A Comparison of Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing

Abstract

This paper is about self-publishing and traditional publishing. After researching a couple things I learned that there are quite a few differences between the two. Self-publishing allows independence and control. Authors have a choice in how they publish and get their works into the hands of the public. Many authors are hybrids meaning they use both forms of publishing.

Traditional publishing refers to the established system of getting a book deal, which involves submission to agents over a period of time, usually a number of rejections and then being accepted. Then the agent will submit the manuscript to publishers with usually a number of rejections and then a contract is signed. The book will then go through more edits and will eventually be published. The term self-publishing implies doing everything yourself and doing it more as a hobby (Penn, 2016). In looking at the marketing/promotion, design/graphics, time frames, and income it is predicted that traditional publishing is the way to go.

The Choice is Yours

More and more writers are hitting the market with their creative writings and books. This is why the need for a publisher is important. A publisher is a person or company that prepares and issues books, journals, music, or other works for sale. After a little research about the publishing career, I learned that the publisher's role has several different areas and that the decision to publish has more than one option as well.

For now, we will only focus on two of the ways to publish which are self-publishing and traditional publishing and their benefits. We will also speak briefly about some of the roles of a publisher. Whether they become successful or not is not the question but, self-publishing or traditional publishing is. Although self-publishing allows independence and control, traditional publishing has better benefits. A few of these benefits are, promotion and marketing, design and graphics, time frames, and income.

First of all, self-publishing is when an author becomes a publisher and traditional publishing is the preparation and issuing for public distribution and sale of books, music, and other material. Some of the advantages of self-publishing are as follows:

1. Publication speed, self-published books can be brought to market in a shorter amount of time.
2. Author Control, authors have complete control of planning, editing, publishing, and marketing process. The cover design and format of the book are included in this control.
3. Longer shelf life, allows the author the benefit of long-tail marketing, meaning the author can promote their book for years at any time they feel like it.
4. Keeping your profits, the author keeps all royalties and any money after expenses instead of receiving a 5-12% royalty from a publishing company off of your own work.
5. Appealing to a niche market, authors can use the internet to promote their books to their built-in readership in the niche world.

Print books can take up to 2 years sometimes. When self- publishing, there are different avenues to take. Electronic publishing (e-book) is one way to self- publish. There are no up-front or per book costs to create e-books and for that reason this is a popular option for self-publishers. Print on Demand Publishing (POD) is another form. It refers to the ability to print high quality books as needed.

This is often the more economical option rather than conducting a print run of hundreds of books that might not sell. Traditional publishing is when a publisher offers an author a contract and in turn prints, publishes, and sells the book through booksellers and other retailers. The publisher essentially buys the right to publish the author's book and pays them royalties from the sales. Buying these rights is how book publishers traditionally acquire books. Getting a traditionally published book deal can take a very long time if it ever happens at all. The authors manuscript goes through a process of being approved or not and has to be picked out of sometimes more than 200 other manuscripts sent in hoping to get published, but if the manuscript makes it through the process, the benefits of being traditionally published outweighs self-publishing.

Benefits

Promotion and Marketing

The promotion and marketing of an author's work when self-publishing is all up to the author unlike when they have a publisher. It's always wise to come up with creative ways to reach the public because being creative is a plus. Authors make the mistake of thinking everyone is a potential reader when in actuality identifying the books target audience is the first step to marketing the book, music, or other materials. Being signed to a traditional publisher makes it so the mainstream exposure authors want is easily reached with the help of the publisher.

Networking day in and day out is another strategy to promote. Traditional publishing allows the author to not have to worry about any of the promotional or marketing hassle. The publishing company takes care of finding the proper audience, elevator pitches for the book, competitions to enter the book in, and building websites for the book (iUniverse.com). Traditional publishers can position the author well to garner book reviews, media interviews, book signings, occasional tours, award nominations and wins, and other promotional opportunities. Depending on how big the publishing company, they can even make sure the author's book is part of the library and bookstores for the most excellent position for public exposure.

Design and Graphics

The design and graphics of the book cover and any pictures throughout the book are the author's decision if the author is a self-publisher, but that's not the case with traditional publishing. The self-publishing author gets to pick and choose how the book cover will look. The look comes totally from the author's vision of what is in the author's mind. Same goes for the graphics. If the self-publisher isn't able to draw themselves, they have to hire an artist or someone with the talent to draw what he or she wants on and in the book. So finding creative talent to draw and incorporate the correct graphics for the book is key and also another expense for the self- publisher to foot out of their own pocket (Pimsleur). Traditional publishers have a design team. The team comes up with a look for the author's book.

The author may not like or agree on the look, and depending on the contract may not have veto rights. Veto, of course, is the constitutional right to reject or disagree with a legal decision and contracts are legal documents. The team decides the trim size of the book, whether it will be paperback or hard cover, and if it will be metallic, matte glossy...the list goes on. Authors are almost always involved in the cover process, but the level of involvement can be low. Unless the author has experience as a book cover designer, the publishing company is likely to take the advice of the design team over the ideas of the author. Odds are, some intelligent, creative person made the cover a specific way for a reason and most authors trust them (Manning). I would imagine that if an author didn't like the cover or something on the cover that it could be worked out to where everyone is happy. After all, if the company signed the author, the company wants the book.

Time Frames

There is a luxury of writing on your own time and at your own pace for the self-publisher. That could be a good thing but can also become bad. Writing on your own time could make an author lazy and irresponsible. It depends on if the author really wants their work finished within a certain time frame and out on the market to be sold. Most self-publishers don't write for anything other than to feel accomplished or to share their talent with the world.

Not saying those are the only reasons but, if the author was writing to make money, they wouldn't want to slow around getting the book written. With a publishing company, the publishers and editors may give the author a short timeline to finish the book. Most of the time the time frame is a few years for completion after the first completed work. It takes time to write a 100,000 to 600,000-word novel. If the author works well under the pressure of knowing there is a deadline on the book they are writing, then this shouldn't be a problem for them (Pimsleur).

Income

The income differs for different types of authors as well. 19% of self-published authors reported no income from their writings compared to 6% of traditionally published authors. Authors reporting $200,000 or more in earnings for self-published authors is less than one percent (0.6%) and 4.5% for traditionally published authors. Self-published authors earned a median writing income in the range of $1 to $4,999, while traditionally published authors had a median writing income of $5,000 to $9,999. Hybrid authors, those that publish both ways, did best, earning $7,500 to $9,999 a year. Almost a third of published authors make less than $500 a year from their writings leaving authors dissatisfied.

The old way of doing things continues to reap the most financial rewards for authors (Flood) (Weinberg). "Traditionally published authors are paid royalties and give up rights in exchange for the risk the publisher takes. Therefore, they are likely to expect the publisher to deliver much more than they can do for themselves" (Weinberg). You can see by these numbers that the traditionally published authors were far more successful in every aspect of the income that their writings brought in compared to the self-published authors. Advances are given to most authors when signed to a publishing company. The advances are against royalties that are presumed to be made in the future. They use to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past but not anymore unless the author is a really big name like Donald Goins, Stephen King, or James Patterson. The advance is the authors to keep even if the book doesn't do well.

Publisher Roles

Acquisition

Which is the right book to publish? Editorial staff may evaluate hundreds or even thousands of manuscripts annually to produce a "list" of 20 books. An acquiring editor selects the ones she thinks will succeed, and take them through acquisition process (Underdown, 2014). Planning

What needs to be done to get this manuscript from draft to finished book? Once a publisher decides a book is going to be published, everything has to be coordinated so that books get out into the market when the company said they would. At a publisher, a managing editor keeps track of what everyone is doing. If you are self-publishing, you'll have to fill that role (Underdown, 2014).

Editing

How can the manuscript realize its full potential? Are there problems to fix? Polishing needed? At a publisher, the "development editor" is assigned manuscripts as they are acquired and is responsible for getting them into shape (at children's publishers, the acquisition and development editor are usually the same person). If you are self-publishing, how will you edit your manuscript? Editing yourself isn't effective. You'll have to hire someone (Underdown, 2014).

Designing

What's so complicated about designing a book? Anyone can do it with a word processor, right? Well, not if you want a book that's optimally designed for ease of reading, with a type face that suits your subject, and that doesn't just look like every other book on the market. And then there is the jacket, to make the book stand out. Publishers keep designers on staff, or hire freelancers (Underdown, 2014). Art directing

Are there illustrations needed? You'll need an illustrator. You must select and pay them. Their work will need to be art directed. Publishers have art directors to work with illustrators in picture books or just on interior and jacket art. They also oversee the designers (Underdown, 2014).

Copyediting

Once the manuscript is edited, is it done? No, it needs a copyeditor's eagle eye to check for correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation; to create a consistent approach to such things as compound words; to do some light fact-checking; and perhaps to mark up titles, heads, and subheads. Publishers have in-house copy-editors or take care of hiring freelancers (Underdown, 2014).

Production managing

How do you settle on a printer? What do you send them? Will you print traditionally or via POD (print-on-demand)? If e-publishing, how will you create your ebook? A publisher expects a production manager to find printers who can do a good job within their budget; to source paper and other materials; and to oversee the actual production process (Underdown, 2014).

Distributing

How does the book get from publisher to bookstore or to an online store? Publishers have warehouse operations and relationships with wholesalers and bookstore chains. Even if a book isn't in a store, it can be readily ordered (Underdown, 2014). Selling

How do consumers, bookstores, libraries, and schools find out about new books? Publishers send out catalogs or provide "meta-data" to online sellers, but they also have sales people, who sit down and show the newest books, and tell booksellers or library acquisition committees which are the ones that they should be sure to have (Underdown, 2014)? Marketing/promoting

How does the public find out about a book? Most don't just pick it up off a shelf in a bookstore. They read a review, see an ad, hear about it from a friend on Facebook, or even watch an author on TV. Publishers have marketing staffs that send out review copies, create promotional items, send out posts on social media, and book authors on tours (Underdown, 2014).

While conducting an interview with Cherise Kateri Young, an author that owns her own publishing company, but started out working traditionally, I asked her were there any benefits from working for a traditional company verses working for herself? This was her answer, "I mean the company I worked for was half assed. After I researched other publishing companies and what they had to offer, I felt robbed. No book signing parties, no radio or television air time to promote my work, no advances, none of these things were done or even offered to me, but those are some of the benefits I later learned were supposed to be available for me. Self-publishing comes straight out of your own pocket along with your own blood, sweat, and tears" (Young)

People automatically assume that if a book is being sold on the market, the author was signed by some type of publishing house. This may have been mostly true at one period of time. Self- publishing has come in the picture and is very popular in this day and age. Technology makes it easier and cheaper to self-publish books.

History

In 1780, James Watt invented the letter press machine. That was one of the most important inventions in history (Wiget). As far back as 1931 the author of The Joy of Cooking paid a printing company to print 3000 copies. In the 1990's, online vanity presses came into play. These are the websites where an author can download a book for Print on Demand (POD) purposes. If the author wanted to use the marketing tools supplied by the press, they would pay a fee. Self-publishing is now thriving (Wiget).Some people feel that it's better to self-publish rather than publish traditionally.

They feel that the freedom of being your own boss outweighs anything the traditional publishing route has to offer. Self-publishers hire their own staff- the editor, designer, proofreader, and printer. Self-published authors say that the odds are better and not stacked against you when seeking to be accepted by a traditional publishing company because looking for a publishing company to sign an author can take years. The author's work is immediately published with no long waiting periods or hope that the right person sees their work and signs them when they self-publish. "Being realistic, the odds of getting an agent and publisher are 0.01%, but on the other hand self-publishing your book is 100%", says Arlene Prunkl, a freelance editor from British Columbia.

In all likelihood, traditional publishing is better than self-publishing because of its benefits. Yes, self-publishing allows independence and control with a lot of freedom for authors that chose the road to publish their own writings, but the benefits from traditionally publishing outweigh the benefits of being your own boss and publishing yourself. Therefore, it is more fitting to traditionally publish when it comes down to the benefits. Promotion and marketing, design and graphics, time frames, and income are just a few of the benefits that make traditional publishing have better benefits than self-publishing.

References

1. Flood, Alison. "Many Authors' Earnings Fall Below $500, Survey Finds". theguardian.com. 23 Jan.2015.Web.13 Sept.2016.
2. Universe. "10 Tips for Marketing Your Book". Expert Advice, n.d. Web. 13 Apr.2016.
3. Manning, Jillian Bergsma. "Behind the Scenes at a Publishing House". Independent Publisher.com. Jenkins Group.2016. Web. 13 Sept.2016.
4. Pimsleur, Julia. "Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing". Forbes.com. Forbes.com, n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.
5. Prunkl, A. (2014, march 13). 16 advantages of self publishing over traditional publishing. pen ultimate editorial, pp. 1-6.
6. Rombauer, I. &. (1931). The Joy of Cooking. St. Louis: A.C. Clayton.
7. Prunkl, A. (2014, march 13). 16 advantages of self publishing over traditional publishing. pen ultimate editorial, pp. 1-6.
8. Rombauer, I. &. (1931). The Joy of Cooking. St. Louis: A.C. Clayton.
9. Underdown, H. (2014) What a publisher does: Key roles.www.underdown.org/publisher Weinberg, Dana Beth. "Self-Publishing Debate: A Social Scientist Separates Fact from Fiction". Digitalbookworld.com. Digitalbookworld.com, n.d. Web. 04 Dec.2016. "What is Traditional Publishing?" Infinity Publishing, 2012. Web. 13 Sept. 2016 Young, Cherise Kateri. Personal Interview. 15 Sept.2016

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A Comparison of Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing. (2023, May 17). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/a-comparison-of-self-publishing-and-traditional-publishing/

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