For many unpublished authors, the decision to walk down the traditional publishing or the self-publishing path can be quite difficult. Knowing what to do can be overwhelming, especially if you’re unsure which path fulfills your publishing goals. The following blog post aims to quell some of that uncertainty.

Traditional Publishing

In the traditional publishing route, you sell your book to a press who will handle the editing, production, distribution, and marketing of your book. While you do have a hand in these roles, the responsibility is not on you alone. You have an entire team at your disposal to help publish the book—for free. The downside to this is that acquiring these assets can take YEARS. In traditional publishing, you have to first acquire an agent to represent your book. Then your agent has to sell the book to an editor at a publishing house. Then once you’ve signed a contract with a publisher, it still takes an average year and a half to two years before the book actually comes out. Traditional publishing is a long game that you have to be willing to endure.

Traditionally published books are usually those you’ll see in places like Barnes & Noble, Target, or any other major retailer. Traditional publishing houses have connections to distributors who will sell stock to retailers, thus giving your book higher visibility in a brick and mortar setting. If having your book in a physical store is important to you, then traditional publishing may be the way to go.

Let’s look at some pros and cons of traditional publishing:

Pros:
  • The editing, production, distribution, or marketing is not your financial responsibility. You publishing house undertakes all of the cost of publishing your book.
  • There’s a higher chance of visibility for your book, especially if your publishing house has a high marketing budget.
  • Major retailers are more likely to sell your book.
  • There is a higher chance of increased sales during the initial print of your book.
Cons:
  • Because the publishing house undertakes the cost of publishing your book, that also means they retain the majority of the profit—not you.
  • The marketing your publisher provides for your book has a shelf-life.
  • Upon signing a contract with your publisher, releasing your book can take anywhere from 18 to 24 months. This doesn’t include the time it takes to find an agent and sell the book.
  • Your book is bound by contract to the publisher, even if you don’t end up working well with your publisher.

Self-Publishing

Self-publishing is when an author publishes their book without a traditional publisher. That means that the author is either doing all of the publication work themselves or they are outsourcing the work to freelancers. So while self-published authors have complete control over their publishing process, they do so at the cost of footing the bill for all of the expenses. The hope is that the book sales will eventually offset the cost of production so that the author can begin to make a profit.

Not all authors publish a book with the intention of making a profit, though. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of the author being passionate about a story or a subject matter, and they write a book because they simply want to share it with the world. I’ve seen this a lot with entrepreneurs who write a nonfiction book as a way to supplement their business or educate their clients. So, if this is your goal, self-publishing might be the way to go.

Let’s look at some pros and cons of self-publishing:

Pros:
  • Because you are not selling the rights to a publishing house, you keep all the profits of selling your book. Hopefully, this will end up offsetting the costs it took to publish the book.
  • You aren’t releasing control of details such as cover design, format, or editorial changes for the sake of marketability.
  • You control the timeline for your publication.
  • You are guaranteed to have your book published. There is no waiting and hoping an agent will choose to represent you or an editor will send you a book deal.
Cons:
  • You assume all financial responsibility for the editing, production, distribution, and marketing of your book. Be prepared to save up a lot of money.
  • While not impossible, it is much more difficult to have your book break into a major retailer’s shelf space. Amazon e-books and on-demand print is most popular.
  • Statistically speaking, most self-published books perform at a gradual incline rather than an initial spike in sales.
  • You may be sacrificing the quality of your book if can’t afford to outsource the editing, formatting, book design, etc.
Action Step

Whether you traditionally publish or self-publish, you should consider hiring an editor. If you hope to traditionally publish, hiring an editor will increase your chances of getting an agent because your manuscript will be more polished. If you hope to self-publish, hiring an editor will ensure you have the same kind of professional feedback that an author getting traditionally published would have.

To get you started on your journey, check out Fiction & Fable’s editing services.

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