Decide How to Publish: Nonfiction Writing Prompt #19

Today, you have a choice about how to publish. You can become an “indie” author and self-publish, effectively starting your own publishing company. You also can seek a traditional publisher as your venture capital, or business, partner. Or, you can be a hybrid author, who both self-publishes and traditionally publishes. Not only that, you can find an agent who helps authors both self-publish and traditionally publish.

So many choices. The key is to discover which publishing path best suits you and your goals.

Traditional publishing might be a good choice for you if:

• You don’t like “project management.”
• You aren’t detail oriented.
• You don’t want to invest you own money or time in your book project.
• You don’t have the time, energy or interest to learn how to self-publish or to manage a self-publishing project or company.
• You aren’t business minded.
• You want your book distributed in physical book stores.
• Do seek credibility or authority in your field.
• How much you earn from your books is less important to you.
• You don’t care about having control over the details of your book projects.

Self-publishing might be a good choice for you if:

• You like “project management.”
• You are detail oriented.
• You want to invest you own money and time in your book project.
• You have the time, energy and interest to learn how to self-publish and to manage a self-publishing project or company.
• You are entrepreneurial and business minded.
• You don’t care if your book is distributed in physical book stores.
• Do don’t seek credibility or authority in your field.
• How much you earn from your books is important to you.
• You want control over the details of your book projects.
• You are in a hurry to publish.

Hybrid publishing might be a good choice for you if:

• You want the benefits of both self-publishing and traditional publishing.
• You don’t want to handle all the aspects of self-publishing on your own.
• You are willing to give up a bit of the indie income to have a business partner help you with your self-publishing efforts.

My Publishing Path

I’ve always been what I call a “traditional publishing hold out.” However, I’ve self-published books for a variety of reasons. Early in my career I did so to help build author platform. I produced them to help me get speaking engagements. I felt it would be easier to do so if I could say I was a published author—even if the books were short (and they were). I would sell them at the back of the room after a speech to cover my expenses, since often I didn’t get paid to speak. Later, I self-published a few more to show that I could do so quickly. I did this as part of a class I teach, called “How to Write a Short Book Fast.”

I went on to traditionally publish two books in two years, How to Blog a Book and The Author Training Manual, both with Writer’s Digest Books. This confirmed to me that I actually like traditionally publishing for a variety of reasons. The four primary reasons are:

1. I don’t have to do the work involved in self-publishing a book, which basically involves project management—hiring editors, getting covers designed, writing meta data, uploading to Amazon, buying ISBNs, etc.
2. My book gets more widely distributed.
3. As a nonfiction author, the backing of a traditional publisher offers me and my book some extra credibility.
4. I don’t have to invest my own money in the project; instead I get paid in advance for writing the book.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like being an indie author. In fact, I do. I enjoy

1. the immediacy it offers
2. the project control
3. the chance for larger royalties

That’s why I made the choice recently to sign with a new agent that offered me the opportunity to pursue a hybrid publishing path. My new agent, Gordon Warnock of Foreword Literary, can assist me with self-published books as well as traditionally published books. We’ve created a plan for both that involves writing traditional books each year interspersed with self-published ebooks. This is meant to:

• build my author brand
• increase my credibility and platform in specific subject areas
• move me closer to traditionally publishing one or two signature books

And that brings me to your prompt for today.

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