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Traditional (Trade) Publishing |
Modern Supported Self-Publishing |
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Most trade publishers receive thousands of manuscript submissions every year from which they select fewer than one dozen new authors to work with—a discriminatingly low acceptance rate. One of the primary reasons for this low acceptance rate is that they have preset budgets and objectives for what they can publish each year.
A common misconception is that traditional publishers always and only reject manuscripts that are poor in quality when, in fact, that is not the only factor involved. Budget and manpower play a huge role in which projects they can/cannot accept, particularly for the smaller presses. Unfortunately, this means many talented authors are overlooked every year. |
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When a traditional book publisher agrees to pay for the publication of your book, they are essentially buying the ownership of your book. They agree to pay for its publication because they believe they can make a profit from owning and selling it. (On the flip side, if the book doesn't sell, they are the ones who take the loss on their original investment.) |
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When you choose the supportive self-publishing route, you are choosing to pay all your own production and marketing costs in exchange for complete creative control over your work. You also keep all the rights to your work which may prove profitable if/when that book begins to sell well. (On the flip side, if your book doesn't sell, then you may not be able to recoup your original costs. That loss is yours as the self-publisher. That's the risk you take if you choose this route.) |
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Due to the volume of material they must consider, a trade publisher's manuscript review process can take anywhere from three to six months; and most will reject multiple submissions (a.k.a. simultaneous submissions), meaning they will automatically disregard manuscripts that have been sent to more than one publisher for consideration. If your book is accepted upon review, the production process can take up to another six months to complete. |
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Once you submit your electronic book cover/interior files and payment to a supportive self-publishing company, you're pretty much ready to go. It's that easy to get started. The production process, itself, can be completed in as few as eight weeks. |
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If/when your manuscript is accepted, the traditional publisher takes care of all the necessary legwork, such as: obtaining ISBN numbers; managing publishing contracts; designing your copyright page; finding/organizing editors and graphic artists; typesetting your book; dealing with printers and distributors; submitting your book to the Legal Deposit at Library and Archives Canada (LAC); et cetera. |
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Supportive self-publishing companies will manage most (if not all) of the following background details for you: obtaining ISBN numbers; managing publishing agreements; designing your copyright page; finding/organizing editors and graphic designers, etc, for you; typesetting your book; and dealing with POD printers/distributors. (Click here to access PPG's convenient checklist of the various tasks self-publishers must do for themselves.) |
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Trade publishers will pay you royalties on whatever books they and their distributors sell on your behalf. You can also buy author copies of your books from them at a significantly reduced price to sell on your own. (Think of them as your book manufacturer/wholesaler, and think of yourself as a retailer.) |
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Supportive self-publishing companies will pay you royalties on whatever books they and their POD distributors sell on your behalf. You can also buy copies of your books from them at a significantly reduced price to sell on your own. (Think of them as your book manufacturer/wholesaler, and think of yourself as a retailer.) |
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Some publishers (i.e. vanity publishers) do not require their authors to go through an editorial process ... and this is a serious issue, in my humble opinion. Everyone can benefit from copy editing and proofreading. The more sets of eyes you have to review your book, the better. (This is a notable viewpoint that sets supportive self-publishing apart from vanity publishing. It is described in more detail in the below-linked article.)
I founded PPG because I strongly believe it is possible for authors to self-publish a professional product if they are willing to go through the same steps a traditional publisher goes through to polish and perfect a book. However, what sets PPG apart from other support companies is that we will refuse to publish anything that, in our judgment, has not been properly edited/proofread. It doesn't look good for us or the self-publisher unless it's done right. |
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Most trade publishers still use traditional printing methods, meaning they will print a large run of your books—usually from 500 to 2000 copies to begin with—on an offset press, and they'll try to sell those off before printing anymore. Because they print this way, their production cost per unit is quite low, so they can charge less for each book. (i.e. The same book may retail at $9.99 when printed the traditional way while it may retail at $12.99 when produced using modern digital "print-on-demand" methods.) The down side is that it costs a lot of money to warehouse all these books; and once you've printed that many, you're stuck with them. There's no changing them even if you find typos after the fact ... which happens more often than not, believe me! |
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Most supportive self-publishing companies use a modern digital printing method called "print-on-demand" (POD). An electronic copy of your book is stored with a special POD press that allows as little as one copy to be printed at a time. This is helpful because you can easily resubmit your book's e-file to the POD printer if you need to make any corrections or updates along the way. This new method of printing also eliminates expensive warehousing costs. That said, because the books are being printed only a few at a time, the production cost per unit is a bit higher, and this is reflected in the price of your book. (i.e. The same book may retail at $9.99 when printed the traditional way while it may retail at $12.99 when produced using modern "print-on-demand" methods.) |
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As a self-publisher, it is up to you to market and sell your own books. It is up to you to get well-connected. (Blogging is a great way of doing this!) |
- Because trade publishers produce new books once or twice per year (spring/autumn selections), the shelf-life of each book is typically six months to a year. After that, it moves from the frontlist to the backlist and becomes less of a priority than the new releases.
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- As a self-publisher, you are not confined by someone else's publishing schedule. You can publish a book at any time of the year, and you can be assured your book will always be given top priority because you are the one in charge of marketing it.
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I self-published my book, The Octogenarian Ski-jumper, about a month ago. For me, the key question in determining whether to go the traditional or self-published route was - can I persuade a traditional publisher to take on the risk. I had four different conversations with publishing firms; all liked the concept of the book but all pulled out of discussions because they said they couldn't take the risk of investment in their current business situation. After the fourth conversation fell through, I decided that I could take control. The skills required to market a book are very different from those required to write one, but there are a lot of resources out there for those who have the determination.
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You said, "...most [publishers] will reject multiple submissions (a.k.a. simultaneous submissions)..."
This is only true for the short story (magazine) market. Simultaneous submissions of novels is expected in the industry; if you only send your novels to one publisher at a time, and you have to wait six months to a year for each rejection, it will take you decades to sell a book.
Otherwise a nice comparison chart.
In the end, the model that is "best" depends on your own personal goals and resources.
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The Canadian literary publisher I worked for had (and still has) the same policy regarding simultaneous submissions of poetry and fictional novels. On their website, they clearly state they will NOT publish manuscripts that are being considered by other publishers.
It is very important for writers to pay close attention to each publisher's submission guidelines and adhere to them. This can make or break whether or not a manuscript is accepted for publication.
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Through a legitimate publishing contract, the author does not lose copyright control over his / her book. But... while you do retain copyright this does not mean you retain publishing rights...once you sign with a traditional publisher you do lose a lot of control over what happens with your book. You have ownership status of the content but your publisher owns the rights of use of that content. With vanity publishing you give temporary publishing rights (use of content) to the vanity publisher...and you can cancel those rights at any time and for any reason. With independent publishing (where the author is the actual, legitimate publisher of the work) the author begins and ends with ownership of publishing rights (use of content).
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This is a good comparison of the two types of publishing. In your list of what supportive self-publishing companies will provide, though, you didn't include providing indexing or helping the author find an indexer. For non-fiction books, this can be a mistake. A good index will often make the difference as to whether the book will be purchased, especially by libraries.
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