Traditional v. Self Publishing
By Sravani Hotha
Traditional publishing is when a publishing house publishes, prints, and markets your book. For most major publishing houses like Penguin, Hachette, etc., you must work with a literary agent who specializes in your genre. For some smaller indie publishers, you may not need an agent.
Self publishing means you publish, print, and market the book you’ve written, entirely on your own. There are services like Apple Books, Ingram Spark and Amazon Direct Kindle Publishing that help facilitate the process.
Neither publishing route is better or worse. It all depends on your goals as a writer, and it’s possible your goals could evolve along the way. Some people choose traditional publishing because they want careers as authors without the hassle of marketing on their own. Others establish themselves as authors through self-publication and then segue into traditional publishing for later novels.
Research the genre and the current market and evaluate your goals thoroughly before choosing the format that’s best for your book. Choosing one route for a particular piece of work doesn’t close you off to another route for another work.
Let’s look at the benefits and drawbacks of both.
Pros of Traditional Publishing
Your literary agent and editors will help bring your novel to its highest potential.
The publishing company bears the burden of printing and marketing your book so that you can focus on writing.
Your literary agent can enter you into prestigious contests which give you recognition and can help boost your career.
The chance of your book being available in brick and mortar bookstores is much higher and in some cases guaranteed.
Cons of Traditional Publishing
It can take years to find a literary agent and go through multiple rounds of edits.
You may face a lot of rejection, which can be disheartening.
Authors get paid in royalties after agents, editors, book designers etc. These royalties might be very low.
You may still have to take part in marketing the book if you are not satisfied with the publisher’s marketing strategy.
If your agent or editors don’t share your vision, you may have to fight for creative control.
Pros of Self Publishing
You maintain creative control of your work. This might be important if your story is very niche and you don’t feel like there are agents or editors in the current industry that share your vision.
The entire process is much faster. You don’t have to wait to be picked up by a literary agent and wait for the agent to pitch your work to publishing companies. In some cases, writers have aspirations for only one book. It might be a personal memoir or a children’s book as a gift for their family. There is no reason for them to wait years to go through the traditional publishing process.
You will take home a larger percentage of royalties than with traditional publishing. Most distributors of self published ebooks offer 70% of royalties from sales.
Cons of Self Publishing
You are responsible for all the costs of publication and marketing. However, you may also have a greater chance of making profits, because all proceeds of sales come to you first. This is assuming you have already paid your editors and all other services.
Marketing on your own only goes so far. A lot of self published writers are disappointed in how few readers they are able to reach through their own marketing efforts.
There are hundreds of self published books on online retailers, like Amazon, and it is very hard to stick out from the crowd. Your book and marketing efforts have to be exceptional if you want to gain a large readership.
You have to hire editors on your own.
There is no guarantee of making it to brick-and-mortar bookstores.
Keep in mind that publishing is an evolving industry. While these are the two main routes to publishing a book, there are also literary magazines and journals for shorter forms of writing, as well as anthologies. Each of these routes has varying rules and practices, and it’s important to have a clear understanding of what you ultimately want to accomplish as a writer, to find the right path for you.
Also note, that in recent years, “hybrid publishing” has also been considered a path to publishing. This path is meant to combine elements of both traditional and self publishing. With these newer routes, it’s crucial that you use discernment before choosing it. There are many companies that have popped up as scams.
Your book can succeed regardless of which publishing route you choose. But being informed about these decisions can make all the difference!
