Imagine sitting on your desk, with a laptop in front of you and your fingers moving briskly over the keyboard. You’re typing the very last words of the book that you’ve been working on for quite a while. You’ve written it; you’ve edited it. You’ve spent hours tugging at your hair, trying to figure out how a particular scene would unfold, how a character would react.
And then you find yourself typing that very last word, huffing and slumping back in your seat.
There it is – the complete piece that you’ve spent days and nights on. But the moment of absolute relief is clouded by an after thought – ‘What now? How do I get this to my readers?’.
And then sets in the dilemma – How do I get this published?
The choice between Self Publishing VS Traditional Publishing has plagued almost every writer when they’ve decided to get their works into the market. With the boom in technology and social media platforms – Self Publishing has become more prominent than it used to be. Although, a lot of writers still prefer to publish their books traditionally.
It takes hours, days, weeks or even months of contemplation, or trial and error to decide and work out a way of publishing a book.
Let me first walk you through the difference between the two types.
Traditional Publishing is where an established publisher buys the rights to the author manuscripts, thus, acquiring all rights to the book. Usually, an agent represents an author and negotiates a certain percentage of the amount made from the book to be given to the author. In return, the author is expected to work with an in-house editor and to finish writing a book in the allotted time.
Self Publishing has no involvement of an external established publisher. The author owns all rights to the book. The author is in control of deciding the price, design, cover, formats, etc of the book. There is no fixed timeline for the author to work within.
Now, which one should you choose? And why?
- Pros of Traditional Publishing –
1. Easier print distribution.
The traditional publishing model is incredibly adept at this. Once you choose this route, getting into bookstores becomes easier because of the connections the established publishing houses have.
2. Validation.
For many authors, going through the traditional route serves as a confidence boost. A publishing house selects a manuscript they like – so the author gets the initial satisfaction of knowing that the book is good. It gets even better when an author’s book is selected by a very renowned publishing house.
3. More likely to be critically acclaimed.
Literary prizes and for a book to be critically acclaimed is more likely through a traditional publishing house than a self published author. It is incredibly rare for a self published author to be selected for literary prizes.
4. A professional team to work with.
With the traditional publishing route, the author gets a professional team to work with to make the book into something that its audience will love as a whole. From editors to formatters, cover artists, etc – tonnes of people with experience and expertise are involved with the author in converting a manuscript into a finished book.
5. No initial financial investment.
You won’t have to pay for a traditional publishing deal. Instead, if your book is selected by a publishing house – you’ll be paid a certain amount of royalty for the book!
- Cons of Traditional Publishing –
1. Slow process.
It takes a good year or more to get your book from a manuscript to a published book and on the shelves. First, you’d look for an agent. Then, the agent would find you an appropriate deal. Once you find the appropriate deal, the editing, formatting and all the other formalities will take a good amount of time, too.
2. Lack of control.
When you sign a publishing deal, you’re transferring your rights to the publishing house. You’re transferring the rights to choose your own covers, or titles and much more. You lose a lot of creative control when you sign up with a publishing house.
3. Royalty rates aren’t high.
Although traditional don’t require initial investment, the royalty costs that are negotiated aren’t a lot. The amount you get is just a measly 7% – 25% of the book sale amounts. Mostly, the amount you, as an author, would get for it is hard to forecast.
4. Contract clauses.
When signing a deal with a publishing house, it’s important to retain as many rights as you can to your work. There can be clauses that might end up limiting your success – financially, mostly. For example, some publishing houses might ask you to give them a certain cut from every work that you publish – whether they’ve played a part in it or not. Such clauses are incredibly unnecessary and often lead to loss for the author. It’s important to go through all the possible contract clauses offered by the publishing house before signing the deal.
5. No significant marketing help.
Traditional publishing houses mostly just use the established reader base of the author to market the book. Most publishing houses do not use any new or effective marketing technique that might benefit the popularity of the book.
- Pros of Self Publishing –
1. Complete control.
It’s 100% your work. You’re in charge of the covers, the formatting, the publishing way and date. You’re in charge of the title, the story, the word count and every little and big thing of your book. You possess complete creative control.
2. Faster and flexible marketing and high royalty rates.
You don’t necessarily have to go through the trouble of getting it print traditionally. You can just put your books up on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, etc and the book would be on sale within 4-72 hours. You’ll be paid after 60 days at the end of the month sale. And the best part is, the royalty in self publishing isn’t limited to about 7%-25%. The royalty rates could very well rise up to about 70%. You can choose about any style of marketing without any interference from a third party since you own the complete rights to the book!
3. Niche books sales.
A lot of times, major publishing houses do not prefer publishing books that aren’t of a mainstream or popular genre. Publishing such books becomes easier with self publishing.
4. Self publishing can be used as a means of getting into traditional publishing.
Once you succeed at self publishing, it becomes easier for you to be recognised and selected by a traditional publishing house. Agents and publishers will approach you. Self publishing might be your way in the game.
5. The world is your playground.
Since you retain the rights to your book, you’re free to self publish and sell in any country which in turn broadens your reader base and your chances of earning through your book.
- Cons of Self Publishing –
1. You’re doing it all by yourself.
You have no professional help with editors, formatters or designers. You don’t possess any guidance of sorts of the market that you’re getting into if you’re an amateur author only starting to learn about the market. You’re doing it all alone. You’re the writer, editor, designer and then marketer of your work. You also have to work to fix the price such that it doesn’t undermine or overestimate your work and gets you actual sales and numbers.
2. No validation until book starts selling.
You will have absolutely no idea if your book will be liked by the readers until it actually starts selling. This moment of ambiguity and risk is really stressful for a lot of writers.
3. Initial investment required.
Since you’re the only one who owns the book – you’ll be the one investing in the initial formation of the print book or finding a professional editor for an outsider’s perspective. Especially if you’re going to make a living out of your books, you’ll have to invest some money to make sure that your book ends up at par to other traditionally published books in the market.
4. Harder to get literary prizes.
A lot of literary prizes don’t even accept self published books. So, this makes it really difficult for a self published book to win a literally prize or get critically acclaimed.
5. Difficulty in getting shelf space in bookstores.
Traditional publishers’ job is essentially getting the author’s books into the bookstores and closer to the readers. So, getting shelf space would be much easier with a traditional publisher than by self publishing.
For a writer who wishes to make a place for him/herself in the market, it’s incredibly vital to choose the right path.
Hope this would help you get a clearer picture in the difference between traditional publishing and self publishing and would make choosing your path easier!
