Self-Publishing vs Traditional Book Publishing Deals

Think you need a traditional book deal for people to take your book seriously? Stick around. I'll share why I wouldn't take a traditional book deal and why you probably don't want to either. Hey there. I'm Julie broad of book launchers.com being rejected by a traditional publisher was the best thing that ever happened to me. She doesn't have her own TV show. Pass. Self publishing was far more beneficial for three reasons. Number one, I made way more money self publishing. I'll share some specific numbers in a second. Number two, I wrote about the exact subject I wanted to write about. The traditional publishers I spoke with actually rejected my book idea, saying there was already too many generic real estate investing books on the market. The idea Wiley Canada gave me to write about was actually kind of lame, and I'm glad I didn't get a deal to write that book. Number three, I retained all rights and full control over the book. You'll see why that's important in a second. Let's talk money first. To self publish my first book, I invested a total of $12,800. When you include hiring a PR company, that's with me doing all the legwork to research the steps, hire everyone, set up accounts, upload all my files, and project manage the entire process. It was a giant pain and it took more than a few hundred hours to do. Forget about just the writing. I also made some huge mistakes, including one that cost me bookstore distribution in the province of Alberta. You can see a video about that one right here. And another mistake that cost me $1200 in returned book charges. You can see about that mistake here. It was worth it. But if a company like Book Launchers had been around in 2013, I would have happily paid them that money and more to do it. All for me. But money. In the last four years, I've made more than $63,000 from the sale of More Than Cash Flow, and that's just from Amazon and bookstores. I've also made thousands of dollars selling books at the back of the room with where I've spoken or where I've had a booth. Because I owned my book, I was also able to use it as currency, and I traded copies of my book for more than $30,000 worth of magazine advertising space. Harder to measure is the massive credibility the book lent my husband and myself, which contributed to us raising a few million dollars for buying real estate. There were also media interviews I couldn't get before the book and the ease that we started to fill every workshop and program after the book came out. And of course, the book also opened the door to conversations with different production companies about TV shows. Nothing was a but it was fun to have those conversations and explore the possibilities. It's not a stretch to say the book has easily generated more than $150,000 direct to my pocket. Indirect, it's a lot more challenging to estimate, but it's even more than that. Now, some of these financial benefits would have come about with a traditional publisher. Absolutely. But not all of them. If I'd been given a traditional publishing deal, I would have had to compromise on the subject matter of the book, which would have made the book much less impactful. I also would have made less than $10,000 for from the same quantity of book sales. I think that's so stunning when you think about that. Hey, I also couldn't have easily used my books as currency to trade for advertising because I would have had to pay retail price to the publisher to buy copies of my book to do the deal. It cost me $4 and something to buy each book from the print on demand publisher. It would have cost me closer to 15 to buy it from the publisher. And I would have been limited in what I could use my content for in terms of repurposing it for other courses and, and talks and other things like that. Maybe traditional publishing is right for you, but quite likely it's not. There are fewer traditional deals being done now, and a deal takes a long time. You usually need an agent. Finding one takes time. Then you write a book proposal and shop it around. That takes time. Then contract negotiations. If you start now, two years from now, you might, you might have your book out. With self publishing, you could have a book out in the next six to 12 months. The big benefit of pursuing a traditional publishing deal is ease of distribution. And that is a problem we're working really hard at Book Launchers to help solve for self published clients in a way that nobody else is doing. But the reality is that if you traditionally publish your book, it's a lot more likely to be carried in bookstores. You're also more likely to be eligible for the huge bestseller lists like New York Times and Wall Street Journal. And the traditional publisher does take a risk on your book, footing the bill for the team that will take your book from concept to print. But in many cases, to to get a deal done, you may have to agree to buy up to 5,000 copies of your book at retail from the publisher. We have several friends that have garages full of their books Years after they came out. That's how the publisher covers their risk in giving you a book deal. But here's two big things, and this is why I don't think you need to do a traditional book deal anymore. Number one, and this is huge, you, the author, are still 99% responsible for marketing. Let me repeat that part, because it's so important and most authors do not realize it. Even with a traditional publishing deal, the author is almost entirely responsible for marketing the book. In other words, you do all the sales work and you write the book, and they take 85% of the revenue. Sound fair? The other reason, number two, readers don't care. Readers do not care if your book is published by a traditional publisher or not. All they care about is what's in it for them and is the book done professionally. Very few authors will receive the opportunity to be traditionally published. Even if you want to be. Publishers want sure things, which mean you need to be at a level of fame before you even contact the publisher to land a good deal. You're more likely to find yourself offered a hybrid deal, which is essentially where you foot some or all of the upfront costs and give up a chunk of the royalty in exchange for working with a publisher. What does this mean? Put bluntly, you take all the risk. You still have to do all the work or almost all the work to write and market your book. And then if you succeed, you give a bunch of your profits to someone else. Sounds like a good deal to someone other than you. At least to me. I do know some authors who are happy with being published by a traditional publisher, but I've watched a lot of my friends get book deals and ultimately be very unhappy about it. One friend even had their book republished word for word under another person's name. A new introduction was added, the title was changed, but it's 95% his book now being sold under someone else's name. And they can do that because they own the content. It's a true story. Another friend bought his book back from the publisher because he was tired of them limiting what he could do with the brand. And Jim Kukrel of the Sell More Book show was recently pleading with his listeners to buy his last 70 copies of his book so he could be freed from his oppressors, his publisher. Traditional publishing is a broken model, and it doesn't offer the advantages people think it does. A lot of people envision that all they have to do is write a book, and this big company takes care of the rest. This just isn't true. This isn't true. It's not true. But it is a lot of work and it's nice to know a professional team is taking care of all the details to help you create a fantastic book that will make you look good, help you build your business and achieve your goals, which is what we do at Book Launchers. And you keep all royalties and complete ownership. Want to know more? Hit me up@booklaunchers.com right after you smash that thumbs up button if you like this video. And of course subscribe to the channel so we can hang out more often. A new video every Friday. Subscribe. See you then. He doesn't change his underwear Play. Good one.