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Hey guys

It’s been a while since I posted one of these (or anything, really) but when I saw what Jane from Meraki had cooked up (along with help from Daeus and Faith), I had to make sure to share it. If you’re trying to decide whether you want to pursue traditional or self publishing, it’s your lucky week.

Self Publishing vs Traditional Publishing

I think it’s safe to say that most writers have a ‘one day’ dream of getting published: having your book on the shelves of total strangers and sharing your story with the world.

But there’s always that big question: are you going to self publish or traditional publish?

There’s no right or wrong when it comes to the decision of what publishing method you should use—it varies on the individual person and situation—but today we’re going to take a look at some of the differences between self publishing and traditional publishing, so you can get a clearer idea of what might work best for you and your story.

I (Jane) am going to be looking at the traditional side of things, while two of our self published guild masters (Daeus and Faith) are going to tackle it from their own expertise.

Write and edit your book

This step is pretty much the same no matter which method you’re going to use. Once you’ve written your book, you want to edit that beast until it’s as good as you can possibly make it.

This means personal edits, alpha and beta readers, a professional edit, and more and more personal edits, or some variation of those things.

The only difference is that with self-publishing you will have to hire your own editor, whereas you don’t have to hire your own editor before querying a publishing house. Once you sign with a house, they will match you with one of their own editors who will then work closely with you on further revisions to your novel.

Research

Next (or during edits), you need to make sure you buckle down and do your research. You’re hoping to get your book into your readers’ hands, so you can’t just rush through it. Thorough research is crucial to all publishing methods.

If you’re aiming for traditional publishing, this is the time to look into all the details for representation. Publishers! Literary agents! How To Write A Book Proposal!

For self publishing, you’ve got to dive straight into the world of self pub platforms.

And from here on out, things start to look different. We’re going to get right into the details, but please remember that the knitty gritty will look different for every person, so this is only a rough idea of what it can look like.

Finding a Publisher vs a Publishing Platform

Traditional: Not sure where to start with finding the right agent or publisher for you? Your bookshelf is a great place to get going. Find books similar to your style and see who published them. Check the acknowledgements or the copyright page, because most authors will mention their agent in one or both of those places. Jot those names down and look up their websites!

Assuming you’ve picked the agent/publisher you want to approach first, you need to write up your official book proposal. I’m not going to lie, this can be a pain. xD

Make sure you’ve read every single detail on the agent/publisher’s website. Different agents will ask for different things, and it’s not that much effort to double- and triple-check that you’re formatting everything correctly and sending the samples and details they ask for. It could be the difference between a rejection and a contract offer.

Once you send in that proposal, you’re going to have to wait what feels like a million years, but could be anywhere from a few days to a few months. Don’t base your whole self esteem on getting accepted first-try, because it’s pretty rare.

Have back-up agents and publishers who you want to query second-in-line, so if you get a rejection letter, you’re not floundering in deep waters.

Most of all, don’t give up! If the rejection letters give you any feedback, work that into your proposal or story. Be grateful for what you learn, rather than bitter for not being accepted.

It only takes one yes to get you there!

Self: The easiest platforms for self-publishing your eBook are Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Draft2Digital(D2D). Both are easy to use. KDP publishes to Amazon only while D2D publishes to Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, and many others. Every self-published author I know uses these two platforms.

For paperbacks, there are more options. KDP does offer Paperback services as does D2D. I (Faith) have only ever used KDP (or Createspace before they went out of business) and find them easy to work with. They are not quite as professional looking as traditionally published books, however.

KDP is known as a print on demand (or POD) company. That means whenever someone buys your book, they’ll print an individual copy and ship it to the buyer. This is super convenient and the safest route for new self-publishers. Some self-published authors also use Lulu or IngramSpark as their POD company.

POD is not your only option however. You can also order a bulk printing of your book. You can earn higher royalties this way, but you’ll have to fulfill the orders yourself (not fun) or outsource to a fulfilment service.

NOTE: You may have already heard this before, but it never hurts to say it again: never pay anyone to publish your book. And I mean ever. I’ll talk more about royalties in another section, but this is super, super important. If someone asks you to pay them upfront for them to publish your book, they’re a scam.

Cover Designing

Traditional: Though the fine details will vary on the publisher you sign with, the core work of cover design is pretty much always in your publisher’s hands. They’ll pick your designer, and they’ll have final say in all designs and ideas. However, your publisher is also on your side, so they want you to be happy too.

Most publishers will have some sort of form you can fill out with all the cover details. E.g. what sort of aesthetics and colours fit with the book, what other book covers you really like, what you’re imagining your cover to be like.

The designer, your agent, and the other publishing people you’re working with all have great experience in the bookish world, so you can trust that they know what your target audience will like, and know how to make your cover eye catching and fitting with the story inside.

Self: You have two options for getting a cover for your book. You can either make your own or hire someone else. The thing about making your own cover is that you will need to do a good amount of research to make sure it looks professional and fits the genre.

However, if you hire someone, you need to also make sure you research the designer to make sure they make covers that are professional looking. I would recommend comparing the covers they design to the best sellers in those genres. Those are generally the covers that do well.

Marketing

Traditional: I don’t have time to fully cover the topic of how to market your book, but I can tell you that you will have to market it! Yes, you have a publisher, and yes, their marketing team will be having a hoot of a time spreading the word about your book. But you can’t just sit back and do nothing; you’ll be working as a team to bring your book baby some publicity.

Usually you and the publisher will talk together and set out a marketing plan. You come up with ideas, they come up with ideas, and then you gear into action with what will get your book the most exposure.

Self: Publishers have marketing experience, but so do other authors. You can learn from successful friends or marketing experts what works and what doesn’t. Ideally, you’ll be able to find help putting together a realistic plan. Then, it’ll be totally up to you to head up all the work.

Royalties

Before I get into this topic, I want to just remind you that all these details are very varying depending on the publisher or platform you use, as well as the price of your book.

Also, a quick definition: Royalties is the money from book sales that goes to the author.

Traditional: Your publisher gives you somewhere around 12% – 18% of royalties from your sales, which might seem low, but the publisher often puts thousands of dollars into preparing your book and that’s all work that you don’t have to do yourself, and it turns out as a pretty fair agreement.

A literary agent will also get a percentage of your royalties, as that’s the only payment they get for all the work they do in representing you to publishers and editors.

Self: For ebooks, you will generally receive 70% royalties on a book priced between $3 and $10 and 30% royalties on anything priced lower or higher. For paperbacks, kdp will give you 60% royalties, minus the print costs. This will generally work out to be something like $1.5-$4.5 in royalties per sale. As mentioned earlier, doing a print-run can increase your royalties, but this is only a smart move for already established authors. With audiobooks, your royalties will range from 25%-40%.

Bookstores

Traditional: This is where being traditionally published is a breeze. Your publishers will take care of getting your books into actual stores across the country/world. The bigger publishing houses like Thomas Nelson/HarperCollins are more likely to get more stock in places like Barnes & Noble, but that’s not to say that smaller houses won’t get your book into actual stores.

All you have to do for this one, is sit back and relax, and/or run around screaming with excitement.

Self: If you want to be stocked in bookstores, you will have to personally contact them and convince them that it’s worth their while.

That’s by no means a comprehensive list, but I hope that gives you a better idea of what each method might look like.

So what about you? Do you want to self publish or traditional? Is there anything here that you hadn’t heard before or that surprised you?

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