Any writer who aims to be a well-known author must understand the book publishing process. It’s a classic situation you have written your book. but have no idea how to convert it from your word file to eBook and print formats. You might have heard about professional book publishing services, but you don’t know how to work with them. Now, when you are here: you don’t need to worry as I will guide you throughout the publishing process.
There are more chances and potentials to create and publish a story and interact with your audience now than at any previous point in history. It’s entirely possible whether you want to go for traditional publishing with a literary agent, skilled editor, and a renowned publisher, or you need to self-publish your book either yourself or by hiring a professional book publishing service. It’s entirely up to you to decide what’s best and what’s not for your book.
I will walk you through the book publication process and provide tools to help you decide which publishing model is ideal for your book. However, before moving to that, you need to understand the differences between self-publishing and traditional publishing.
Traditional Publishing
When an author signs a contract with a publisher, the publisher print your book, publish it and distributes it through bookstores and other online and retail outlets. The publisher effectively buys your work and then pays you royalties on sales.
However, if you want to go for the traditional publishing model, you must engage a literary agent. To pick one, you must first decide which category best fits your work. First, you must submit a book proposal to let the publisher know what your book is about. Also, you need to add three sample chapters and an outline for each chapter if you wish to be a nonfiction author. And if you are writing fiction, though, you should complete your book.
After completing all these steps, you are ready to compose a query letter. This is the letter you will send to prospective agents. It’s essential to emphasize the many components of a query letter. In addition, you should include an overview of your book, a chapter summary, the target market for your book, and a brief introduction of yourself being an author.
Self-Publishing
Print-on-demand, subsidy, vanity, and self-publishing are all examples of alternative publishing models.
POD publishers accept all proposals and publish anyone ready to pay them a premium price. POD publishing uses advanced printing technology to print even a single book at a low cost. As orders come in, the books are produce one at a time. As a result, you can regulate the book’s supply to suit the readers’ demand.
POD reduces expenses and eradicates the need for extra copies to keep in store. Editing, proofreading, and marketing are usually offered at a premium price, and you profit from royalties on sales. In terms of rights, some can be assigned to a POD publisher for a specific period of time, although this varies per publisher.
In subsidy publishing, the author is responsible for paying for the book’s printing and binding. However, a percentage of the cost of editing, warehousing, marketing, and distribution is manage by a subsidy publisher. The publisher owns the books until they are sold, and royalties are paid to the author.
A vanity publisher will publish anyone’s work if they have the funds to pay for it. The publisher publishes and binds a book at the author’s expense and does not help with marketing and editing. However, the author owns the printed copies and keeps all sales profits.
Self-publishing demands the author to put their own money into the book’s production, marketing, distribution, and storage. While this requires a significant amount of work, it is more cost-effective than subsidy and vanity publishing. Moreover, with self-publishing, you also get the opportunity to hire professional book publishing services. To do all the legwork on your behalf, as they have professionals hired to make things as perfect as possible.
How Can I Know Which Is The Best Option For Me?
Choose vanity publishing if viewing your work in print is a personal aim for you or you consider yourself a hobbyist. However, if you are creating a history, biography, or poetry collection with a small readership and don’t want your book stock in bookstores, POD is definitely the way to go. They are frequently nonreturnable, are not offered at a discounted price, and you will not be required to hold any unsold copies.
Moreover, if you have a noticeable social platform with a solid fan following to reach your target audience, have the confidence of your readers in your genre, and are willing to devote time to promoting and marketing your book, self-publishing in bulk may be your best bet. You can also hire professional book publishing services to improve your publishing journey.
Apart from that, if you don’t have time to wait to publish your book. self-publishing is an excellent alternative, as it can take up to 20 months for a traditional publishing house to bring your book from draft to final edition.
However, there are some factors to consider. First, if you don’t know how to discover or communicate with your audience, don’t have an online presence, want your book in renowned bookshops, and want a well-known publisher to do the marketing for you, traditional publishing may be the best choice. But here’s a twist, you can also expect the same from self-publishing as several professional book publishing services are operating in the marketing to let you rest on your couch and do all the legwork for you to make your dream come true with their outstanding and professional book publishing services.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. So, choose wisely!
