Self-publishing or commercial publishing-Compare and Contrast

During the long delay between acceptance and publication following processes take place: editing, revision, more editing, more revision, copyediting, typesetting, proofreading, galleys to author, corrections, cover art development, blurb writing, fact checking (nonfiction), legal read through, publishers catalog copy written, ISBN number obtained, placement of book on Amazon, B&N and similar websites, publicity campaign development, briefing salesmen about book, salesmen generating enthusiasm for book with bookstore buyers, printing, order fulfillment and distribution.

My area of expertise is writing, not the other activities that surround the publication of a book. They aren't things I want to do, but not everyone feels that way. I would not self-publish unless it was something non-commercial written strictly for friends or family, but I'm not you. My experiences with traditional publishers have been good. My books are better for having gone through the process outlined above. It doesn't bother me that there is a time lag between acceptance and publication, because I have moved on to the next book. I want to write, not spend my time doing publicity. But again, I'm not you. You are the one who has to be satisfied with the end result. No one else matters.

My advice is to thorougly explore self-publishing. Look at a lot of self-published books and decide if you are satisfied with the production values. Read several different forums about self-publishing. Go to a couple of local readings by self-published authors and ask them about their experiences. Then explore the world of traditional publishing. Read several forums, look at some sample contracts on the Web. Go to some local readings or writers conferences and talk to traditionally published authors about their experiences, and then make your decision. In the end, you'll have to figure out whether self-publishing will produce a product you are proud and whether the level of risk is acceptable to you, because self-publishing puts all the financial risk (and reward) on the author.

A high school basketball athlete may feel he's ready for the pros. Thousands do. Most will elect to go to college, learn the finer points of the game; some of these will actually make it to the pros after college. A vast majority will learn they are very good in college--but not ready for the pros.

Back to the high school seniors that think they are ready for the pros: quite a few will forego college and enter the pro draft (thinking they are ready and not willing to wait out the college experience), but only a dozen or so of those thousands actually land a roster spot with a pro team. Even those that do will spend most of the season on the bench. Only one that I can think of (Lebron James of Cleveland) actually made an impact on the team and is considered a star.

What's this got to do with the beginning writer? You may think you're ready for the big time. Many of us do. Some will forego the ritual of finding an agent or (traditional) publisher and shoot for POD. Some will have minimal success. Most will have no success. Maybe one or two a year break out from the pack and grab the attention of a traditional publisher. Do you think those odds are better than the odds of going the traditional route (ie find an agent or publisher first)? And if your book is good enough to stand out in a crowd of POD publications, then it should be good enough to get published the traditional way.

If you think you're the one POD in 10,000 that gets recognized by the real publishing world, go for it. Most likely however, you'll be missing out on very constructive criticism and assitance that we all need to get published.

Sounds to me like you're just impatient or fear what professionals may say about your book. If it's good enough to get published, you can find a home for it besides POD. Remember, most POD companies will print anything. Do you really want to be a part of that if you're looking to make a writing career?

Maybe the mods could add a sticky regarding this subject as it seems every month more people ask this same question.

If it's that "long delay" that puts you off commercial publishing, and steers you towards POD, think again. The time is not spent doing nothing: as already pointed out by others, it's very necessary so that the book can be meticulously edited, designed, and considered, and a marketing plan formulated and put into place. When I was an editor I often felt as though we didn't have enough time scheduled in for these processes. And if you are your own editor then you're going to have to do all this for yourself, which (if you want to do it properly) will eat up all your writing time.

By all means take the POD/self-publish route if you feel you must. But don't think you'll get any advantages by doing so. Compared with going the more traditional route it will cost you more, in time, effort and money; it will get your book far less publicity, public awareness and sales; and it will mark you out as a writer whose work wasn't good enough to be taken on by the big boys.

If you really don't think your work will ever be taken up by a major publisher (and the only reason it won't is that it's not good enough), and yet you hanker to see it in print, then go ahead with self-publishing. I prefer to put myself through the seemingly endless agonies of the submissions process (albeit shielded from the worst of it by my piranha of an agent). I know I'll get taken up sooner or later. Meanwhile I devote my time to writing--and to nagging people online!

banjo said:

I’m not happy about the prospect of a very long wait for approval from an agent or publisher.

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banjo, if you want to self-publish and do it right, you'll have at least a four month wait anyway, and that's if you rush. If all you want to do is print your book through lulu or a POD publisher, you can have it next week, but nobody will read it.

If you're serious about self-publishing, you might want to join yahoo's self-publishing group. Lurk there for at least a month or two and read through the archived messages.

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Self-Publishing/

We believe that digital printing and self-publication have become very viable alternatives to commercial publishing for highly entrepreneurial writers.

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For nonfiction, yes, depending on your platform. Will it ever be true for fiction? Maybe. But not yet.

If you don't already have a platform to market your book (your own talk show?), then you better be ready to pound the pavement selling. In another thread, I recommended a writer who was having problems do the following:

"Sell books out of the trunk of your car. Go to every book festival, library opening, sf con, whatever... that you can find. Flea markets, festivals, county fairs, make sure everyone within 500 miles gets a chance to buy an autographed copy. Drive your numbers up through sheer force of will. Wear out the keys on your fax machine by sending out press releases. Call every radio station on the dial and ask to be interviewed. You'll feel like you're shopping for an agent again, and the rejections will come fast and furious, but this is how the rest of the world sells things, and it will work for books as well."

I know several writers who do this, and manage to make a living. Not a good living, and those aren't new cars they're selling out of, but they eat. If that is a life you're comfortable with, self-publishing might be for you. If you have as much faith in the marketability of your writing as your purport, sell it to an agent or a publisher, multiply your income by a factor of 10, and get busy writing the next bestseller instead of booking the next festival.

I think the biggest problem for self-published authors is getting your books in bricks and mortar stores. Distribution is difficult, and most stores--independents and chains--won't accept books from self-published authors unless they have an established distributor in place. The four books you mention are four out of hundreds of thousands of self-published titles. All the above are terrific successes and inspirational stories, but you might as well buy a lottery ticket if you think the odds of turning a self-published book into a best seller that is picked up by a major publisher are in your favor.

Everyone has given you the pros and cons already. If you're serious about self-publication (and not vanity, please!) then my advice is: read and learn everything about it. It takes time and effort to do it right. Good luck.

banjo said:

The Bridges of Madison County, Term Limits, The One minute Manager, The Celestine Prophecy, and others were self-published first. Warner bought the world rights for the Celestine Prophecy for $800,000 in 1992, quite a bit of money at the time, but it became a bargain for Warner. It remained on the Publisher's Weekly Hardcover Fiction List for 64 weeks, 26 of those weeks as #1. And James Redfield was previously an unknown author.

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The Celestine Prophecy was self-published and hit it big. I can't find any evidence at all The Bridges was ever self-published. If it was, it certainly never sold enough copies for anyone to find. There isn't a copy of it anywhere. I suspect it's one of those myths, like all the self-publishing sites that claim John Grisham self-published his first book. If Waller ever did self-publish, it's certain he had truly rotten sales, and the book wasn't picked up because it sold well.

"The One Minute Manager" is nonfiction, and you can't lump it with novels. Self-publishing can be good for niche nonfiction, but it's nearly always horrible for novels.

Self-publishing because you don't like the waiting time for traditional publishing is probably the worst possible reason to self-publish.

The simple truth is this: whether you like it or not, there is stigma to self-publishing novels, and it's well deserved. For every well-written self-published novel out there, there are a thousand horribly written ones.

The odds are roughly 250,000 to one that if you self-publish a novel, two years later you'll still be waiting for it to turn even a small profit. With traditional publishing, the odds are about one in five that your novel will turn a profit, and you'll be asked for another novel. The turnaround time is much faster with a second novel. Even a traditionally published novel that sells horribly still outsells 99% of all self-published novels. And is better written than 99% of all self-published novels.

If you want to be successful with a self-published novel, you can't just expect to put it up on a website, or self-publish POD, and expect readers to come to you. You have to have LOTS of copies on hand, and you have to spend tons of times each and every week selling out of the trunk of your car, travelling to various shows and signings, etc. You get no distribution, no help of any kind, etc.

Success stories do happen with self-published novels, but there almost as rare as hitting the lottery. And for good reason.

Two years is NOT a long wait, this length of time is NOT ever going to shorten because there is a queue system that is both necessary and helpful to writers. Thousands of novels are published each and every year, and there's only so much room in bookstores, only so much time at the printers, etc. And the time BEFORE publication is time you can prepare the public for the book.

Patience is not only a virtue, it's essential. I suppose it's natural for a writer to want quick responses and fast publishing, but it's also not realistic, not good for the writer, and shows a real lack of understanding of the business side of writing. The only thing fast usually means is fast loss of money, fast loss of time, and fast loss of any chance of being successful.

There may be plenty of good writers who feel as you do, but if so, they're hiding well. They certainly aren't self-publishing novels. You can read self-published novels for months without finding one that doesn't read like it was written by an illiterate third grader. Or without finding one with an author who doesn't think it's wonderful.

The ONLY advantage to self-publishing a novel is that you can fail a whole lot faster.

And should you work a miracle and manage to write the one in 250,000 self-published novels that sells well, and should you have it picked up by a traditional publisher, yeah, right, you'll still have to wait your turn in line to have it published. You're taking the long, slow road, not the fast one.

Jamesaritchie said:

Two years is NOT a long wait, this length of time is NOT ever going to shorten because there is a queue system that is both necessary and helpful to writers. Thousands of novels are published each and every year, and there's only so much room in bookstores, only so much time at the printers, etc. And the time BEFORE publication is time you can prepare the public for the book.

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I used to think that 18 months is a long time and that the publishing business moves like snails. But after going through the process myself, I now understand why, and I'm actually impressed by the quality control that goes into it. And yes, because there's a queue (my book's not the only one getting published). First there's the editing process -- and chances are your editor is working on multiple projects at the same time. Then comes design and layout. Then proofing. And my publisher requires at least a 5-month pre-release period to allow for reviews, etc. Then the marketing, distribution, publicity, etc. It all takes time.

I am not the most patient person in the world, but now I'd rather do it right than rush through the process because I know how mistakes would be made if you don't have enough time and pay attention. There are things out of your control (printer screwing up, someone getting sick, reviewers such as Kirkus asking for at least 3 months...) and you simply have to wait.

I have used this pre-release down time to tell people about my book, starting to create a buzz, and doing other things to promote it. Obviously, I am also working on my WIP. So I am actually glad to have this "down time." Imagine if I self-publish? I would be driving around the country with a trunkful of books trying to sell every copy to people I don't know. I wouldn't have any time to write.

banjo said:

Personally, I don't find the "Stigma of Self-Publishing" sufficiently adverse to discourage me from moving out on my own if it will greatly economize time.

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The stigma isn't what you think of self-publishing; it's what potential buyers think of self-published books. The overwhelming majority of self-published books are crap. Even self-publishing advocates say so. Your book will be assumed to be one of the overwhelming majority of crappy self-published books unless and until you manage to convince people otherwise, and you'll have to convince them one by one. Starting from such a handicapped position, it's hard to get anywhere.

maestrowork said:

And my publisher requires at least a 5-month pre-release period to allow for reviews, etc. Then the marketing, distribution, publicity, etc. It all takes time.

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This is worth re-emphasizing. At least some of that long wait between acceptance and publication is there to allow the publisher to perform a variety of essential pre-release marketing and publicity tasks, including getting the book reviewed in industry journals (most of these journals, which booksellers and librarians use to help them make decisions about what to purchase, require review copies at least three months in advance of publication) and selling the book into stores (which happens months and months before the publication date--my publisher, for instance, had a catalog listing and a cover sales proof ready for my forthcoming book this past July, and the book won't be published till March 2006).

It's been mentioned that self-publishing can work well for certain nonfiction projects, and that's certainly true--someone who has written a book for a niche audience he knows how to reach directly, or someone who can exploit a "back of the room" situation to sell books directly to her audience or customers. People who have connections that can help them publicize the book also may do well with self-publishing--for instance, a journalist who can call on his media contacts to review and write about his book. If you scratch a self-publishing success story, you'll nearly always find a special circumstance of this sort. But for most general fiction and nonfiction, self-publishing is not very effective, because most authors simply don't have the ability to tap into the distribution network that can reliably get books in front of a general audience.

There have been some amazing self-publishing success stories. But the hopes they inspire are unrealistic. As a proportion of all self-published authors, the successes are a tiny, tiny fraction--far tinier than the fraction of successes among all commercially published authors. Your odds of succeeding through self-publishing are much, much poorer than with commercial publication--and those odds are slim enough.

(It always strikes me as ironic when people who are considering self-publishing as a way of bypassing whatever they don't like about the commercial publishing industry justify their decision by citing self-published authors who did so well they were picked up by...the commercial publishing industry.)

If you do ultimately make up your mind to self-publish, learn as much as possible about it before plunging in (i.e., don't just pick a POD self-publishing company). One good resource is Dan Poynter's Parapublishing.

And if you decide to self-publish, it should be for a better reason than impatience.

- Victoria

Another thing to remember is that by self-publishing, you automatically rule out reviews in important review sources, like Kirkus, which don't review self-published books. (If you don't understand how big an issue that is, you have got to do a lot more research into publishing before you're ready to self-publish.)

Aconite said:

Another thing to remember is that by self-publishing, you automatically rule out reviews in important review sources, like Kirkus, which don't review self-published books. (If you don't understand how big an issue that is, you have got to do a lot more research into publishing before you're ready to self-publish.)

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It depends. If you don't own the ISBN or went through another company (which usually results in stock covers, crap interior design, and most likely the work wasn't edited), it's true. If you've published under your own imprint, you can get the reviews if you go about it correctly. Unfortunately, people often use the term "self-publishing" when it's not really, so it's important to make the distinction.

As has been mentioned, research and planning is key. Self-publishing because you're impatient is the wrong reason to self-publish because if you do it right, it can take just as long as publishing through a commercial publisher. You might want to rush something out if it's nonfiction on a timely subject with a lot of interest, but then I'm willing to bet that you can probably interest a commercial publisher in that case, if your book is good.

brinkett said:

It depends. (snip) If you've published under your own imprint, you can get the reviews if you go about it correctly.

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There's no correct way to submit your self-published book to Kirkus for review, for example, because they won't review them. From http://www.kirkusreviews.com:

Kirkus Reviews does not review books in the categories listed below.
self-published titles
print-on-demand titles
e-books

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There's more they don't review, but those seemed the most relevant.

(Yes, Kirkus Discoveries does review such books. They charge for it, and nobody in the book business regards a Kirkus Discoveries review as worth the paper it's printed on.)

Aconite said:

There's no correct way to submit your self-published book to Kirkus for review, for example, because they won't review them. From http://www.kirkusreviews.com:

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Hang out with the experts for a while in the Yahoo group I posted earlier and then see what you think.

banjo said:

For instance how much say does the author have if the publisher(editor) wants to change his work. The ability to tell my story is not negotiable.

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banjo, that depends a lot on your editor. The kinds of changes editors usually suggest are those that involve making the story work better--rewording awkward passages, cutting or reworking passages that block the flow of the story, and so on. (I've never had an editor make changes without my permission, even when they suggested ones I chose not to accept.) A good editor works with you and helps you get across to your readers what you'd intended to in the first place. There are horror stories about bad editors, yes, but those kinds of things happen rarely (that's why they get attention). The editor doesn't want to write your story. The editor wants to help you make your story the best it can be.

Most "self-publishing success stories" are, as Victoria noted, completely out of context. Redfield is a poor example because his work isn't actually what we'd call "fiction;" The Bridges of Madison County only became financially successful after an incredible string of coincidences led to interest in Hollywood; and so on.

Think about it this way: People do win the lottery. That does not make it an efficient use of funds, or a way to pay the rent. If you get enjoyment from the process of playing the lottery, and the expense isn't taking food off the table, that's your business. And, frankly, the odds of "winning" are a lot better for the various state lotteries than they are in self-publishing!

I am aware of no work of fiction truly self-published since 01 January 1978 (the effective date of the current copyright act) that was a substantial sales success before being picked up by a commercial publisher without truly exceptional (and irreproducible!) circumstances. And it's not for lack of trying—this is part of a long-term data model being prepared for legal academia. There have been several "false self-publishing" efforts (e.g., Christopher Paolini) that have proven successful prior to being picked up commercially, but none have been "lottery hits" without that commercial pickup.

It depends on the editor and publisher. It's still your story, but a good developmental editor may suggest ways to improve the story -- tightening the pace, add more character development, rearranging scenes, clarifying plot, etc. etc. Usually you work with the editor to resolve these issues. I don't think the editor would say, "If I were you, I'd write it this way, and these are the changes you have to make or else..." I think the problem usually is the other way around... that the author says something like, "I am not changing ONE word. It's final. It's perfect as it is." That's when the publisher and author part ways and the contract dissolves...

I think it's a legit concern for many writers, especially first-time novelists. I certainly had the same concern. The reality is, if the editor believes in your story enough to acquire it, she wouldn't want to make drastic changes, or if any major changes need to take place, it would probably be discussed before a contract is signed -- so there will be no major surprises. If you can't agree to the changes, then there will be no deal... Once the book is bought and editing continues, most changes are probably nips and tucks to make the book better.

Jaws said:

MThere have been several "false self-publishing" efforts (e.g., Christopher Paolini) that have proven successful prior to being picked up commercially, but none have been "lottery hits" without that commercial pickup.

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But I think that was Banjo's point... that he wants to eventually get picked up by a big traditional publisher. He just wants to bypass the whole query, submission, agent... then the two-year wait to see the book in print. He wants to get the book out now, then have it catch the eyes of a publisher or a movie studio...

So, it could happen. But the odds are against you.

Here's another consideration. No writer is totally objective about his or her own work. Nor are there many manuscripts, no matter how good, that can't be improved. One mark of a professional writer is being open-minded enough to accept thoughtful criticism. If you're not willing to consider the advice of an experienced professional who thinks highly enough of your work to want to publish it, you might indeed be better off with self-publishing.

Usually, editing suggestions will fall into one of three categories. There'll be things that you'll recognize as right the minute you hear them (for instance, for my last book, my editor suggested a structural change that was so obviously right that I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it--but I hadn't). There'll be changes you probably wouldn't have made on your own but don't mind making to please the editor. And there will be changes you feel are wrong. Sometimes, with discussion, you can reach a compromise. Or you can just say no. Again in my last book, my editor didn't like the final chapter and wanted me to cut it. I felt strongly that the chapter was important and needed to stay. I told my editor why; I don't know if I convinced her, but she accepted my decision. As a compromise, I shortened the chapter and turned it into an epilogue.

The editing process should be collaborative. You're well-advised to heed your editor, but changes shouldn't be forced on you.

- Victoria

by Jaws: I am aware of no work of fiction truly self-published since 01 January 1978

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I know of exactly ONE: Karen E. Quinones Miller's GOING FOR IT. She sold almost 30,000 copies from her own website, and her second book sold at auction to Warner (along with a third) for just under 100K. But one book in all that time, with all of the self-pubs who have tried only PROVE the rule. There are always exceptions. But the rule stands 99.99999% of the time.

Or Richard Paul Evans. The story I heard: he sold more than 100,000 copies out of the trunk of his car (and local bookstores) for 2 years... mostly at churches and through friends and local outlets... and words got out... then eventually got picked up for $6 million and published by Simon & Shuster in 1995.

But we hear about these stories, just like we hear about people winning the $256 million Powerball jackpot. It doesn't really mean anything. There are plenty of people making $millions every day doing things the "right" or "hard" way. We just don't hear about their stories because it's common. The stories we hear, like Evans', are told exactly because they are rare.

What about that lady who selfpublished a book about making your own shoes, and it sold so well over the years it became a bestseller taken up by some big publisher? John fro PA told that story Shelagh's site but I odn't remember the names..