Writing and completing a book is a gruelling task and requires days and nights full of perseverance. It takes determination, skills, and passion for being able to finish writing a book. But once you have performed all the mentioned hardships, what’s next? Publishing it. So which path do you take? Self-publishing or traditional publishing?
Well, it is not as easy as it may feel. There are many steps to follow to finally get a hold of the hard-cover of your book and to see it being posted on the selling sites with your name on the bottom (or on the top, whatever feels right to you).
And the very first thing to do, after finishing up your book’s first manuscript, is to decide the course you want to walk upon to get your book published. Whether to self-publish or traditionally publish it, for that, one must have a piece of profound and extensive knowledge about both preferences. So worry no more!
Here Is Listed The Difference Between Self-Publishing And Traditional Publishing.
Traditional Publishing:
There are prominent companies, which act as third-party publisher that helps you to publish your book. They are most certainly to keep almost more than 90 per cent of royalty, and the remaining rest is yours. You don’t own complete ownership of your craft if you opt for traditional publishing.
You submit the raw draft of your book via an agent (most of the companies, especially the renowned ones, will only accept the submissions by the median of a literary agent), and if they like your work, REALLY like it, will proceed with the contract.
One thing to know is that since they are big companies and get an enormous amount of submissions per month, it becomes challenging to impress them, and they end up declining 98 per cent of the works they receive. So you know it is not as facile to get your work published by traditional medium unless you are like the next JK Rowling (Fun-Fact: JK Rowling was rejected 12 times before actually landing up to get accepted by her 13th and luckiest publishing house).
So Why Are People So Hyped About Traditional Publishers Anyway?
This is so because of their marketing venture. They take command to market, promote, edit and publish your book without asking a penny from you. They even give you an advance-money cheque for your book publication. And this is one of the reasons why these houses have an extremely selective process since they are priorly investing in a book that may or may not be a hit.
Self-Publishing:
This is a modern route that one can pick to get their book in front of the world. Before it, only a handful of talents were able to get bared to the world, thanks to traditional publishing.
Self-publishing is basically paying the cost of editing and other essentialities to get a book readily available in book stores. You own the rights to your book and attain almost 100 per cent of royalty. You even have the choice to design your front-back cover page, interior layout, etc.
The most challenging part of this publishing is that you are responsible for promoting, marketing, and venturing your book to the world. It is quite a hectic task for someone with less than 100k followers on social media or with not-so-famous parents.
What Is The Need For Self-Publishing?
Once you check out the marketing boxes, costs of publishing, and promotion techniques, self-publishing gives you the freedom to access your creative side. It will provide you with a sense of self-reliability (which can act like a pro for some and a con for others). It gives you drive over your work, and you remain the only owner of it.
Final Words:
Many writers are choosing to self-publish e-books which eliminates the costs of printing hard copies. It is a rising concept and hence very much recommended.
Point to note: Each publishing route has its personal and unparalleled struggle; it has its cons and pros. So do your comprehensive research and choose the way that suits you the best.
All The Best!