The Paths to Publication
Wait, There’s More Than One? Yes, Friend.
I’ve been avoiding writing this post for well over a week. And to be even more honest, the draft has been metaphorically gathering dust for almost four months. Why, you ask? Well, as often as I talk about it, as much as I know about it, publishing is still difficult to put into words.
Despite trepidation, we forge on, friends, because you need to understand the publishing options available to you. Today we’ll talk about three different paths to publication: traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing. Are there more than this? Yes. But as Julie Andrews so beautifully intoned, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
Traditional Publishing
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that this is the form of publication that’s most familiar to you. As aspiring authors, we imagine ourselves like Hemingway writing away at a cafe in Paris, or Agatha Christie ensconced in her house on the British coast, able to focus entirely on writing while money miraculously pours in. We imagine this future for ourselves and assume then that traditional publishing is the only avenue to achieve this dream. It is, after all, the only publishing option where you, the author, aren’t putting any money down. But let’s talk through the nuts and bolts and then you can decide if it’s the best choice for you and your book.
In traditional publishing, the publisher (Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, etc.) both finances and produces the book. Yes, that means that you (the author) are being paid for your art. Eureka! I’m an author!
Babe, you’ve been an author since you published the collection of diary entries you called a blog when you went abroad sophomore year. You’re an author the moment you publish something. And to publish is just to make it public. Making money does not suddenly make your art worthy (but that’s a soapbox for another day).
Yes, Macmillan or Sourcebooks or Amazon are going to pay you for your book, but let’s go over some of the other points here. First, I have to tell you that getting a traditional deal is fiendishly difficult. It’s incredibly competitive with <1% of submitted books being accepted by a publisher. It also takes the longest amount of time, with production lasting approximately 18+ months. If you’re looking to get your book on bookshelves by Christmas, look elsewhere. And if you go on tour, or have a speaking engagement and want to sell your book directly to readers, you’re buying the book from the publisher at around a 60% discount. Say the book is $30? You’re paying $12 for each book you buy back.
You also no longer own your intellectual property, the publisher does. I’ve heard of authors having to submit slides to a publisher for approval before presenting on their own book. Obviously this depends on the nitty gritty of the contract, but it illustrates my point. And your advance - that sum of money paid to you for your book - is an advance against royalties. Once you’ve sold enough books for the publisher to recoup their investment, or “earn out” your advance, only then do you get paid any royalties.
Ok, you may think, but I’ll have a well-established engine behind me. The publishers marketing team will churn out propaganda and people will flock to bookstores!
Girl, I am manifesting that for you. But be aware that a majority of traditionally published books sell less than 5,000 copies. In fact, only 2% of authors sell more than 2,000 copies. And 80% of books don’t earn out their advance.
If you’re in the lucky 20% and earn out your advance, you’re only making 10-15% of royalties depending on your deal, and your agent, which you’ll need to secure the deal in the first place, is getting 15% of that. The publisher was the investor, so they’re keeping around 80% of the upside.
There are incredible advantages to traditional publishing. You do have the benefit of a very professional outfit designing, editing, and marketing your book. You’re eligible for book awards and best seller lists, that will increase interest and sales. You could get a movie or TV deal, or could sell the rights internationally if it sells well. While I wouldn’t say these are impossible with our other options, they are much less likely.
But’s let move on and explore some other options, before you shut your laptop in fear.
Self-Publishing
I’m again going to assume this option is familiar to you. At the polar opposite end of the publishing spectrum, in this instance the author is both financing and producing the book. This means several very exciting things right away: there’s a 100% acceptance rate, you get to keep all your intellectual property, you control the timeline, and - drumroll please - every time your book sells that profit is going straight in your pocket. All of it. (Cha-ching!)
Well, you might think, after the Darwinian-Jurassic-Park nightmare of traditional publishing, why wouldn’t I self-publish?
A few things to keep in mind, if you want to create a professional product, more than likely you’ll have to hire contractors to help you design a cover, typeset, proofread, and market (and more!) your book. That’s money you are spending. So, contrary to popular belief, self-publishing is not free.
You could choose to do all those things yourself, but that’s time (and probably money) spent becoming a subject matter expert in something that might hold little interest for you. Time you could be spending writing many more books.
Something else to note, if you’re self-publishing your book, it’s not being distributed to bookstores. Self-publishers use a model called “print-on-demand", which means that your book is being printed as a one-off whenever a physical copy is ordered. Otherwise, it exists online as an ebook. It’s typically a lower quality product than what would be printed and distributed by the publisher, but if you’re not an aesthete why should you care? Because, if you’re wanting to sell books in a local coffee shop, at a work conference, at your daughter’s soccer game, you’re buying the books at cost. Said another way, no author discount for you. And since the books are being printed as a one-off, the price per unit is higher than if they were being printed in bulk. So yes, all that profit is yours, but there’s less of it.
But the really key thing to understand about self-publishing is that it is unbelievably competitive.
I thought you said it has a 100% acceptance rate?
I did say that. And that means anyone can publish a book at any time. When I say competitive, I’m not talking about getting your foot in the door. I’m talking about your ability to have impact once you’re in the room.
Around 3.5 million books are self-published in the United States every year.
Yes, I said, around 3.5 million books are self-published in the United States every year. Something else to keep in mind here is that if a book is published traditionally it eventually will go out of print. But self-published books? They never go out of print, unless the author takes them down. I’ll put this in clearer terms, your book is not only competing with every book being self-published this year, but the 3.5 million published last year, and the 3.5 million the year before that. And every other book that has ever been self-published ever.
It’s easy to understand why self-published books only sell an average of 200 copies.
And with AI on the rise, you can bet your britches that the number of self-published books is only going to rise and it’ll be even harder for good works written by good humans to get noticed.
But self-published books do get noticed. The phenomenon that is Theo of Golden beautifully demonstrates this. Self-published books can have incredible impact, and if it’s large enough, sometimes they will be picked up by a traditional publisher. Sometimes that’s not the right choice for the author, and they’d rather continue self-publishing, knowing that their books have found an appreciative audience and they are making enough money to support themselves. It takes a lot of work and dedication, but it can be done, and is surely no less rewarding than a big contract deal with a traditional publisher. It all depends on what the author’s goals are. (See my last post!)
Hybrid Publishing
Hybrid publishing is the new kid on the block, and thus, I’ll assume, less familiar to you. Being new also makes the territory a bit rugged - the Wild West of publishing. So, hold onto your hat and Manifest Destiny, baby.
Hybrid publishing, as you’ve probably surmised, is a blend of self and traditional publishing. In the hybrid model, the author is financing the book and the publisher is producing it. In other words, the author is fronting the cost of production.
The author gets to keep their intellectual property, keep a majority of royalties depending on the deal, and doesn’t have the hassle of learning how to typeset a book in Adobe InDesign.
That sounds great!
It does sound great, and it is great! But before you get too excited, hybrid publishing has a 5% acceptance rate, but the even higher barrier to entry is the price.
Depending on who you work with and what kind of deal you select, you could pay anywhere from $10k-$150k or more. On the less expensive end of the spectrum, you’re paying for professional production team including editors, cover designers, typesetters, proofreaders, etc. But your book is still going to be published using a “print on demand” model online. And it gets pricier as you add bells a whistles like marketing and PR support, but with their help you’re more likely to exceed 200 copies sold and have a greater possibility of having an impact in that tight marketplace.
Where it gets really pricey is when you add in distribution.
Some hybrid publishing companies have traditional distribution deals, so your book, that you’re financing, will be printed in bulk by Simon & Schuster or others, and then sold in bookstores. You could see it on a shelf at your local bookstore, or even at the airport. And more than that, you might even hit a big bestseller list, because you’re only eligible for lists like USA Today and New York Times when you have traditional distribution.
There is a shorter time horizon, so think 6+ months to get your book out into the world, rather than the immediacy of self-publishing or the year+ of traditional. Historically hybrid has been a great option for non-fiction books, like business books, or books being leveraged against a larger professional push. So, an executive coach might hybrid publish a self-help book in order to gain more business, increase pricing, do more public speaking, etc. One reason that it’s been a popular model for business books in particular, is because you’re buying the books back at the cost of production, which, because you have traditional distribution, is much lower than if you were doing the print-on-demand model or traditional. Think $2-3 per book rather than $5-6. And hitting a bestseller list is not only great for the book, but great for business.
Since hybrid publishing is still new, there can be significant confusion over what is and what isn’t hybrid. The best place to look for information is the Independent Book Publisher’s Association website, which can be found here.
As I said at the beginning, there are more options available than just these three. You could technically separate hybrid publishing into hybrid, which includes distribution, and “Author Published,” which does not include distribution. There are also publishers, both hybrid and traditional, that use a profit-sharing system, rather than an advance. All I can advise is that you do your research before signing on any dotted line. Make sure you know exactly what it is your signing up for, and most importantly, make sure it aligns with your grand plans for your book and your career.
