Writing to be published - 1.2/3
What type of publishing is for you?
Last week, I began to look at what type of writer you want to be and could be. I wanted you to start thinking about writing as being a wide array of possibilities, only some of which are right for you. What is “right” for you might well change but it’s important to be quite knowing about it and to be able to adapt. We looked at what your goals are - whether income, self-actualisation, fame or whatever. I asked you what you are reading - because you can’t be a writer without being a reader and because what you read affects you as a writer. And you started to think about the skills and weaknesses that will help drive your writing. What do you have and what might you need to work on?
This week, I’m going to start unravelling the various routes to publication so that you can work out which is right for you and what the pros and cons are. “Published” means many different things and it’s important that you know which one you’re talking about.
“Published” literally means that your words are available for the public to read, either digitally or in print or both. If you write something on a blog, either yours or someone else’s, it’s technically published.
I’m going to assume that what you’re aiming for is book publication, not blog publication. You might also be talking about short stories or essays but for the purposes of this I am focusing on things that might appear as a book, including a book of short stories but not just a single short story in a book.
To start, let’s look at three main ways for publishing a book. (There are also hybrid versions of them.) The usual (but imperfect) terms are 1. Traditional publishing 2. Self-publishing and 3. Vanity publishing.
1. Traditional publishing
This is when a publisher choses to publish your book, taking all the risk, paying ALL the costs and doing every part of the process from editing and all the way to distribution and sales. The publisher receives all the income, paying you a % (known as a royalty) on each sale and, sometimes but not always, an “advance”, a lump sum paid in advance of publication and which you do not have to return even if sales are poor, and against which your royalties are set. (Many/most books do not earn more than that advance - called “earning out”.)
Advantages:
Status and self-esteem - you know that the publisher believed in your book to the extent that they were willing to invest money and time in it.
You don’t have to do anything other than write it, respond to editorial queries, and take part in whatever promotional activities you can, organised (if you are lucky) by the publisher. So you can then get on with your next book.
The publisher (or your agent if you have one) should also sell foreign rights, bringing extra income.
This type of publishing is cost-free. Any publisher who charges you for anything is not a “traditional” publisher.
Disadvantages:
Your royalty is quite small - 7-10% is normal. Advances are rarely enough to survive on so you are likely to need to write several books before you are earning well enough and/or to have another income stream.
You may feel a loss of control and may suffer from your publisher’s dwindling energy and interest if your book doesn’t do brilliantly immediately. It is common for authors to feel that their publisher is not doing enough. After all, publishers usually have many other authors and books to handle.
You can be dropped through no fault of your own. And you will always be judged on the sales figures of books which may not have been properly marketed.
Publishers can be bad at their job and you have no control if they are.
2. Self-publishing
In many ways, this is the opposite of traditional publishing. You are the publisher and you need to treat it as a business, because it is. You are responsible for every step of the process. You receive all the income from sales and you bear all the costs. Any profit is yours. Well done!
Advantages:
Complete control over every decision.
Greater retention of your income (but you work harder to get it).
You can’t be dropped or messed around.
You choose who you work with.
Disadvantages:
Publishing is extremely hard work and not easy. There’s also a great deal of knowledge to acquire.
You will need to cover costs up front, including editing, design and all printing costs.
Distribution (getting books into shops/outlets) is difficult. You are likely to need to pay for this, too.
You will have less time for your writing.
You may dislike having to justify why you chose to self-publish. You may feel a loss of status. For example, you are less likely to be invited to book festivals.
But none of those disadvantages should put you off if you’re up for it! (Note that some genres work well and others poorly - see Part Two.)
A hybrid version of self-publishing
There are companies that advertise themselves as helping authors become published, by which they mean helping them become self-published. This is not a bad idea at all, because many of the elements of publishing are difficult, time-consuming and laborious. It could give you the best of self-publishing without the problems.
However, there be sharks and monsters. You need to have eyes wide open.
My first advice is that any time you are considering a company that offers these services, do an internet search plus the word “scam” and see what you come up with. The website Writer Beware is good on this, too.
3. Vanity publishing
You hardly ever hear the phrase nowadays but, believe me, vanity presses are there: they just don’t call themselves that. Some people might also argue that all publishing in vanity, because we all want people to look at our work.
Vanity publishing is where the author pays a company to do everything for them. The company earns its income from that payment, not (or mainly not) through selling books. The author might have some choices, for example in design, or they might not.
Whatever you think, here’s what you need to remember: if the “publisher” makes its money from the author, the publisher has no vested interest in selling copies of your book. So they won’t.
I’m not going to list advantages and disadvantages but simply say that there is one type of reason why you might sensibly choose this option: if you just want one book published so that you can give copies to friends or sell within a group or club, for example. So, perhaps a memoir of your life or a history of your village or the biography of someone you are interested in. A niche project that you can afford and where you don’t mind about “success”.
Also note that the quality (eg paper quality and design) can be pretty poor because there’s no incentive for it to be better. But you might not mind this. Just think it through and keep your eyes open.
Out of traditional or self/hybrid, which do I recommend?
It depends on you and your book.
In Part Two I’ll be looking at your book including highlighting which books don’t work well for one or the other type of publishing. But looking at you, the author, here’s what to think about:
Your knowledge of publishing - if you don’t know very much, you’ll struggle more with self-pub and the mistakes can be costly. Mind you, you’ll survive better in either case if you build your knowledge as much as possible! Tap into networks for either or both types. Ask questions and listen. Don’t listen to outliers, though. What worked for JK Rowling doesn’t mean anything for you!
Your support network - it’s lonely being an author but it’s a lot less lonely and more productive if you have some friends in the writing business. This is NOT to say becoming published is about who you know - it definitely isn’t. But you need supportive friends who will understand what you are going through and try to help you objectively.
Your health - manage this carefully. Self-publishing is usually exhausting. But at least you can control how much you put into it and when. Trad publishing usually requires hard work around publication and you’ll need to be honest about what you can manage.
Your home/life/work - if you have a job, young family or caring responsibilities, these are likely to be affected, whichever route to publication you go down. But authors do often have other jobs and life situations, and we manage! (Well, to be more honest, we don’t always…) It’s also worth saying that the less “spare” time you have the better you might work in it. I write more in the two hours twice a week when my daughters were at nursery than I write in a whole day now!
Remember that Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) was set up precisely to allow people in full-time jobs to find time to write a novel.
What about disabilities? Only you know what you can or can’t do and I’m not going to patronise you by trying to tell you can or can’t do something. All I will say is that there are many writers with the whole range of visible and invisible disabilities and I guess they rise to those challenges with a mixture of inner resourcefulness and external support. I do not believe that a publisher will look negatively at any perceived disability and many publishers are actively looking to represent the full diversity of authors.
In a nutshell:
Traditional and self-publishing are both very different, with advantages and disadvantages. I think the biggest factors relating to you as a writer come down to which world you most want to be part of: the one where a publisher puts money on you or the one where you put money on yourself. Both can have great success and great frustration. Neither is easy but would you want to do something that was easy?
Your choice will also come down to what sort of book you’ve written. And for that, you need to wait for Part Two. You might have to wait for a while as I also need to get writing my own book…
Next:
In the final part of Part One, I’ll look at:
How much do you already know about the process of writing for publication? Where will you find more?
Have you been tested by rejection already? Are you ready for more? What will this do to your psyche?
(I should know - I had 21 years of bitter rejection. It shouldn’t have been so long but then I didn’t have someone blogging to try to help me…)
And then Part Two will be about looking at your book and what you need to think about as you start to work out how it will become published.
These articles on writing to be published have ended up being longer than I’d intended. I didn’t want to take too much of your time! (Or mine, frankly.) But there’s a lot to say. If only my book, Write to be Published, were still in print I could just tell you to buy it. Well, you could buy it here but I won’t benefit by a single penny… Which is interesting in itself.
If you would like to reward me for any of the advice I’ve given you, whether on writing or teenage/family mental health and wellbeing, do consider a small paid subscription. And, of course, there’s always the chance to book a session by email or Zoom if you choose to be a “founding subscriber”.
If you can’t, no worries. You are still most welcome.
Feel free to ask questions.
Next post will be a teenage brain one.
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