Lets talk about Traditional Publishing and Paid on Demand Publisher.
The pros to Traditional Publishing
You don't have to pay
Marketing is taken care of for you
Editing/covers taken care
Distribution is taken care
Now, that sounds great. (and, it is) How much of a say do you have in your book? Are you guaranteed results? Are you guaranteed, anything? Who holds the rights to you work and for how long?
Now, there are a lot of plus sides to Traditional. Remember this though, even publishers don't know what they're looking for. You could have the next big ticket and they'll overlook you. So, what? You wrote for the love, not for the monies.
I tried traditional publishing. Or, so they said they were. I paid for everything, I went broke and I handed them a finished project to where they had to market. They didn't market.
Hint/Tip - You're not the only author they're working with.
The problems I had with my traditional publisher. They didn't market. Marketing is not that hard. (Well, it is if you don't know where to start) I hate marketing. I know what works and what doesn't. Why aren't my sales better? Simple. I don't care. I wrote for fun, not for the monies. If my books will do well, they'll do well. Look at the other books that became well known. (Plus, I'm new.) We all have to start out somewhere.
If you're working with an already established publisher, many problems I'll be addressing may not be there. Lets face it, everyone wants to get rich quick. The quicker it comes, the quicker it leaves. There are a lot of fly by night publishing houses popping up. Some are legit. Some not so much.
I'll leave a name out at the moment. Do your research. Inquire authors and see if they like them. Look at their sales. If they're not selling, do you honestly think the publishing house is going to work on selling your work? I write different forms of genre. I thought I lucked out and got a house that accepted all. I was wrong. What I got was a pain in the ass.
If a publishing house refuses to let you talk to other authors, stay clear.
If a publishing house refuses to let you talk to the editor, stay clear.
If a publishing house refuses to pay for anything (covers/editing), yeah, stay clear. And don't buy the excuse that you can always put out a second edition. Why should you pay more monies and work twice as hard to put out a second edition when you can be working on more work?
If a publishing house makes you work to find your own connections - question now, why do you need them?
The average pay for royalties is 30%-50%. 30% or less is one I would stay clear of. They're just looking for easy money. That's only my opinion.
Your work is yours. Most likely, you're only giving them first exclusive rights to print your work. They are investing the time and money. (Or, should be) Give them some leeway. They know what sells and what doesn't. (They should if they're reputable.) Yes, I worked with a "traditional publisher" but, I don't think they were that traditional since I had to pay for everything myself.
POD Paid on Demand.
We all know who they are. They're the ones that want money upfront to do something you can do for a fraction of the cost. They want money to market and make stupid promises. Think about it, the ones that immediately come to mind, why are there more bad reviews than positive?
They sell your book for 2x more than the average book. Oh yeah, more royalties. Woohoo! NOT! The sales aren't there because no one is willing to pay $20 for a 250 page book. That was back in the day. That $250 page book costs $4 to make. Yeah, I know right? And they're only getting $5 royalty. So where's the other $11 going? Umm, the POD's pocket. It doesn't cost/take that much time to do what they do. They're the middle man. They sit there and "list/monitor/distribute monies" to you. Oh, wow.
My freelancer is one price and that's it. (We'll talk about freelancers later on)
POD's also claim to "create a cover". Yeah, they create one for FREE off createspace. The same thing you can do. Blah! Move on and stay clear. They want thousands to help you market. First, yes it does take thousands, but not for what they offer.
Oh, FYI - even traditional publishers use POD services to print your book. You think they have a warehouse full of your books? Nope. Why do you think you see it on Amazon and the other sites? Now, if you see it in stores, that's something different.
I'm not all too familiar since I really haven't done research. But, you have to pay for your books upfront. Pay to ship them to the distributing warehouse, pay for shelf space, and if they don't sell, pay to have them shipped back. (I'll be doing more research later on and see if this is accurate)
If you're like me, you want the physical book and not ebook. (No offense towards that who do ebooks) I can see why, but I like to see a library and walk by the books. Gives me more motivation to read one. Also, if someone is over at their house, they browse what books interest them. If it's in your Nook or Kindle, they don't even know how many books you have. Another free marketing technique. (We'll talk marketing later on)
So why do they charge so much if it's that easy?
It is easy, but it's also time consuming as shit, and they're "professionals" so they can get in and out. I spent six months researching on how to properly format an ebook. (Formatting a paperback was easy) Ebooks, ugh! W.L. Sevol came to me and asked me to help. I said okay. We're in the process of a quick easy way to format your book, yourself.
Even though createspace isn't a "POD" it is. If you read the royalty differences you are paying, just not up front. Everyone's gotta make their money somehow.
So, which one do you go with?
It all depends on what you're trying to achieve.
Well, if you can find write a nice query letter and have a publisher listen to you, I would go that route.
If you want to throw your book out there and hope for the best and have the final control, createspace through amazon will do the trick.
If you're hoping for fame and fortune, then traditional publisher has more connections.
Again, after the last publisher I worked with, I do everything myself. I may consider a reputable one down the line to submit a query, but right now, in my life, I'm content on where I'm at.
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