How to choose your publishing route

Have you wondered whether you should try to get a book deal from a traditional publishing house or self-publish? We talk with aspiring authors about this all the time! This video has a few important things to consider! There isn’t one right answer that works for everyone. Both routes have pluses and minuses, and it depends on your goals.

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So one thing that a lot of aspiring authors always ask me about is how to choose your publishing route, and it really depends on your goals. There’s no one right answer. And so you could go traditional publishing, you could go hybrid or you could Self Publish. There are a couple things to think about to help you make your decision. One is platform to work with a publishing house. They really want you to have a big following already. That’s one of the most important parts of the book proposal. And so they’re going to ask you, you know, how many people you speak in the front of the year, what your social engagement is like, what your website traffic is like. And they’re looking for big numbers if you don’t have that yet focusing on your marketing is your best place to start to get those numbers up. And that’s true whether you go with your traditional publisher or you self publish, because as an author, you are the person who’s primarily responsible for your marketing no matter which publishing route you go. So that’s probably the biggest thing to think of, is working on your marketing no matter what. But then the financial model is completely different for going traditional route or self publishing. If you self publish, you fund the project up front, you keep the copyright and you make more per copy. If you go the traditional route, they might give you an advance. They’re funding the project up front. You’re giving up the intellectual property rights, and you’re making less per copy in the hopes that you’re going to sell more, so your distribution will be better. So it really depends on what you’re going for. If you are primarily planning on selling copies to your existing network, and then you want to do in person, events and speaking, self publishing, as long as you do it right, should be fine for for meeting your goals. If you’ve dreamed of getting a traditional publisher, by all means, try it. Go for it. You start with the book proposal, you get the literary agent, and then you get connected to the publishing house. And if that doesn’t work, self publishing is always another great option. It gets a lot more nuanced than this, if you have other questions ask me, but that in a nutshell, is my advice for how to choose your publishing route.