you want your book in the brick and mortar stores)
  

And there are a lot more, so make sure to do your research and find out what's best for you!

Visit www.starlightghostwriting.com for your writing needs!