Traditional vs. Self-Publishing. Is One Better Than the Other?
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 6:00AM
Everyone knows about traditional publishing. That is where a publishing company offers you a contract, pays you an advance and publishes your book for you. In the past, traditional publishers would accept around 2-3% of all the manuscripts sent to them, either unsolicited or via an agent. Unfortunately, nowadays, due to numerous different factors, many publishers are not even looking at unsolicited manuscripts and only publishing less than 1% of the books they see from agents.
If you were not in the lucky 1-3% accepted by traditional publishing houses, and if you wanted to publish your work, you needed to somehow get your book out there by self-publishing whatever way you could. So, for publishing purposes, anything other than traditional publishing fell under a “self-published” umbrella.
Although there have always been very successful self-published authors (e.g., Willa Cather, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, Benjamin Franklin, Zane Grey, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Rudyard Kipling, Louis L'Amour, D.H. Lawrence, Beatrix Potter, Anis Nin, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoi, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf just to name a few), self-publishing has always been under a “not as good as traditional publishing” stigma. However, with recent technological advances, various different methods of self-publishing have come into their own in the recent years and self-publishing has taken on a more respectable label.
There are still the “vanity press” houses which will publish anything that comes their way (hence the name “vanity press- i.e., publishing houses which court the vain people who want to see their name in print). These vanity publishing houses do not do justice to the self-publishing industry by allowing poorly written, and poorly edited works to be published.
However, there are many and varied kinds of self-publishing houses out there that do care what they publish and these companies are slowly eroding the self-publishing stigma. They provide all editing services for an author and want to see a good book getting out into the market.
The bottom line for authors that do not have a contract with a traditional publishing house is to do their homework and find a self-publishing company that will enhance their writing experience and produce a work that they can be proud of. Self-publishing can be a viable way to get your masterpiece out into the public.
Reader Comments (8)
There was a pole on Amazon asking people if they would buy self-published titles and the majority said that they would not... that they didn't trust what they were buying because if a publishing house turned it down, then it obviously wasn't good enough to be printed. There were also several comments about Author delusions that I won't reiterate! Needless to say it was quite eye-opening.
Hayley- I think the one fallacy of that survey is that most people don't bother to check who published a book when they buy one. Nor, do I suspect, they know a self-publisher from a traditional publisher (other than the big names). There are so many different kinds and mixes of publishing now, that I think the stigma (unless specifically pointed out like in the survey) will slowly fade away. Interestingly enough, many of the traditional publishers are now adding many services of what has previously been considered part of self-publishing (ebooks for example). The traditional publishers are having to change their business models to stay alive.
Authors who are self-publishing really need to do their homework. Many of the so-called "self-publishing" companies out there today are just vanity/subsidy presses in disguise. The main thing authors must know is that if they are truly self-publishing, they must start a publishing company and purchase their own ISBN.
And if authors have well-edited manuscript and well-designed books, readers would have no way of knowing whether a book is self-published or not! It's gotten so easy to publish now, though, too many authors are jumping in without carefuly planning, and a lot of junk is out there. Authors definitely need to find self-publishing service providers who will help them put out a top-notch book--and with a solid promotions plan, many will find they can be quite successful.
Thanks for the good post, Candace!
Thanks for the post Sue. You have hit the main point for anyone who wants to get published- either with a traditional publishing house or self-published. Authors need to do their homework.
While there are many, many companies out there which will take advantage of an author, by doing homework, an author can find a publisher that will provide the exact services that they need to produce a beautiful product. And it depends on what an author wants. Our Little Books, for example, only publishes little books, so would not be a viable option for someone who wanted to publish a big book. And yet, we may be perfect for that author who wants to put their exertise in a format that they can use as a business tool. But authors need to do their homework to find this type of information out and be able to choose t he right company for them.
Thank you, Candace-
I have recently self-published my novel, "Bruni's Choice," and I am happy to say that it is doing fairly well. I have established a radio interview and a book signing for it, and it has only been out one month. I am determined to see it to success, and I have the porsitive support of readers' reviews to back it up. I know that I have done the right thing, and I am happy to say that my success as a writer does not hinge on the decision of anyone else but myself.
-IG
I'm not sure it has to be an either-or proposition. I never sought out a traditional publisher when I wrote my first book because the state of the publishing industry is that you really have to have a marketing plan with a build-in following to do well, especially since the publishers won't foot the bill for a book tour anymore. At the time, I knew I didn't have a strong enough following yet to warrant submitting a proposal, so I started my own publishing company, bought my own ISBNs, and have been selling my own books on my web site for over a year as ebooks. As such, I'm able to charge what I want and I don't have to share the wealth, LOL. And I'm just about to the point now with my following where I feel comfortable sending out the proposal for my next book, which I'm only doing because I've always had the dream to have a traditionally-published book.
I think earlier posters were dead-on when they said you should know what you're getting when you sign on with a self-publishing company. I think there are some companies that do a good job and offer a quality service, but far more companies are just vanity-presses in disguise.
The bottom line is that regardless of whether you use a traditional publisher or self-publish, you still have to have a following of people who will buy your book, which means you've got to build in a solid marketing plan.
I don't think the stigma of self-publishing will fade away, in fact I think it'll continue to grow. If ANYONE can publish a book, it's the traditional publishers that we assume provide the gateway to quality content. However, I think the real problem is that the state of the publishing industry is such that little-known or unknown authors with impressive and high-caliber content may get ignored because they don't have a following, while the latest Housewife of Whatever County has enough PR clout to get a book deal.
Self publishing is very expensive...
Amazon has LuLu which means the book will be associated with Amazon, but it runs about $6000 for the cover, editing and etc. Plus we still have to do all our own marketing and PR. But it may be the wave of the future since 1% isn't enough to fill those huge book store shelves.
iPad and Kindle created possibility for a revolution. Let's watch.
Irwin and Susan-
Congratulations on the successes of your books. That in and of itself shows that self-publishing (no matter how you do it) can be a successful proposition.
I think the one key you both mentioned is that, no matter how you get your book published, an author has to be aware that they are responsibe for getting their book out into the public. While traditional pubs. may give you a month or so of media blast, you are expected to set up your own book signings and radio spots. More so obviously if you are self-published. So, along with authors doing their homework before deciding where t publish, they also have to build their own platform prior to the book being even written and take all the media steps after as well.
If you want a book that is financially successful, you will need to be intimately involved.