Ways to Publish a Book

Once upon a time, traditional publishing deals were the best way to publish a book. Those days are long gone. But how do you know if self publishing, hybrid publishing, or pursuing a traditional book deal is right for you? If you're wondering what the best way to get your book published is, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers. We're a professional self publishing services team helping entrepreneurs and successful professionals write, publish, and promote a nonfiction book that will grow your brand and your business. Now, naturally, I am a huge fan of self publishing. Call me a control freak, but I like to own what I create. But that doesn't mean it's the best way for you to publish. So let's break down your options with the opportunities and limitations of each. First, a warning. If you start doing research on publishing a book, you'll probably find yourself getting solicited by a bunch of publishing companies. They'll chase you down, asking for your manuscript submission, and then they give you a contract. Congratulations with a hard sell. In many cases, these companies are straight up scammers. And I get emails like this one all the time and it breaks my heart. I don't want this to happen to you. Here's what the email said. Hi, Julie. I had tried to get your company involved in the publication of my book, but I was unsuccessful. Many other publishing companies were interested and and they all made attractive offers, but unfortunately I chose the wrong one because this company, Excel book publishers, took $8,000 of my money and then suddenly stopped communicating with me. Belatedly, I realized it was a scam. I first paid down 5,000 and then within the last month, an additional 3,000. I wanted this book published so badly that I used up all our savings. So when you find yourself being given a hard sell, or you find yourself being flattered into signing a contract, you're probably meeting what is called a vanity pun publisher. A vanity press or a vanity publisher provides publishing services but engages in misleading or even outright deceptive practices. Books are usually not edited or not edited well. The books are then sold to you, the author, not to the readers. The only one making money is the vanity press. All vanity publishers are hybrids, but not all hybrids are vanity publishers. I know it's a little confusing, so I'm going to repeat that one more time and then I'll keep explaining it and hopefully it makes sense to you. All vanity publishers are hybrids, but not all hybrids are vanity publishers. You want to avoid vanity publishers, but that doesn't mean you can't look at hybrid as an option so now you're probably wondering what is a hybrid publisher? Well, a hybrid publisher mixes the models of traditional publishers with self publishing. So you'll pay upfront for the company to produce and distribute your book like you do with self publishing. You keep your rights like with self publishing, but the company will take a portion of royalties or charge a print fee for every book sold in exchange for giving you physical and online distribution channels that they have, which is like a traditional publisher. There are some good hybrid companies with a high quality team, thorough editorial practices and good physical bookstore distribution. I'll link to a video on hybrids at the end. To me, the only reason to go with a hybrid is if you have a guarantee of great physical distribution and that physical distribution is really important to you. Otherwise, I personally self publish on my own or using a service like Book Launchers. My recommendation is to vet any hybrid you're considering through a list like the alliance of Independent Authors Watchdog Service or check the blog Writer. Beware to be certain you're getting value for your money. A link to these sites is in the description below. Now, traditional book deals are probably more familiar to you. A publisher buys the rights to your book in exchange for royalties, which is money you make on every sale of the book. And hopefully you're also getting paid in advance. You're still responsible for writing and marketing the book, but you have a lot of support in between that. And sometimes they tell you what you're going to do. The publisher upfronts a lot of the cost, so you aren't risking that investment. They are. And great publishers also have a longer reach than a typical author as far as getting into bookstores, landing major media, and it's also almost exclusively the only way to become a New York Times bestseller. Well, having a top tier publisher and selling like 10,000 books in a week, that's the only way. But you can make other lists self published. But the New York Times is an editorial list that is curated and is only based partly on sales. Now before you get a book deal, you'll usually need to write an extensive book proposal covering your ideal reader, the book positioning and extensive marketing plan including your audience reach plans for marketing book sale volume and sometimes you'll have to include a sample chapter. With that proposal you can begin shopping for an agent and if one says yes to you, then that agent will shop you around to different publishers and you may or may not get a contract and then you may or may not want to sign that contract. The process is time consuming and can delay your book launch by years while you wait for a great deal. Most people think they get a publishing deal based on the compelling nature of their book, but that is not normally the case. You will get a publishing deal because of how many books the publisher believes you'll be able to sell. If the publisher sees you have a million viewers on YouTube or you spend speak in front of a thousand people in an audience many times a month, or maybe you have an email newsletter list of a hundred thousand people or really really robust and engaged blog following, well that built in audience is called a platform and that's what usually lands you a book deal. Not all publishers are equal, so vet them like you would a company you're paying up front. Ask other authors how happy they are with the service and support they've received from that publisher. Maybe you're not paying them upfront, but you're giving up the rights to the content in your book and they take a big chunk of the royalties and so you want a rock solid partner in this relationship. My friend wrote a book on investing in U.S. real estate. This was when I lived in Canada and then he left the real estate business. His publisher republished his book word for word under someone else's name. It's gross, but it's legal because the rights to the book belong to the publisher, not him. So make sure you're getting a deal worth signing. I have another friend that was in the process of getting a show produced for HGTV based on his book, but the publisher wouldn't negotiate and because he didn't have the rights, he had to buy the rights back in order to produce that show. Also, this is especially important for authors who want to use their book as a tool to grow their business and brand. With traditional deals, you can't just print your book yourself to give away for free, nor can you give the ebook away for free just to get leads. You have to buy it from the publisher to use for these purposes. The publisher will let you know in your contract what your author copy rates will be. And it won't be their cost because they're going to make money on every copy sold, even if it's sold to you. So read that contract carefully to understand your rights and royalties in granular detail because there are a lot of clauses that will surprise you if widespread physical distribution isn't your highest priority and you're not trying to make that New York Times Bestseller list. If you prefer to be in control and own your IP and speed to market is important. Self Publishing might be the absolute, absolute best route for you. And with self publishing you can do it your way. You are the CEO of your book project. You can hire a full service team or you can do a lot of the process yourself, becoming the project manager or general contractor, hiring editors designers. You can use referrals or sites like Reedsy or Upwork. Ultimately, I started Book Launchers because there are plenty of busy people who don't know what they don't know and they want to write a book that is the same or better quality than a traditionally published book with major marketing support to go with it, and they don't want to figure out all the pieces in between. But that doesn't mean that's the only way to self publish or that you can't manage the entire process on your own. I wrote Self Publish and Succeed, so you can do it without a service like ours if you want to no matter what choice you make Hybrid traditional or Self publishing, you are in charge of marketing and sales. Many authors think traditional book deals get them out of marketing and sales, but in fact it's almost all on you, no matter which route you take. Every choice has consequences. But know that you aren't stuck in one way. Gautam Bade self published the Joy of Compounding and then ended up landing his dream publishing deal after it was out. Carol Sanford self publishes half of her books and publishes the rest traditionally. Other authors have done the traditional route before and now decide they want to be in control since they're doing their own marketing anyway and they switch over fully to self publishing. Consider what is most important to you in your journey. Speed. Control, distribution and then choose the option that is going to get you what you need. Let me know in the comments below what is most important to you in your author journey down below. But do that right after hitting that subscribe button and turning the notifications on so we can hang out more real soon. Oh, and speaking of hanging out, this video right here is the one that YouTube highly recommends you watch. And if you're looking for that video I promised on hybrid publishers, that's right here. See you on Over Coffee's on.