Publication 05: Which Route Is Best

I’ve used these past few posts to explain exactly what publication involves. I did this so that when you are getting ready to have your work finalized, you know exactly what’s involved. When you have all of the information, you can then make the decision which is best for you and fits your needs.

The final product, the item in your hands, should have the same appearance, whether it was published by a large publishing house or if it was self-published by you. It should be ready to market, to hand to friends and family or to proudly place in a bookcase. All of the items which were covered in the past few posts must be completed and must be completed well.

So, what distinguishes a self-published book from a big publishing house book?

The answer is the time and effort the author must put into the publishing and the marketing. As was mentioned in an earlier post, the levels of publication are:

• Brick and mortar publishing houses.

• Pay for publishing.

• Pay for selective services.

• Self-publishing.

Brick & Mortar Publishing House If you decide to go the route of the brick and mortar publishing houses, you submit your manuscript to them and they decide if they will take you on as a client. If they do take you on, they basically do everything for you. They take the file you send them and they produce a finished product. They also do all of the marketing. As per a contract which the author will sign with them, the author will receive a royalty for each book sold.

Pay for Publishing Pay for Publishing is exactly what it says. The author pays a company to do all of the work that a Big Publishing House does. For a fee, these companies will take a completed manuscript, do a final edit, do the formatting and the cover design and then market the book. Again, as per the contract, the author receives a per book sales royalty. These Pay for Publishing are perfect for family histories, family recipe books or journals. The fee these companies charge can be fairly high, so before starting down that path, do the needed homework. Whether the nickname is fair or not, this form of publishing, Pay for Publishing, is also known as Vanity Publishing.

Pay for Selective Services Pay for selective services are companies which, for a fee, will do the part of publishing the author asks of them. The author may ask for editing, formatting, cover design or marketing. For each service requested, the author will pay a predetermined fee.

Self-Publishing The last route an author may chose to have their work published is Self-Publishing.

If Self-Publishing is the chosen route, there are many websites/outlets that can help you with this venture. To begin listing them and trying to rate them would be unfair to them. The only comment I can add is to stress how important it is when you do your research, is to consider two items. First, does the self-publisher have an outlet which allows for easy marketing of the material. The second consideration should be how easy is the process to go from publishing a hard copy to publishing an e-book of your manuscript.

The final word on which route is best for you, is - Homework. Do your homework. Check online for names and the requirements of any publisher, before making contact. Know who they are and what they are offering before deciding.