Traditional Publishing or Self Publishing?

KuruKinaar

KuruKinaar

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I've encountered a lot of authors over the years and discussed with them about publishing through a company or self publishing their own works. There are a lot of pros and cons to both sides. What would you chose?

Personally, I went down the self publishing route, which is a lot of work to do. I had to edit/revise my own book, find a place to print my book out, format it correctly, figure out registering for a ISBN number and copyright, and left to advertise and spread word out for people to purchase my book. As much work as it was, I felt it was the right thing for me to do and I feel very happy and accomplished.
 
Tearing_Sanctuary

Tearing_Sanctuary

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KuruKinaar said:
I've encountered a lot of authors over the years and discussed with them about publishing through a company or self publishing their own works. There are a lot of pros and cons to both sides. What would you chose?

Personally, I went down the self publishing route, which is a lot of work to do. I had to edit/revise my own book, find a place to print my book out, format it correctly, figure out registering for a ISBN number and copyright, and left to advertise and spread word out for people to purchase my book. As much work as it was, I felt it was the right thing for me to do and I feel very happy and accomplished.
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You could just use Amazon's print on demand for printing. They can also provide you your ISBN to be used in Amazon only.
 
placeintime

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I'm curious about the traditional publishing route. How does this happen? Do you contact the company or do they contact you?
 
Paul_Tromba

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Corty said:
@Paul_Tromba Insight needed. :blob_hide::blob_cookie:
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I looked into both and ended up choosing self publishing. Publisher's make it a lot easier since they will cover the funds for editing, illustrating, and publishing but they will have specifics that they want to adhere to. In other words, you won't have the ability to choose exactly how you want your book to look but you don't have to go through all the stress of publishing. Advertising and marketing can also be taken care of by the publisher so if they think it will do exceptionally well then they will promote it to no end. You'll also get a lot smaller profit from the book as the publisher will keep most of it. You also have to be picky with your publish her because many of the new publishing houses are scams to legally strip the story rights from the author so read any and all contracts before considering signing them.

With self publishing it can be an expensive and time consuming process. Editing, advertising, illustrating, and all publishing fees will be on you. However, you can have the book made exactly to your specs. There is a fair amount of difficulty learning how to navigate publishing but there are a lot of helpful videos on how to do it. It can also take a bit of time to build a following for the published product so don't expect to make money or break even from your first book without first marketing like a madman.

All in all, trad publishing can be less stressful with less personal monetary investment but will lack any desired differences from the publishing norms. Self publishing is stress incarnate but allows you to be as expressive as you want.
 
TheKillingAlice

TheKillingAlice

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About ten years ago, I chose self publishing for my first novel, because I'm a bit of a control freak. If I am to give up control, I want it to be for a publisher that's worth it, meaning you wouldn't take one that can't even get the book into the stores.
I have a small publisher for one of my novels, it's a small one, but I chose it because it's a book that isn't as dear to me as others. Of course, I love all of my stories, but it's not among those I care the most about. So I thought it was fine if they did things I couldn't control. In the end, I did end up with a lot of creative decision making, which was nice.

Anyway, nowadays, you don't actually have to do this much to find printers and all of that. Yes, your cut will be smaller, but it's way more organized to use a self publishing service.
You still have to do editing and setting, still have to put on cover and decorations, but in the end, there's less organizing to do. Tredition is a place I want to put my last published book when I revised it. Until now I used TwentySix. I want to split the next novel, putting the eBook on through BookRix and the print through Tredition.
They should all be available in english as well. It will take care of the printing, the ISBN, the national library copy (I don't know if that is a thing in other countries as well, but we usually need to send in two copies of every novel that's published) and the eBook distribution. Since they are officially listed, I can walk into any bookstore and order any of my novels to pick it up the next day.

As a self publisher, yes, you have to do all the work and get none of the access. But if you want a publisher you can either attempt a go with an agent, who then offers the novel up to bigger publishing houses, or send in your Exposé to a publishing house yourself. But never forget: You have one chance.
If you already sent you story into a publishing house, even with an agent, they won't send it in again, because it's embarrassing. Once denied, it will always be denied. I believe the only time that doesn't hold true is if the book manages to gain attention through the internet, like those "Wattpad to published" novel stories.
 
KuruKinaar

KuruKinaar

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Tearing_Sanctuary said:
You could just use Amazon's print on demand for printing. They can also provide you your ISBN to be used in Amazon only.
Click to expand...
I actually published through amazon! As nice as it is they provide a ISBN number, it's only registered in their system; so, using a world wide ISBN registration is better so it's filed world wide :) It gives the option to be ready if a publishing company would like to take on a story.
placeintime said:
I'm curious about the traditional publishing route. How does this happen? Do you contact the company or do they contact you?
Click to expand...
You contact them! They request you do a full story summary (from start to finish the main story events), and then you give them your teaser summary you'd put on the back of the book, and then they contact you back if its a story they're interested in or not. If they like it, you then work with them to edit/revise your story and basically publish your book.

There's rare cases that a self published book gets contacted by a publishing company. Typically, publishing companies don't take on already published books, but again, it depends on the company.
Paul_Tromba said:
I looked into both and ended up choosing self publishing. Publisher's make it a lot easier since they will cover the funds for editing, illustrating, and publishing but they will have specifics that they want to adhere to. In other words, you won't have the ability to choose exactly how you want your book to look but you don't have to go through all the stress of publishing. Advertising and marketing can also be taken care of by the publisher so if they think it will do exceptionally well then they will promote it to no end. You'll also get a lot smaller profit from the book as the publisher will keep most of it. You also have to be picky with your publish her because many of the new publishing houses are scams to legally strip the story rights from the author so read any and all contracts before considering signing them.

With self publishing it can be an expensive and time consuming process. Editing, advertising, illustrating, and all publishing fees will be on you. However, you can have the book made exactly to your specs. There is a fair amount of difficulty learning how to navigate publishing but there are a lot of helpful videos on how to do it. It can also take a bit of time to build a following for the published product so don't expect to make money or break even from your first book without first marketing like a madman.

All in all, trad publishing can be less stressful with less personal monetary investment but will lack any desired differences from the publishing norms. Self publishing is stress incarnate but allows you to be as expressive as you want.
Click to expand...
Exactly why I self published! As much as it would be nice to have help with all these aspects, it costs money to hire people to do all the work, so profit on your book goes to paying all of them and you don't make as much in return!
 
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