Monday 30 April 2012

Is Traditional Publishing Better Than Self Publishing?

By Juliet Simms


Self-publishing is often a risk, you can invest a lot of money but the returns could be low. But come to think of it, everything is a risk. It's a part of success. Self Publishing can give you control on your book and boost your profits all at once. Those are among the reasons why you should engage in self publishing. Often, writing the content isnt the only factor that's difficult about writing, we get encumbered withchoosing an excellent book cover too. Take a look at book cover for expert help!

The fact remains that traditional publishing is only going to give authors 5-10% of the sales. But in self-publishing, you can boost the profit to around 50 %. But the negative thing is that you'll have to subsidize all sorts of things beforehand. Of course, this requires a lot of risks. You can expend about $5,000 for self-publishing, but you cannot make sure that it everything will be returned to you.

Most often, you would need to get a distributor since book sellers are not that ready to buy books from the author. You may not get your target 50% targeted profit since author will have to get discounts to the distributor and booksellers. If the book does not sell that much, that could be one other issue. If your book doesn't sell, some bookstores could even send it back to you and ask refunds. Because of that, self publishers would have to make an effort of drafting a binding agreement regarding returns and refunds. Competition can be hard. Readers wouldn't normally easily buy your book. As a self publisher, you will personally need to give the future prospect a reason to get your book. Marketing and publicity could be a key. But then again, those services can be very expensive if you ever spend on them.

They say that a book is sort of a writer's own child. It would be challenging to criticize and disparage your own kid, right? Because authors would have to do everything, editing included, it can be hard to be objective all the time. They can protect parts which aren't vital or aesthetically weak. Certain parts that are supposedly minor may not be deleted. Editors are generally assigned to do this. But, in instances where the writer is the editor, there will be room for biases.

Self publishers normally risk their reputation and credibility whenever self publishing their books. In a few occasions, self published books are not well liked by readers. These readers often think that self published authors are the types whose works were refused by publishing companies. Thus, their books are off low quality.

Multitasking is one drawback of self publishing. You have to do everything. If you compare and contrast it with traditional publishing, self publishing will not give you the chance to work with editors, layout artists, cover artists, etc. But in self-publishing you would have to cope with all of this, if you cannot do it all, you have the choice to get or seek the services of somebody who can. This will, obviously, cost you some money. Picking outsource will just give you extra work to do since you have to see if they meet your standards.




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