Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Like Tevye’s song, “Tradition,” in Fiddler on the Roof suggests, sometimes it makes sense for the author to hum a few bars on the merits of tradition. A traditional, royalty-paying publisher offers a neat package to the writer that enables him or her to concentrate on creating a great manuscript.
Hey, I get that traditional publishing can seem like a fortress that’s impossible to penetrate. Egads, many publishers won’t even accept a query from an unagented writer let alone offer to publish your work!
But publishers who make an investment of tens of thousands of dollars in your book bring a lot to the table. It’s sort of like staying at a five-star hotel as opposed to Motel 6. Self-publishing is no-frills; royalty-paying publishers have plenty of razzle-dazzle, at-your-service options to offer, including: an editor who holds your feet to the fire and makes you create your very best work; a marketing staff who have ideas to promote your work that would never have occurred to you; publicity people with connections in all the right places (you mean Oprah? yup); sales staff with working relationships with book buyers at all the major outlets and who are paid to make regular calls on those buyers.
Okay, okay, so I’m strutting the idealized version of a royalty-paying publisher. No, your book isn’t necessarily going to be pitched to Oprah. No, your book won’t necessarily get the Top of the Mark marketing budget. But my point is, royalty-paying publishers have the wherewithal to provide all this and more. These publishers warehouse copies of your book; keep track of its inventory; send it out and send you money based on those sales; offer it to foreign language publishers; release your book in a vareity of formats such as hardback, then trade paper, then mass market; produce a gift book or a workbook out of your material, etc.
These are the folks who have been creating books for a very long time. And, here’s the really good news: They want to pay you to let them produce your book.
To give a fully rounded picture, I have to say that neither method of publishing is without its flaws. But I hope that I’ve clarified in these posts that traditional publishing and self-publishing really are like cats and dogs–two very different critters, both inherently offering us reasons to like them and reasons to wonder why a person would ever put up with them.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
I once went to a conference hosted by mostly self published authors. They hyped it up (of course). I did some research, mostly on blogs like this, and I’ve really come to the conclusion that traditional is the way to go.
You can’t beat the resources, really. Editing, marketing…just like you mentioned here today.
I’ve read a couple self – pubbed books, and it was evident that the editing was not professionally done.
I, personally, think traditional publishing houses are the way to produce quality books! Sure, it’s hard to break through and get published, but it shouldn’t be easy…otherwise less than excellent books get published.
Great post today!
It feels like cats and dogs some days too 😉
Thanks for laying out the differences so clearly. I think a person really has to understand their personal strengths and resources before deciding which route might work best for them.
I do have a question – in the past, writers have been told there was a sort of stigma attached to self publishing when approaching a traditional publisher. Would you say that still the perception?
I think most agents and editors understand that self-publishing has changed a lot in the last few years, making it much easier to do, especially with print on demand. But, if an author has a string of self-published novels that each sold a few hundred copies, that would reflect negatively on the writer. On the other hand, if someone self-published and sold, say, 5,000 copies, that starts to look like a project traditional publishing would want to seriously consider because the author has proved a ready audience is out there.
I’ve had books published by Doubleday and other “traditional” publishers and was never happy with the product, the deal or the income.
Last year I established my own publishing company.
I’ve just completed my third self-pubbed book, and am writing #4 and #5.
The earnings-per-copy, speed to get a book on the market, speed to receive money, creative control, plus overall satisfaction and fun are infinitely better.
I can’t imagine ever going bact to doing a book “the old way.
Michael N. Marcus
http://www.SilverSandsBooks.com
http://BookMakingBlog.blogspot.com