How to Self Publish Your Book

Unfortunately for most, the very fact that you do not have to lay out any money with a traditional publisher is a big deciding factor. If you Self Publish, there can be some quite expensive up front costs, but not always, you could go Print on Demand with someone like Lulu.com. With a traditional Publisher you get a guaranteed distribution in bookshops and you will also have the use of all their knowledge of the marketplace. The biggest trade-off you will make for this, is the total loss of creative control over your work. The Publishers and their staff will make the final decision on everything including the cover, the title, even the chapters and their contents and rightly so, remember it is their money they are risking.

If you self publish, it swings entirely the other way and you will have to make all the decisions. As well as having to organise the printing and marketing, there are even the small details to consider, including what paper the book is printed on.

As to the money, an author can usually expect to receive around 10% if he goes with a publisher. If you self publish and sell in a bookshop you can expect around 25% - 30%. If you sell from a website, your profits will increase significantly (PDF Ebooks give you nearer a 99% return), but you will have to market your book and find customers.

Here is the real crunch, your financial return will depend totally on the number of books you can sell. This is where a traditional publisher is better in the short term, they already have the contacts and the distribution set up to move large quantities of books but of course there is no guarantee that people will buy them. If you go it alone and successfully produce a series of books, your profits will grow with your experience and you will also eventually be in a position to help and advise other would be authors.

Another thing that is not generally realised is the speed with which your work will find an audience. Although a Publisher can bring a book to market within a couple of months if there is a good reason, like a topical deadline, it usually takes a year to a year and a half, after you have finished writing your book for it to appear in the shops. Self Publish and you could have your book out there in the marketplace within weeks. This could be an especially important consideration if your subject is a hot topic of the moment, with a limited shelf life or there is competition from other authors.

So at the end of the day, you have to do your research, weigh up all these options and decide which is the right path for you. Of course, there is nothing to stop you trying both, which is an obvious idea but sadly lacking in many other on-line debates and sources of advice. Why not do both? Stephen King did!

You can always self publish and hopefully earn some money while you wait for you work to be accepted by a traditional publisher. At best you could strike it lucky and become a successful author with all the respect and financial reward that brings. At worst, and if nothing else, you will gain a lot of valuable experience that will enable you to deal with any publisher and his team on a more knowledgeable footing.

Hopefully you will now have a clearer idea of what you want to do.