Pros and Cons of Traditional Publishing Verses Self Publishing
When it came to book publishing, it used to be that you had no choice other than to pitch your book at a traditional publisher in the hope that they would agree to publish it.
Some people were lucky and had their books published, but most were not.
But now you have the choice of either trying you luck with traditional publishing companies, or self publishing your book.
Most authors complain that self publishing a book means that you have to do all your own book marketing.
Traditional book publishers only market the books of their best-selling authors. All the other authors are left to DIY marketing at their own expense. And if the books sales aren’t big enough, a book will be withdrawn from sale within a few months.
So whichever route you take, book marketing will always be your responsibility and at your own expense. You can do most of your marketing for free or for minimal cost, or you could hire the services of a marketing company.
There are also the actual publishing costs to consider.
With a traditional publisher, there are no costs to the author, except time. Because once your manuscript is accepted, it can take up to 4 years before your book is published, during which time your book will be edited and returned to you for alterations (possibly several times) and you’ll be responsible for the final proof reading.
If you become a self publisher the costs are minimal because if you use print on demand, there is no need to do large print runs, and you don’t even have t to do a small print run, unless you want to.
There are even online publishing companies such as Lulu, who let you publish your book for free.
But to do your own publishing, all you need is a good publishing plan to publish your book on the correct date, some inexpensive software to create book covers and barcodes, and that’s all.
Your book can be published and selling in as little as 2 weeks.
And the best thing about it is that you get to stay in control of everything – your books content, the cover, and, most importantly, the profits.
It’s your book so why let someone else publish it?
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